Sometimes, the cheap games you find on Steam that almost nobody has ever played can be fun. Most of the time, however, they end up like this.
Photo credit: Slightly Mad Studios
Terrible games exist for a reason. They are the perfect gift for friends of yours for Christmas, or something you can give a child of yours who has been misbehaving all year long. Whatever the reason for your interest in the topic, there are some mind-boggling games out there on Steam.
We tried to steer clear of games which nobody has ever played, and which are clearly school or university projects, instead focusing on a combination of mainstream and indie games which are, in most cases, just straight up bad. As such, you won’t see any free games on this list. Without further ado, here are a just a few of the worst racing games on Steam.
Garfield Kart: Furious Racing
Many of you had probably already seen this coming, but what would a list of bad racing games be without the inclusion of the notorious Garfield Kart. This game is a blatant Mario Kart knock-off with a far less beloved character at its core in the form of Garfield the cat. Don’t let the 86% positive Steam reviews fool you – most of them are just people memeing the game with insightful comments such as “sexy orange cat go vroom” and “garfelb”.
Furious Racing is a remaster of the original Garfield Kart game which is also available on Steam. While it might not be the worst game ever as some people have dubbed it, nor is it probably worthy of the massive amount of ridicule it receives, it will always pale in comparison to superior options such as Mario Kart or even Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing Transformed. Try saying that five times fast.
Daytona Racing
Here is a game which comes perilously close to the ‘not seemingly a university project’ criteria we mentioned earlier. Daytona Racing is a very simple top-down racing game. Surely that means that there can’t be much wrong with it, right? Well, not necessarily. In fact, the game is so simple that you can’t speed up or slow down, all you can do is change lanes while racing on an oval or figure eight track.
The AI are unreasonably quick, and they don’t seem to obey the same laws of physics as the player’s car does. Not only that, but there is also a plethora of bugs which will make an already frustrating experience even less enjoyable. Overall, the Steam reviews are squarely negative, with only 20% of reviewers giving it the thumbs up. When you game costs less than £1/$1 and customers are still upset by it, you know its not a good game.
Fast & Furious Crossroads
Have you ever wanted to dive headfirst into the world of the Fast & Furious movie franchise? Wouldn’t you like to have a whole video game based upon the films? Pretend that you answered yes to those questions, and then prepare to be sorely disappointed!
Nobody was asking for a game based on the films, a trend which went out of style back in around 2007. Nevertheless, Slightly Mad Studios (who developed the Project Cars games among other titles) shouldered the burden of producing Fast & Furious Corssroads in 2020. It went about as well as you might expect – repetitive gameplay was the real killer, but the game also appeared somehow unfinished and featured graphics that you might generously call ‘retro’.
Ocean City Racing
Here’s a real stinker. Ocean City Racing is not a game from a big name developer such as Sightly Mad Studios, nor is it trying to be in the same ball park as established racing games. It’s cheap, but that’s probably the best thing you can say about it. It offers free roam mode, race mode and time trial mode, none of which are any fun.
The open world ‘free roam’ part of the game is especially lacking, with nothing to do other than travel around either in cars or on foot. More alarming is the frequency of bugs such as falling directly through the floor and into the ether below. Bad physics, bad graphics, the game’s price tag is evident in its gameplay and yet still it seems like a rip-off.
Redneck Racers
Finally, we have Redneck Racers. With the name alone we aren’t exactly off to a promising start. Like Ocean City Racing and Daytona Racing, this game is cheap. Also like those games is the fact that it is really bad. Essentially, the game is in the Mario Kart, or should I say the Garfield Kart mould, with very arcade style physics, weapons and power ups.
The vehicles of choice for both the player and the AI are tractors, of which there are 5 different models. For a game like this, one would at least expect it to run well on decent computers, but it seems that it can’t even manage that, with frame issues and similar problems being reported by the player base. Many frustrated reviewers report that they can’t even get the game to launch… they are the lucky ones.
What do you think is the worst racing game on Steam? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
