There are lists of the best all over the place. Top 10, Top 50, Top 100. Even TV these days is all about the best of the best, with reality television being king of the boob-tube.

Well, I’m here to give you a list of the worst. It’s not because I hate you (well, not ALL of you), it’s because it’s far, far easier to ridicule something for being bad than it is to ridicule something for being super awesome. (”Hey, you! Yeah, YOU! Smooth move, dillweed! No, no, really. Smooth move. You did that really well. I was just saying.”)

So, take a gander at some of the absolute worst graphical and gaming abominations that the web has to offer. You’ll feel better about yourself as an artist and a person. Though, you may feel a little worse about all those people you have to share your breathing space with.

Zombie Killer 2071 AD

If you guessed that I discovered this steaming pile of quality when I was hunting around for the best zombie games on the web, you’d be right. Before we start to talk about the game, though, let’s take a look at the website, titled “Paul’s Site”.

Paul hates you.

It’s true. Just go to the site. (Do it…)

This site is everything that was ever wrong with the web from ten years ago. If you’re too young to remember the net back then, click and be horrified. This is what it was like. Feel bad for your parents. Give them a hug. They lived through this crap and made the net a place for you to enjoy. Everything about this site screams “I want to punch you right in your eyeball through this monitor, but I can’t so I made this website. I hope you die in an epileptic seizure.” (Website Design Fun-tip! Everyone loves techno. Make sure your site has some that loads automatically and cannot be stopped!)

Okay, on to the game.

There’s the splash screen for starters. It has beloved DC Comics hero Green Lantern in the background. Why? The text is green. I dunno. He’s just THERE. He’s not in the game. You’re not part of the Lantern Corps or something.

Right… so… in this story it’s the future and everyone has been infected and turned into zombies… except YOU. You are a super-soldier now. Except you only have a handgun and you die with five hits from zombies, regardless as to whether or not you’ve blown off some of their limbs.

And the zombies… they pretty much look like someone paid a kindergarten student to draw them and then pasted poorly cropped, oddly sized and totally stolen from some screencaps photos of zombie heads on top of them. There’s no ammo in the game, you just need to keep click on the zombies until you’ve hit all the places that can be hit. Each zombie, by the way, takes about a dozen shots to bring down. I’m a pretty good gamer and my best count is 5 zombies. And don’t even get me started on what it’s like trying to hit them once you enter the house and your “IR vision” is engaged. Then the game is pretty much just punching you in the privates. Because Paul hates you.

Click here to play Zombie Killer 2071 AD, if you must.

Uninvited

What can I say about Uninvited? It’s just bad. You get a feeling playing it that sometimes, just sometimes, the game is not taking itself seriously. Then the fact that someone spent a not insignificant amount of time to create this masterpiece and actually post it to the interwebs comes crashing down onto your consciousness.

Uninvited is a point and click adventure game and while there is a good deal of pointing and clicking, I’d hesitate to say there’s much adventure. Most things you click on in the game will lead to your instant death. In fact, there’s only ever one right thing to click on to advance the story, in as much as it manages to be a story. You’ll find yourself face to face with many, many demons, puzzles that you are told the wrong answers to and duels with other characters that you, near as I can tell, are totally unable to win.

The graphics, as you can see, are hideous and the most inspired thing about the game is the juxtaposition of these graphics with the sort of sweeping, epic music that accompanies it.

I actually had the notion in my head that I would play through this one and get to the end… but it defeated me, as it will defeat you.

Click here to play Uninvited, because you hate yourself.

CSI: The Experience - Web Adventures

This is a game that really should have been better. It has an official pedigree and is associated with a major institution. Rice University is using this game and its tie-in with a major network television hit to, presumably, drum up interest in the actual field of forensic science. The actual field of forensic science, by the way, looks as much like CSI on television as Sylvester Stallone looks like a Swedish Bikini Team member. This game seeks to show interested parties what life in CSI might actually be like, giving actual factual info on techniques used to get the job done, just not as sexed up as everything is on the show.

The CSI Experience game here gets points for trying, but it gets massive demerits for just being shoddily made. You’ve got weak-ass Photoshop cut-outs of images of Grissom and other notables from the show, poorly pixelated backgrounds, and some…well… strange attitudes about the work being done. (”Sometimes we even analyze stomach contents or maggots found on a decomposing body. How cool is that?”)

Really, though, this game made the list for this graphic, which is probably the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Beyond that, the game’s fairly worthwhile.

Click here to play CSI: The Experience - Web Adventures, because you hate yourself.

Honorable Mention: Newgrounds

Newgrounds is pretty much the spawn for all that sucks and is flash. Thankfully, the site has all sorts of voting and contest winners so the cream will rise to the top, but the surest way to indulge your masochistic urges and play some really, really bad flash is to view the recent submissions and just click about. I found Save Bush’s Millions this way. You play as President Bush, in a UFO, trying to beam up money as Bill and Hillary Clinton try to steal your cash. Clearly, this is based on rigorous research.