
Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game - danso
http://newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/07/the-worst-video-game-ever-created.html
======
chrissnell
This is awesome. I have lived this video game. I just finished driving a 1987
ex-military Land Rover 110 from Galveston, TX to Seattle, WA. My top speed is
around 55 mph (pushing it) but most of the time I averaged between 40 and 45.
I took the backroads, mostly dirt roads in the desert, whenever I could.

Pics:

Galveston to Colorado Springs:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/sets/721576332973927...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/sets/72157633297392764/)

Colorado Springs to Salt Lake:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/sets/721576335549344...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/sets/72157633554934498/)

Salt Lake to Seattle:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/sets/721576341355761...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/defender90/sets/72157634135576128/)

~~~
networked
Nice trip. On that note, somebody really ought to remake Desert Bus with
Google Maps' Street View (including the route from Tucson, Arizona to Las
Vegas, Nevada from the original game).

~~~
dangoldin
If it could deal with daytime vs nighttime that would be amazing.

"Drive Simulator"

------
dhugiaskmak
It's a significantly better game than the festering, cancerous legion of
predatory money extracting non-games that have turned the iOS and Android app
stores into cesspits of addiction and credit card fraud.

~~~
jquery
It's not fair to lump all App-Store freemium games together. Nor do I
appreciate your characterization of enjoying a videogame as "addiction". Some
are money-grabbing cesspits, but others are well-designed freemium games.
Clash of Clans comes to mind as an exceptionally well-designed freemium game.
I've spent money on it yes, but for the amount of enjoyment I've received, and
the camaraderie (someone in my clan bought me Reddit gold), Supercell has
earned their money.

~~~
shrughes
So, you are saying what exactly? That there are good games in the App Store?
That's not a proposition anybody disputes.

~~~
jquery
I'm actually saying that the "predatory money extracting non-games" aren't
necessarily that. I get a strong whiff of "get off my lawn" vibes from the
people who hate that business model for gaming. I'd prefer a more nuanced
discussion that didn't dismiss all such games out-of-hand. For a forum that
loves (LOVES) freemium startup models, it sure hates on the freemium model
applied to video games.

------
babebridou
This reminds me of the Minecraft youtube let's play series "Far Lands Or
Bust", where the protagonist, KurtJMac, is walking from the center of the
world to reach the outer regions, the so-called "Far Lands", a fabled (well,
not if you cheat and teleport there) place where floating point errors become
so aggravating that the minecraft world generation mechanics no longer make
sense.

He's been "walking" for a couple years now for Child's Play too and has raised
more than $100,000 in donations.

[http://farlandsorbust.com/](http://farlandsorbust.com/)

Granted, the generated landscapes in minecraft are far more entertaining than
Desert Bus :)

~~~
baby
Reminds me of me and my friends co-oping through this game. Our goal was just
to go the farthest possible. Spawn points didn't exist at that time and dying
would mean end of the game.

------
ErikAugust
Always thought Desert Bus was a brilliant piece of art.

Here's a couple of people beating the initial trip:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl9D6kCv2eY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl9D6kCv2eY)

Here's where you can play it ported to Java: [http://desertbus-
game.org/](http://desertbus-game.org/)

------
marknutter
I'm sorry, but no. A game shouldn't qualify as worst ever if it's
intentionally bad. It has to be a game where the publisher was intending for
it to be fun. I present to you, IMO, the worst game ever created - Big Rigs
Over the Road Racing:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rikTiT2OwqQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rikTiT2OwqQ)

~~~
dfc
I take it you have never tried some of the Xbox Live Arcade/Indie "titles."
Big Rigs looks like Final Fantasy compared to half of the arcade/indie titles.

~~~
Dylan16807
Those don't inspire the same kind of awe as when the train wreck is
professionally made.

------
danso
I was going to say that the OP must not be a gamer...but judging from his
Twitter bio, he probably does play video games at least a little, rather than
just making a living making high-brow commentary about them:
[https://twitter.com/SimonParkin](https://twitter.com/SimonParkin)

I had this initial suspicion because I think virtually every serious gamer
would have a different metric for "worst". I think we as a whole kind of
appreciate games that are _not_ fun by design: Cart Life and QWOP, for
example. And, as a whole, I think we despise games that have been borked
because of budget/developer problems (or, to look at it another way, cost
cutting by the publisher) or are blatant ripoffs/sellouts.

(It's also possible, actually, very likely, that the headline was written by a
New Yorker editor who has a non-gamer perspective on video games)

edit: Speaking of headlines, I noticed that the submission's title was
_originally_ modded to:

 _" Desert Bus: The Very Worst Video Game Ever Created"_

...which is the actual OP headline (though not the meta title)... I omitted
the 'Desert Bus' part when submitting the link...and now, currently, the
headline is:

 _" Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game"_

I guess a HN gaming mod also thinks the New Yorker is overstating its case :)

~~~
ojii
have you ever played desertbus? I think rather than debating whether it's the
worst game ever most people would argue it's not a game at all. I recommend
you try one of the ports if you haven't yet.

~~~
baby
Exactly, a lot of "angry gamers" are debating here whether this is the "worst"
game or not. This makes no sense, try the game and try to find some fun in it.

I had fun playing QWOP.

------
snth
Haha - this reminds me of 50K Racewalker!

[http://www.videlectrix.com/racewalk.html](http://www.videlectrix.com/racewalk.html)

------
astangl
I still think Bill Gates' DONKEY.BAS (described by him as "very thrilling")
takes the prize as worst game ever.

~~~
nnnnni
It was Scorched Earth that you could play in school without getting in
trouble. You're wrong!

