PC Games on Steam: 13 of the worst

clock • 19 min read

Should Greenlight actually have been called red light? 13 stinkers that will make you wish you'd lost your wallet instead

12. Day one: Garry's Incident £1.99/$2.99
Owners: 97,652

Come on, whaddya want for a mere £2? This colourful survival game would surely entertainingly fill at least an afternoon of anyone's free time, yes? Er, kind of.

It looks OK on the surface, but the animations are awful and the AI is exceptionally poor. Batter a tribesman in the back several times and he won't bat an eyelid. Others seemingly hover in mid-air, and they won't see you anyway if you crouch. Neat trick, huh?

But stand up straight and monkeys will pop up from nowhere to fling rocks scooped up out of nothing. Instant death can occur completely without any warning or, seemingly, reason.

The game is poorly optimised, struggling to achieve 30 frames per second on even high-end graphics cards. Invisible walls will stop you in your tracks in unexpected places, while you can often walk through supposedly solid objects.

Curiously enough, even inanimate objects can be made to bleed if you shoot them.

The developer has also gained a reputation as a bit of a sensitive soul, so tread carefully if you want to leave a forthright review.

Steam reviews:
"My friend bought me this as a joke. That was the most evil thing someone has ever done to me. I'm addicted. The game is so great and the AI is just so alive, and the controls are so responsive. Absolutely bug free and glitch free. I have to say that me and my friend are no longer friends after this, because who needs friends when you have this masterpiece?"
User name: DaQuan

"As a severe alcoholic airplane pilot who mumbles to himself and sees the world at 10 frames per second, I found Day One: Garry's Incident incredibly realistic! Besides playing Day One: Garry's Incident, I enjoy button-mash ‘QT' events using the WASD keys to perform mundane tasks. Oh, gotta run - a monkey is throwing rocks at me for no reason."
User name: Scoremonger

You may also like
WebAssembly heralds 'third wave of cloud computing'

Cloud and Infrastructure

Wasm: 'Speed and agility is the name of the game'

clock 26 March 2024 • 3 min read
Parliamentary Committee urges independent oversight of Post Office compensation scheme

Government

The institution is 'not fit' to administer the programme, it says

clock 08 March 2024 • 3 min read

More on Software

The social engineering of the self: How AI chatbots manipulate our thinking

The social engineering of the self: How AI chatbots manipulate our thinking

We need structured public feedback to better understand the risks, says red teamer Rumman Chowdhury

John Leonard
clock 27 October 2023 • 4 min read
AI doesn't care what you think

AI doesn't care what you think

Want to understand hallucinations? Look at your family

Professor Peter Cochrane
clock 26 October 2023 • 3 min read
IT Essentials: The fungal IT network

IT Essentials: The fungal IT network

Shadow IT grows best in darkness and solitude

Tom Allen
clock 16 October 2023 • 2 min read