History Horrible / VideoGameCompaniesAndDevelopers

One wonders how these companies managed to release multiple games period, never mind multiple irredeemably terrible ones.

** When it comes to their actual games, Sabec was hired to create a remake of the classic 1982 '''ComicStrip/{{Popeye}}''' [[VideoGame/{{Popeye}} arcade game]], which upon release was widely regarded as an absolute joke. Gameplay is much like the original arcade game, only [[VideoGame3DLeap on a 3D plane]], but the similarities, and the fun, stop there. The objects Olive Oyl throws spawn infinitely and there is no penalty for missing any, [[ArtificialStupidity you have to go out of your way to avoid being one-shoted by Bluto/Brutus and other enemies and obstacles]], and spinach constantly respawns, draining much of the challenge from the original game. The only real challenge comes from [[DifficultyByAcceleration Bluto and the vulture steadily getting faster]] and [[OffscreenTeleportation teleporting next to you whenever the camera isn't on them]], which will eventually combine to end your game - not helped by you having only three lives, [[CheckpointStarvation no checkpoints or save options]], and no way to earn more lives. The presentation is very barebones and bland, and there are only three maps in the whole game[[note]](the most done to make them seem distinct from each other is adding different weather conditions, which cause the framerate to curl into a ball and cry)[[/note]], all of which are derived from a pre-built Unity asset pack. The seesaw level from the original game is also completely excluded, and no other ''Popeye'' characters appear aside from some of Olive's relatives and a completely generic "witch" character that's ''supposed'' to be the Sea Hag. Lastly, the graphics look on par with a late Platform/PlayStation game at best (it bears mentioning that this game came out in '''''2021'''''), there are strange glitches[[note]]For example, swimming in the water or even just suspending and then re-entering the game can inexplicably cause Popeye to instantly lose a life[[/note]] and it costs a whopping $12.99 (in NTSC regions) for what amounts to just three levels of Popeye monotonously plodding around grabbing things over and over again. Lacking the spirit and fun of either the original arcade game or the ''Popeye'' series itself, the game sank like a pirate ship; its [[MemeticMutation only lasting legacy]] being [[MegatonPunch its absolutely ludicrous death animations]] and being "from the creators of such classics as ''Calculator''". Creator/JimSterling [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6lHyFhyRFM took a look at the game]] and found it so awful and joyless that they thought it was either an AshcanCopy or was simply made by people with no passion for ''Popeye''. [=JohnRiggs=] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l_3NqFhc8U also played the game]] and afterward could do nothing but lament the fifteen bucks he sank into it, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vElVubRnHn8 one of the game's developers threatened legal action against him for "slander"]]. The game was also one of several that [=AntDude=] discovered on his second round of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfriHy8rzLU exploring eShop shovelware]] and he is baffled that Creator/KingFeaturesSyndicate was okay with how the game turned out. WebVideo/AngryJoe listed it as [[https://youtu.be/3GsXQyyAdqs?t=2094 one of his worst games of 2021,]] as did [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWLE6bHhFs8 James Sterling.]] Lastly, WebVideo/{{Rerez}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW0d4k1JlSI gave it a spotlight]] as part of their "Just Bad Games" series.

** '''''Action [[XtremeKoolLetterz Girlz]] Racing''''', one of DDI's several half-hearted racing games. No sense of speed, floaty controls and physics that wouldn't pass muster in a Flash game, terrible level design that only spotlights the awful driving mechanics, misleading item/power-up placement (some levels have items placed in dead-end pathways branching off the track seemingly just to waste the player's time), and a forced TotallyRadical attitude. The back of the box[[note]]At least the French version thereof[[/note]] falsely claims the game was made "by girls, for girls", actually hiding [[MoustacheDePlume an entirely male team using female-sounding pseudonyms]]. [=NeverChris=] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8auuVFT1S0 said]] that pandering garbage like this is the reason why girls are stereotyped as not liking video games. It was only the third game in IGN's history to get a rating of less than 1.0 (it got a 0.8), and was called [[http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/02/12/action-girlz-racing-review the worst game of 2008.]] WebVideo/PeanutButterGamer called this the second-worst game ever released on the Wii in his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=607fNJgz1xo Top Ten WORST Wii Games]] video (being beaten only by ''VideoGame/NinjabreadMan'', also by Data Design), and WebVideo/SpaceHamster was inclined to agree when he [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfetddIgrJw played the game with PBG]] on their gameplay channel PB And Jeff.

