10 Worst Video Games Ever Made (That We Loved As Kids)
1. Shadow The Hedgehog
Hey kids, do you want to play as a badass version of Sonic the Hedgehog who shoots people? Well, boy, howdy, does Sega have the game for you!
For the uninitiated, this game puts you in the shoes of the antihero Shadow the Hedgehog and uses third-person shooter mechanics to have him mow down enemies. That's right; it's a game where you play a hedgehog with a gun!
The Sonic franchise was clearly facing an identity crisis when this game was released. It's still a (mostly) child-friendly project with cartoonish visuals and a talking animal as the protagonist, but it's also full of forced maturity and grit that feels out of place. The use of guns was especially tonally jarring.
Alongside the strange concept, the game also didn't play well. The platforming was weak, the level design was uninspired, and the firearm mechanics were not fully realised.
Still, none of this mattered to kids who wanted an "edgy" version of Sonic. If you were a youngster who loved the franchise but also wanted to play more mature content, it was easy to lap this up like a birthday cake.
It's easy to ignore a company's desperate attempt to make something "cool" when you're still young.