~~~
mikeash
I believe you're thinking of GORILLA.BAS.

~~~
nnnnni
Sorry, I should have said that it was _a version of_ Scorched Earth that you
could play in school.

------
TeMPOraL
Reminds me of The Onion's take on Modern Warfare franchise with "most true to
life military game ever created with the majority of gameplay spent hauling
equipment and filling out paperwork."

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5tRNs2X5Q4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5tRNs2X5Q4)

------
jonperl
Who wants to help me build this for the Oculus Rift?

~~~
braco_alva
That would be awesome if you do it!

------
ekimekim
This year will be my 5th Desert Bus for Hope.

I know it doesn't seem like much, but the running gags, the interaction via
IRC, the challenges and the auctions really come together to produce the
craziest week-and-a-bit of the year, every year. The link is
[http://desertbus.org](http://desertbus.org), I urge everyone to have a look
and save the date.

While you're there, I have to recommend LoadingReadyRun's other videos. They
release a crazy amount of content every week, some for themselves and some for
places like Escapist Magazine or Penny Arcade TV. Check out
[http://loadingreadyrun.com](http://loadingreadyrun.com) for links to all
their videos.

------
baby
A lot of 5 stars reviews that are easily laughable on their :

* android version : [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tueidj.Des...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tueidj.DesertBus&hl=en)

* iOs version : [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/desert-bus/id470288016?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/desert-bus/id470288016?mt=8)

but also a lot of angry people who think they got "scammed" by the ranks and
reviews. I wonder if this really count as scams but at 0.99$ all I can do is
laugh.

Do gamers brag about finishing this game?

------
mpyne
"Very Worst"? Obviously _someone_ has never played Superman 64...

~~~
mileswu
How about Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing?

\- Description talks about outrunning cops to deliver illegal goods, but there
are no cops in the game

\- AI opponents never move

\- No collision detection

\- Infinite speed in reverse gear

\- Sometimes says you've won before you even left the start line

\- The fifth (out of 5) map doesn't load and crashes the game

\- A patch to fix the fifth map just turns it into the first map but mirrored
(so I guess they couldn't work out how to fix it)

Weirdly somehow I think tens of thousands of copies of this were sold. I pity
the people who wasted money on this.

~~~
shmageggy
When I read the title for this article, I thought it might be referring to
some unconventional racing game that I remembered as getting the worst score
ever on some gaming site. That game was Big Rigs. Thanks for reminding me of
this hilarious atrocity.

[http://www.gamespot.com/big-rigs-over-the-road-
racing/review...](http://www.gamespot.com/big-rigs-over-the-road-
racing/reviews/big-rigs-over-the-road-racing-review-6086528/)

------
bitwize
You have to work awful hard to beat _Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing_ for sheer
unmitigated badness -- a standard _Desert Bus_ doesn't quite meet.

------
mukundmr
I think it is a fun game that was meant to get a message across. That being
said, I will never spend more than a few minutes on it.

------
Falling3
Wow. I guess this puts ET to shame.

------
DrStalker
Desert Bus is better than Crazy Bus:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hss2QwtT6xY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hss2QwtT6xY)

------
bittired
> eight hundred continuous hours of play

That is supposed to be eight, not eight-hundred. Someone should edit these
before they are posted. It was stated as eight hours at the top, so there is
little excuse to get this wrong.

~~~
wikwocket
The context is that the original game's publisher planned a prize for reaching
100 points, which would require 800 hours of gameplay. As this more than a
month of continuous play, perhaps it is best this contest did not go live!

------
InclinedPlane
And every year around the holidays a comedy group called Loading Ready Run
marathons playing the game for charity:
[http://desertbus.org/](http://desertbus.org/)

~~~
stevejohnson
That would be what much of the article is about, yes...

------
DanBC
Compare _Desert Bus_ (which does what it sets out to do) with _Rise of the
Robots_ which received considerable hype but was "quite disappointing".

------
ctdonath
Any word on whether the purchase of the iOS app goes, in any meaningful
percentage, to the alleged charity?

~~~
jholman
I doubt it. Why would it? I think you may have misread the article. Do you
expect every purchase of running shoes to fund charity, just because AidsWalks
exist (to use the example from the article)?

Also, "alleged charity"? How big and established does a charity have to be
before you don't refer to it as "alleged"?

~~~
ctdonath
It would because the article makes a big deal about using the game for charity
purposes, and one specific iOS game can be expected to possibly route a
percentage to that charity. I think you misread my post, confusing "this iOS
app" with ALL iOS apps.

------
allannienhuis
One of the best things I've seen in a while. Love it!

------
derleth
Desert Bus is precisely what it's advertised to be. It's the gaming equivalent
of anti-humor, or something so audaciously contrary to expectations it derives
value from its very audacity. It therefore succeeds in living up to Penn and
Teller's goal. Also, again, they tell you exactly what you're in for before
you begin, so nobody can claim to be surprised.

A truly bad game involves false advertisement, where the seller (publisher,
developer, whoever) falsely claims to have a good game when, in point of fact,
they have a festering piece of dung. "Pac Man" for the Atari 2600 is an
example: It claimed to be a version of the arcade Pac Man, but it's a very bad
copy at best, rushed out in an unfinished state to disappoint many, many
people. "Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing" has already been mentioned; it
shipped in an alpha state so broken the game is entirely unplayable.
"Superman: The New Adventures" ("Superman 64") for the Nintendo 64 is less
obviously broken, being at least competently implemented, but the design it's
an implementation of is in no way an enjoyable game.

Anyway, those are a few examples of bad games. Any of them would have been a
much better candidate to be the topic of this article.