[[folder:D]]

[[folder:H-L]]

[[folder:N-T]]

** '''''VideoGame/FlatOut 3: Chaos and Destruction'''''. Not helmed by series creator Bugbear Entertainment, it was stealthily released during the 2011 holiday season and the few that played it were treated to a mess of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIzGfIRK8IU broken physics]], missing features, overdone bloom effects (later toned down in a patch), and other inept oversights, such as an online mode that wouldn't end a game if one of the players got disconnected (which happens often) or a reset function which would make the car face the wrong way. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3kjrDFXY9Q This video on the game]] by LetsPlay/LewisBrindley, LetsPlay/SimonLane, and Tinman of the LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}} should give you an idea. Rev from ''WebVideo/{{Vinesauce}}'' looked into the game himself, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdfIektJO_4 noting that it's considered the worst game that's on Steam]] (at the time of his video; has since been replaced with fellow awful contender ''eFootball 2022'' found in the ninth generation and then ''War of the Three Kingdoms'' for broken cash exploitation), and it shows. WebVideo/{{Rerez}} also tears it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF6QaE69Dus apart in their Just Bad Games series here]], eventually discovering that ''[=FlatOut=] 3'' not only made their game with ''[=FlatOut=]'' for the Nintendo Wii as their main base, but utilized modified assets from their other Wii racing games like ''Speed'', ''Glacier 3: The Meltdown'', and ''Monster Trucks Mayhem'' as parts of their modes for their PC game. Not only that, but they recycled those same assets ''yet again'' for an Android mobile phone game called ''[=FlatOut=] Stuntman'', as Rerez [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7dSKTi8B6g&t=9260s later discovered in the 10 worst games they played (that no one else realistically would) under their Just Bad Games series.]]

** '''''The Last Hope: Atomic Bomb - Crypto War''''' is an FPS game with an absolutely bizzare ExcusePlot where an ongoing struggle between mobsters, terrorists and President John Trump has shifted its focus towards cryptocurrency to locate the cryptocurrency farm and your goal is to end the senseless war once and for all. Putting that aside, the game is an incomprehensible mess -- the gameplay is bland and pretty much sums up as "shoot enemies to death", the "music" changes volume according to the camera angle, the entire screen is foggy and blurry, likely to hide that the developers did not bother to add any textures to the assets, and because the screen is so dim and foggy, you can be killed by enemies out of nowhere and it's easy to get lost, there are only three levels with the final level having no enemies, and after you exit the third level, the game ends and the save game/load game buttons on the menu that shows up don't work.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKZQb-jH-7A Caddicarus took a look at]] '''''[[WesternAnimation/TheDalmatians Dalmatians 3]]''''', and he considers it the worst game he's ever played, even worse than ''Coronation Street: The Mystery of the Missing Hotpot Recipe''. It's not hard to see why, either: The game takes every notorious aspect of shovelware and somehow ratchets it up to new levels of horrible. The box art is meant to look like part of Disney's ''101 Dalmatians'' series, but features characters who [[LadyNotAppearingInThisGame never show up in the game at all]]. Instead, the main feature is a 45-minute video that is so badly written, animated, and voiced that it makes the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaCDiGames Zelda CD-i trilogy]] look good in comparison. The rest of the game consists of mind-numbingly easy minigames without an ounce of creativity in them. To top it all off, the game is so poorly coded that it takes quite a while to load even ''the language-selection screen'', and it spins so fast inside a [=PS2=] that the game can never play again if left on for too long. If you're wondering, "too long" in this case more-or-less refers to watching the entire movie.. There have been reported cases of [=PS2=] consoles being completely bricked upon attempting to play one of their games. To quote a [=YouTube=] comment:

