Last year, we brought you the top selling games each week courtesy of the UK games charts. But we failed to focus on the hilarity that is the worst of gaming in 2011.
It's time to redress the imbalance with a dive into the worst games, and the worst gaming fails of the past year.
GameFails' YouTube channel delivers weekly doses of lolerific joy, with a steady stream of the latest games fails.
Many hours can be invested/wasted watching the weird discoveries buried deep within popular games, or chortling at other gamers' inadequacies.
The most popular fails on their YouTube channel, and therefore some of the greatest gaming fails for 2011, include the weird, swinging horse attached to a cart in Skyrim and the same game's sky-bound sabre tooth kitty.
Halo Reach's best/worst sneaky (and giggly) head shooter was hugely popular with their YouTube channels viewers, as was Halo Reach's gravity/explosives combination, and the freaky Battlefield 3 fighter shooting a machine gun from between his thighs.
The worst games of 2011, could well be a subjective notion. Or not. Spending too much time in development, poor gameplay, lame enemies, and weird character rendering are all perfectly objective reasons to join the worst games list.
Five objectively rubbish ones include the freakishly animated 101-in-1 Sports Party Megamix, called an "archetypal example of a game released to cash in on the unsuspecting parent or grandparent.” by DarkZero. Have a look at it. They're not wrong.
Duke Nukem Forever, which spent 15 years in development, was slammed when it was released in June. CNET described Duke Nukem's game play as weak, it's graphics as ugly, the gameplay forgettable and the Duke's jokes crude and tasteless.
Superlative gaming site The Escapist's Jim Sterling also listed Duke Nukem as his worst game for 2011. "Even by the standards of ten years ago, it's terrible," he says. "It makes humans look bad."
Thor, God of Thunder tops Gaming Bolt's list of games not to waste your time on. Poor Thor, he has a weekday named after him, and the power of thunder, lightning and hammers in his hand and yet no-one could be bothered to make a decent game to honour his godliness.
While Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows topped the list of things that made J.K. Rowling money this year, it also topped the list of worst games at MyGaming. Their review? "Defecatus Totalus" followed by “I can only assume that this game was then designed for people who have no hands, no eyes and no sense of pleasure.”
Gamezone listed the little-known Blackwater on Xbox 360 Kinect as the worst game of the year. They call it "a muddled, horrifying mess throughout, and never comes close to resembling anything reasonable. Worse yet, it’s got the worst advertisement of the year honors as well."
That may well be true, but there is definite value in watching a full-grown man play this controller-free game in a small loungeroom. Just pack your breakables away first.
If you've had the displeasure of playing, or for some reason you wish to defend, any of these games do let us know in the comments below.