Terrible Steam games as described by user reviews – The Youthdrainers
The Youthdrainers - Gameplay
I have a penchant for terrible things; bad movies, terrible rap songs and trainwreck TV being among my favourites. Recently however I’ve started taking a shine to poorly rated steam games and I’ve even started keeping a log of them and their hilarious user reviews.
To lay my cards on the table here I just want to say that I don’t personally want to critically judge these games myself and in as many instances as I can, I want to play them. I want to let the reviews and the game play itself do the talking.
With that in mind, let’s start with our first ‘Worst games ever’ article by taking a look at The Youthdrainers.
So what’s it all about?
Well, let’s start with the trailer. Perhaps that can show us what this is all about.
Ok. Whoever was in charge of lighting, you’re fired. It’s pretty difficult to make heads or tails of that, so let’s head over the official steam page to check out the description.
“In an unknown location out in the wilderness, a number of pregnant women are being held against their will in a facility in which everything is decorated in the style of a comforting living room to lull the women into a false sense of security so that they believe they’re in a safe spot.”
Exposition is great, but that’s telling us the story from the writer’s perspective, not from the protagonist’s viewpoint. Does our hero KNOW that the “comforting living room” is a charade? This reeks of terrible narrative writing, but let’s continue...
“The reality however, is much more hideous...
The women are in fact being monitored by a race of Little evil humanoids dressed head to toe in bright yellow robes. The humanoids want the babies for their heinous experiments, but you, as a mother, see no alternative but to take your own life to save your baby’s soul.”
So it’s a comedy then? Does it matter if the yellow robes are bright? Before this descends into a crash course on descriptive literature, I think we’re able to piece together the gist of what’s happening here. We’re trapped in a room and we need to figure out how to get out of there before a race of “little evil humanoids” burst in and tear us limb from limb to get their hands on our baby. Or is the aim to kill ourselves? It’s unclear. Let’s take a look at some of the gameplay.
Ok I want to stab someone. That was incredibly frustrating and I wasn’t even the one playing it. Are we trying to find things to kill ourselves with or are we trying to find a way out of there? Looking at other videos on the game it seems like gameplay is split into two parts:
1) Trying to solve puzzles by searching for components, with the occasional quicktime event thrown in, and,
2) Evading the “midgets” when the lights turn off.
So what do the critics think? Well, not much apparently.
The Reviews
“I have played some terrible things in my life, up to and including Ride to Hell: Retribution TO COMPLETION, but this one truly takes the cake”.
Ouch.
“If you enjoy slowly searching shelves, bad art, and using a flashlight while stationary, this the game for you”
I tremble in fear thinking of the kind of person at the center of that Venn Diagram.
“It’s never a good sign when the opening text says ‘Whoever hears this message please listen carefully to this message.’”
Unless of course you’re a goldfish and you forget how the sentence began 2 seconds into reading it.
This one is pretty self explanatory.
Hey, for $2.99 who can complain, right?
Apparently everyone.
- Andrew Archer