It’s funny, 2018 wasn’t an especially great year for video games — not the games I like to play, anyway — but it also wasn’t an especially great year for terrible video games. Most of the bad games I played this year were more disappointing than outright disasters.
Regardless, here — in no particular order — are the worst video games I played in 2018.
Rules Of Survival
Developer/Publisher: NetEase Games
Systems: iOS, Android
If gaming in 2018 is remembered for anything, it will be as the year when everyone tried to rip off PlayerUnknown’s Battlegroundsand Fortnite‘s “Battle Royale” mode…and failed miserably. Take this blatant rip-off, which not only has terrible controls, but also battlefields so large that you spend more looking for someone to shoot more than actually shooting them.
Touchgrind BMX2
Developer/Publisher: Illusion Labs
Systems: iOS, Android
Like riding a real dirt bike, dirt bike video games only work if the steering is smooth, intuitive, and let you do what you want to do. Sadly, this game’s controls do none of that.
Rise Up
Developer/Publisher: Serkan Ozyilmaz
Systems: iOS, Android
Yet another game that wasn’t so much terrible as it was meh, this physics-based arcade game — in which you have to move a circle so it deflects whatever’s trying to pop a balloon — started off okay, but quickly became redundant.
Tempest 4000
Developer: Llamasoft
Publisher: Atari
Systems: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
The original Tempest made me fall in love with video games when I was a kid. So it was especially painful to play this new edition, which tried to replicate the charm of the original, but failed thanks to terrible controls.
SCORE: 6.0/10 (Click here to read my full review.)
Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor: Martyr
Developer: NeocoreGames
Publisher: NeocoreGames
Systems: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
A good top-down adventure game is a thing of beauty. But they’re only beautiful if the combat is good. Sadly, the combat in this hack & slash adventure was stifled and tedious. Which is a real bummer since, along with top-down adventure games, I also appreciate Warhammer 40,000‘s whole “Roman Empire in space” vibe.
Wind Rider!
Developer/Publisher: Voodoo
Systems: iOS, Android
In this simple arcade game, you engage in a wingsuit race during which you fly through targets to gain speed. And it seems like it would be fun if worked right and didn’t seize up all the time. And if the game didn’t run a banner ad along the bottom. And if, when it asked you if you wanted to watch an ad to double your winnings, and you said no, it didn’t do it anyway. And if those video ads didn’t have sound while the game didn’t. Ugh.
Road Redemption
Developer: Pixel Dash Studios
Publisher: Tripwire Interactive
Systems: PlayStation 4, Switch
While this arcade-style motorcycle street racing does a good job with the driving — it needs a little polish but is still pretty fun — the game is actually undermined by being twitchy, having counter-intuitive combat controls, and being really redundant.
Drive And Park
Developer/Publisher: SayGames
Systems: iOS, Android
It’s funny, if it wasn’t for all the ads making this game so frustrating to play, it would still be boring thanks to simplistic gameplay.
Fallout 76
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Systems: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC
Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4
Developer: Treyarch
Publisher: Activision
Systems :PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
While I understand why both of these games were multiplayer-only, I was still disappointed in this decision, given how much I’ve enjoyed the single-players parts of earlier games. But that’s not why they’re on this list. They’re on it because the people who made them insisted they still offered something for those of us who prefer to go it alone. And while they’re not wrong, they’re not exactly right, either. While Fallout 76 is really frustrating to play on your own, the solo options in Black Ops are rather shallow.
(Click here to read my full review of Fallout 76 as a single-player experience, and here for my similar review of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4.)
And that’s a wrap on 2018. Here’s hoping 2019 will be a better year.