* '''The Code Monkeys''' was a company known for collaborating with Creator/DingoPictures to release games centered around Dingo Pictures films (exclusively for Platform/PlayStation). These games were nothing more than a mediocre activity center with puzzles and paint programs involved [[note]]The company constantly recycles the base for their games[[/note]], as well as watching the film they were based on. Normally, companies who make these type of games would not be here because most of them aren't horrible, but what made them so notorious is the fact that Dingo Pictures makes [[TheMockbuster shoddy knockoffs of more successful movies]], and they have their own spot on the [[Horrible/AnimatedFilms Animated Films subpage]]. Go look them up on Website/YouTube and witness them[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uukwhK9hcWA for yourself]].

** '''''Pinocchio''''' is their take on...well, [[Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio the title should make it obvious]]. Much like their take on ''Peter Pan'', the obligatory cartoon is almost hilarious in its ineptness. The stilted dialogue is once again all done by one man who sounds just as bored as the one in ''Peter Pan'' (his voice for the Blue Fairy has to be seen (or rather heard) to be believed). The dialogue is often hokey, with such gems as "Ooohkay, giiiirls and boooooiis!", "Here you little dibble, give my wig back!", and "Now I'm turning donkey!" The opening and closing narration is pretentious and makes no sense. The songs are awful and often have unintelligible lyrics (especially the opening songs sung by the toys). Pinocchio himself [[DesignatedHero isn't a sympathetic character in the slightest]], behaving like a SpoiledBrat almost the entire time outside of occasional and very forced acts of kindness. Most glaring is that in the end, [[spoiler: ''[[NotHisSled he doesn't even stay a real boy]]''; the Blue Fairy turns Pinocchio into a real boy, but then he voluntarily chooses to stay a puppet for no explained reason (the only explanation that is given is that "puppet's just the most").]] To top it all off, the cartoon ends very abruptly as though it ran out of time to tell the story: After Pinocchio leaves the Blue Fairy, the rest of Pinocchio's story [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofKsgMCyIXc is simply summarized in a song that lasts less than a minute]]. In the end, the entire game, cartoon included, is a horrible mess if it isn't just considered a [[SoBadItsGood hilariously awful romp]]. As with most of the other of these "games" on this list, Caddicarus [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Niea8lX_254 has also reviewed this one]].

** '''''VideoGame/PsychoKiller''''' (not to be confused with the Music/TalkingHeads song of the same name) is a point-and-click horror adventure where you "move" by clicking on three arrow keys on the bottom-left side of the screen. While ''The Town With No Name'' had comedy to lessen the horrible effect, this takes itself seriously with a boring and annoying British monologuer, terrible sounds, gameplay that has you wandering aimlessly until something happens, and poor-quality filtered pictures and scenes (which, admittedly, isn't ''as'' insane as ''VisualNovel/PlumbersDontWearTies'') that don't even take up the entire disk memory. [[note]](''Psycho Killer'' takes up about 74 MB of space. ''The Town With No Name'' in comparison takes up 422 MB.)[[/note]] Sure, there might not have been enough memory needed in 1992 for some companies to truly take advantage of CD technology, but other companies at least ''tried'' to fill the disc up to at least 100 MB of content. It especially doesn't help that in the review WebVideo/BrutalMoose did for the DOS version, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCI7J0Hsek he completed the game in nine minutes and nine seconds, 5:23 of which involved him being stuck on loading screens.]] It fails as a horror game because there's no atmosphere to keep gameplay tense (and the aforementioned load times certainly do not help), the player character monologues everything in a [[DullSurprise flat, uninterested voice]], and the killer just flat out isn't scary. Indeed, death scenes either involve him running towards you like a cartoon character or him spouting a terrible one-liner in his faux-[[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]] voice as he has you cornered. A sequel was planned but never materialized due to Delta 4 Interactive closing its doors. Like ''VideoGame/TheTownWithNoName'', ''Psycho Killer'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4XZXJE20-k also received the Retsupurae treatment.]]

