Game developers and publishers don’t always select the best titles for their games. We are all used to embarrassing translations of Japanese titles but sometimes the name chosen is just plain awful. In this article we take a look at some of the worst named games of all time. Some of these are so bad you won’t believe them but if you look them up you’ll see they are all real titles.

Let’s kick off with unintentionally rude names like Booby Kids which was released for the NES back in 1987. Then there’s the unfortunately named Wild Woody from Sega in 1995 and Spanky’s Quest which came out on the SNES in 1992 (it featured a monkey). The worst has to be Sticky Balls which was released on the Gizmondo in 2005 and may well have contributed to its complete failure. There are also deliberately rude sounding names like 2003 PC release Big Mutha Truckers which was a dull trucking game which even managed to spawn a sequel subtitled Truck Me Harder.

In fact subtitles can often be the funny thing about a game name as with Frogger: Helmet Chaos which came out on the DS and PSP in 2005. Then there’s cheesy PC titles Anito: Defend a Land Enraged, COPS 2170: The Power of Law and Delta Force: Task Force Dagger which is scraping the bottom of the Delta Force barrel. There was also an FPS in 2002 called Gore: Ultimate Soldier. The fantastically pretentious sounding Etrom: The Astral Essence came out in 2006 and there was a game about psychics called Sanity: Aiken’s Artifact in 2002. Egg Mania: Eggstreme Madness wins the “whacky” crown.

You also get games that it is hard to imagine anyone wanting to play with titles like Farm Vet, Space HoRSE, Bus Driver, Cake Mania and Air Raid: This is Not a Drill! Unless the cakes are laced with drugs I’m not getting the mania part. Can’t say I fancy trying Off-Road Redneck Racing either, it conjures up images of customisable hillbillies racing each other round a dirt track but I’m guessing they have vehicles in the game. Then there’s the wonderfully titled Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel. It wouldn’t be my first choice of accommodation for a weekend climbing in the mountains.

I’m not a big fan of the whole personality name in the title either although with Sid Meier at least I know who he is. As for Gary Grigsby’s World At War, Eric Young’s Squad Assault: West Front, Greg Hastings’ Tournament Paintball MAX’D and Geoff Crammond’s Gran Prix 4 I have no idea. Lee Trevino’s Fighting Golf also sounded a lot more exciting than it really was.

Finally we come to the just plain stupid like 2003 release Paradise Cracked, or the 2002 title Divine Divinity and the classic Irritating Stick released on the PlayStation in 1999. Bloody Roar spawned a whole series of PS2 games, Tube Slider came out on the GameCube and Super Skidmarks was an Amiga release. There was also a South Korean MMORPG called Yogurting and a DS game called Touch the Dead. I can’t continue any longer. If you can think of any that should have made the list then add them in comments.