You know what? I’m not even mad this time around. I’ve stated already that 2022 was actually a pretty good year for gaming. It was stupidly hard removing so many excellent games from out Top 20 list, to the point we had an entire 20-game list of honorable mentions alone. Likewise, we didn’t review such a huge number of bad games this year. It’s not that we weren’t reviewing enough games (have you read the site’s name?), there just weren’t that many stinkers in this otherwise fantastic year.

But boy oh boy, when something bad knocked at our door, it was bad. It was really B to the A to the freaking D. It’s time for our team to bury these games once and for all. We present you, the twenty worst games we’ve reviewed in 2022.

 

20 – Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

This game nearly made me feel nostalgic, but not for the right reasons. This game reminded me of the licensed Wii garbage that used to dominate bargain bins a decade ago. It makes the Ubisoft-published iteration of Wheel of Fortune feel like Mario Party 2 in comparison. – Leo Faria

 

19 – The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story

Like most FMV games, The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story was pretty awful. The overarching storyline was fairly intriguing, but the smaller stories set in the past were often no better than a Scooby-Doo mystery. The acting ranges between decent to over-the-top ridiculous, and that’s not even counting the English dub, which was just downright atrocious. They tried to add some additional gameplay by including a Path of Logic section after each case, but this was little more than an unchallenging, tedious slog. There was simply no enjoyment to be found in this game.- Heidi Hawes

 

18 – Krut: The Mythic Wings

Krut: The Mythic Wings is a saddening experience. It’s not outright awful, and I do wish that its developers learn from this release and come up with something more polished in the future, as there is potential in a game centered around classic Thai mythology, but there just weren’t any redeeming factors in this otherwise dangerously “meh” experience. – Leo Faria

 

17 – Kirby’s Dream Buffet

If you want a Kirby-themed, multiplayer, battle royale experience that has almost no content and is as shallow as a puddle, look no further than Kirby’s Dream Buffet! It’s a game so devoid of content and fun that my kids wouldn’t touch it after playing for only twenty minutes. Oh, and did I mention it also features horrible laggy controls and massive framerate drops? Steer clear of this one and play Fall Guys instead. – Heidi Hawes

 

16 – Dolmen

I have waited for Dolmen for nearly six years for it to end up looking like a rushed project made in five months by a group of gaming school students. I cannot explain in words how disappointed and borderline angry I was with what could (and should) have been a great AA soulslike. It’s a clunky, shockingly behind-the-times husk of an action RPG which would have been considered dated back in 2016, let alone today. – Leo Faria

 

15 – CrossfireX

Microsoft loves to hype literally anything that can be remotely considered an Xbox exclusive – be it a game or a controller. Yet, they treated CrossfireX like a black sheep right from the get-go, pretending it didn’t exist… and rightfully so. It walked a fine line between being the worst and most generic military shooter I have ever played. Playing CS:GO and being called the n-word by a Russian teenager felt like a palate cleanser in comparison. – Leo Faria

 

14 – In Nightmare

Sometimes, playing a bad game can be fun, but that requires for the game to be insultingly bad to the point of being a nearly hilarious experience. In Nightmare is not one of those. It’s the “oh my god this is so boring and uninteresting why am I wasting my time with this game” kind of bad. – Leo Faria

 

13 – Destroy All Humans! – Clone Carnage

Why did THQ decide to release a multiplayer mode based on the remake of the first Destroy All Humans as a standalone game? Why did they do that mere months before the second remake? Calling this dead on arrival is an understatement. This game was more barren than the Atacama Desert after a humanity-wiping nuclear disaster. – Leo Faria

 

12 – Music Racer: Ultimate

Music Racer: Ultimate is essentially a worse version of Audiosurf, with worse controls, worse customization options, and what’s possibly the worse UI ever put into a commercially released video game, or software in general. – Leo Faria

 

11 – Soccer Story

Soccer Story effortlessly takes what’s considered the beautiful game and slaps it with an ugly stick. If that endless crashing doesn’t deter you, the forced jokes will. Trust me, I make those daily and when it makes me roll my eyes, that’s a problem. Sure, there are a few clever ideas here, though, but I just can’t shake the feeling that this was rushed to coincide with the World Cup. Also, it’s football, not soccer. – Fernando Da Costa

 

10 – God Damn the Garden

It’s one those loathsome “meme games”. One of those games made for the “lolz”. Ugh. God Damn the Garden was a painfully unfunny comedic shooter with ugly-as-sin N64 visuals, no art direction whatsoever, devoid of polish, and nonsensically difficult. – Leo Faria

