by theygamesWhat’s the one game you would most like to see on PC? The original Red Dead Redemption still isn’t here. Half-Life 3 remains the white whale. And what about the Bloodborne PC port? Maybe they could all happen. Maybe not. But in the meantime, one slice of gaming infamy is on its way to our beloved rigs. Sometimes cited as the worst game of all time and absolutely ripped to shreds critically when it launched, this one is worth seeing, if only out of morbid curiosity.
Bubsy 3D. If you’ve played it, that name will make the hairs on your arm stand on end. If you haven’t, you’ve almost certainly heard of it, in the same way a group of hikers sitting around a campfire have heard of the chupacabra. Originally released in 1996, Bubsy 3D is a platform game developed by Eidetic, the actually very capable studio that would later rebrand and create the Syphon Filter series and Days Gone. With a rating of 3.3 on Metacritic, according to its Wikipedia page, Bubsy 3D has been “ranked by many publications among the worst videogames in history.” And now it’s coming to PC as part of the Bubsy Purrfect Collection.
Combining a variety of Bubsy games, including the notorious 3D, the Purrfect Collection is created by Limited Run and Atari, and serves as a monument to one of the most storied series in platformer history. Combining interviews, production materials, and other behind-the-scenes insights, in the words of Limited Run, the collection “explores the franchise’s troubled history and enduring popularity.”
So, why was Bubsy 3D so bad? I’ve played it – I even interviewed its director, Richard Ham, who would later work on Syphon Filter and ill-fated Bethesda shooter Brink – and without wanting to sound flippant, the answer is ‘almost everything.’ The controls are impossible. The levels are ugly assortments of primary colors and bizarre, irregular shapes. It struggles to run, so much so that almost everything is covered by draw-distance-disguising orange fog.
And yet, like Superman 64 or the nowhere-near-as-bad-as-you’ve-heard Daikatana, Bubsy 3D is well worth seeing for yourself. On top of that, it’s been tweaked, improved, and reworked using Limited Run’s own Carbon Engine, which allows the studio to rework the control scheme and almost every aspect of the game to function more efficiently on PC.
We don’t have a confirmed release date for the Purrfect Collection yet, but this loving work of gaming preservation is expected to land in 2025. You can wishlist it on Steam right here.
Otherwise, relive the ‘90s with the best old games, or maybe plan your next purchase with the best upcoming PC games on their way to you.
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