** '''''The King's Castle''''' is a disgustingly unfair tower defense game. The minimalist and downright lazy main menu is only the least of your worries. The "character designs" sum up as poorly drawn stick figures and the game's UI is infested with factual and grammar errors, such as a picture of a warrior with two swords being labeled as a "Ninja" and the description of the first stage being "Steppe bordring [sic] the Orc Clan". Gameplay is downright atrocious and frustrating, being infested with FakeDifficulty and taking EarlyGameHell to logical extremes; the AI of your units are [[ArtificialStupidity as smart as a thumbtack]] and would often ignore your commands to do their own thing, enemies are flat-out overpowered, moving way faster than your units, take forever to kill, and have a nasty tendency to rush straight to your castle and obliterate it in seconds even if they are in the middle of fighting your units, and there is a bug where an enemy will rush directly ''past'' your castle at extreme speeds and instantly destroy it, causing a game over. The game over screen provides a "tip" that reads "[sic] Tip: upgrade army", which is not only grammatically incorrect, but is also completely useless, as it's impossible for you to have any cash to upgrade anything given you're likely to be hard-walled on the ''first-level'' where you won't have anything to spend on. To add insult to injury, clearing the first level gives you a measly ''50'' coins, which amounts to nothing when the cheapest advanced units cost 8,000 coins and the cheapest upgrade costs 100 coins, meaning that you'll have to play another annoying level and potentially get stuck in frustration before you can afford your first upgrade, and buying advanced units are nigh-on impossible.

* '''Digital Homicide Studios''' [[note]](also known by aliases Imminent Uprising, ECC Games {for "Every Click Counts"}, Game Portal Publishing, Micro Strategic Game Design, and Loot Toot Games)[[/note]] was an indie studio run by two brothers, James and Robert Romine, notorious for flooding the Steam store with low-quality games containing assets that were either cobbled together from a Unity template or plagiarized from other games. The studio also had [[CantTakeCriticism a hostile attitude toward any sort of criticism]], attempting to sue [[WebVideo/{{Jimquisition}} James Sterling]] [[http://www.destructoid.com/indie-developer-digital-homicide-sues-jim-sterling-349283.phtml for almost $11 million]] over their highly-negative video of ''The Slaughtering Grounds''. They later tried to sue about 100 other Steam users critical of their products for ''$18 million'' (evidence [[https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/19146067/Romine_v_Unknown_Party_et_al here]]), [[https://www.vg247.com/2016/09/16/digital-homicide-suing-steam-users-and-subpoenaes-valve-for-their-personal-details/ even attempting to subpoena Valve for the defendants' personal details]], which [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor resulted in]] [[http://www.pcinvasion.com/valve-removes-every-digital-homicide-title-steam Valve cutting ties with them and delisting all of their games]]. James Sterling [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS-LXvhy1Do described the entire legal debacle]] in a February 2017 ''Jimquisition'' video. They would return on Itch in 2020 as Digital Homicide Uncensored, leading to Sterling putting out [[https://youtu.be/O7hy44PZZX4 yet another video]].

** '''''The Last Hope: Atomic Bomb - Crypto War''''' is an FPS game with an absolutely bizzare ExcusePlot where an ongoing struggle between mobsters, terrorists and President John Trump has shifted its focus towards cryptocurrency to locate the cryptocurrency farm and end the senseless war once and for all. Putting that aside, the game is an incomprehensible mess -- the gameplay is bland and pretty much sums up as "shoot enemies to death", the "music" changes volume according to the camera angle, the entire screen is foggy and blurry, likely to hide that the developers did not bother to add any textures to the assets, and because the screen is so dim and foggy, you can be killed by enemies out of nowhere and it's easy to get lost, there are only three levels with the final level having no enemies, and after you exit the third level, the game ends and the save game/load game buttons on the menu that shows up don't work.