 

9 – Metal Max Xeno Reborn

Someone explain to me why would you want to change the battle system of a game with one that introduces immense frustration. Seriously, I’d be gang banged by a group of enemies consistently because balance was a utter sham. Whenever I was tasked with hunting the more notorious machinery, my ass was handed to me, regardless of the grinding I may have done. It’s bogus. Like, it’s seriously goddamn bogus. This title takes to concept of fun and spits on it, but hey, the dog’s cute. – Fernando Da Costa

 

8 – Garfield Lasagna Party

Take everything that is awful about Mario Party – the randomness, the repetition of games, the pointlessly long turns – and amplify that with a mixed bad of awful. One board. Buggy conditions. Pointless activities that are less games and more interpretive dance on a controller. Then, put the whole thing under the Garfield IP with zero charm, nixing all voices, additional characters, or anything Garfield except lasagna. Then charge forty bucks like you’re the last water stand at Bonaroo. Worst party game I’ve ever played. – Oliver Shellding

 

7 – Mozart: Requiem

This game is laughably bad in every single capacity. It has some of the worst controls I’ve ever experienced in a game, with the character moving at a snail’s pace, and the conducting minigame being nearly impossible to complete. Not to mention, it’s ugly as sin, only receiving the smallest of graphical enhancements from its original 2008 release. The voice acting makes the English dub in The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story sound Oscar-worthy. Plus, the music abruptly cuts out during dialogue encounters and sometimes doesn’t play at all during puzzles. Yes, bafflingly, the sound design in this game is the worst offender… in a game about a world-renowned composer. Sorry, you did not rock me, Amadeus. – Heidi Hawes

 

6 – Elex II

Piranha Byte’s fall from grace continues with one of the laziest games I’ve ever played. The story and world were half-baked and nonsensical. Combat was incredibly unfun and broken, with plenty of mechanics all around that straight out didn’t work. Toss rampant performance issues despite ugly graphics on top and you have a textbook example of a game pushed out by a studio that’s long since lost its passion for work. – Thomas Medina

 

5 – Postal 4: No Regerts

I enjoy a dumb game from time to time that allows me to just do ridiculous things in its sandbox, and it typically works because it doesn’t take itself seriously. However, Postal 4: No Regerts somehow fails in making a sandbox fun at all, but the worst part is that it’s not even funny in its attempt to satire and be dumb. Honestly, just stick to Goat Simulator or even if you’re down bad, DEEEER Simulator had more interesting ideas. – Jordan Hawes

 

4 – Gungrave G.O.R.E.

After more than a decade, not including a so-so VR game, this PS2 cult classic made a return. Unfortunately that return was lacklustre to say the least. From bland levels, a distinct lack of music and voicelines, and gameplay that involves an on-rail shooter without being an on-rail shooter. Gungrave G.O.R.E. was a massive let down that feels lost in its PS2 roots. – Aaron Price

 

3 – Pretty Girls Speed

There’s nothing quite like taking a card game and then removing anything fun or exciting about it. AI just gets faster, not smarter. Everything is a Sisyphusian ordeal to just move forward. Ridiculously drawn characters that shriek like they’re in the worst hentai, but also show less skin than a Stevie Nicks album cover. Oh, and no multiplayer, so it’s just you, playing horny solitaire, against creatures who clearly didn’t get the memo. But at least it’s a game…- Oliver Shellding

 

2 – Neko Secret Room

This, by all accounts, is a war crime cleverly disguised as software. Breaking and entering to bash your head against the wall and try to look at “tasteful” nudes that reek of forced escort photos, then dancing and playing darts, doing both exceedingly poorly. I couldn’t believe any part of my life went into this Slender Man-adjacent crock of porn, and I still can’t fathom that anyone besides me played this. If you didn’t review this game, but still own it on your Switch, know that I absolutely cannot be friends with you. – Oliver Shellding

 

1 – Cobra Kai 2: Dojos Rising

It’s really hard to mess up a sequel. Theoretically the worst thing you could do is re-release the same game and just slap a “2” on it. Messing it up takes a ton of skill. Cobra Kai 2 though was not only a broken mess, but an entirely different game from the side scrolling beat ’em up that the original game was. It was fun being able to open the debug menu and turn off every background texture in the game, especially since it was the only way the game ran semi-okay. – Aaron Price