We all have that one game. That detestable, despicable game that sits lost and forgotten apart from our collection. The same one that, when mentioned to friends (or otherwise normal coworkers) gets nothing but praise and cries of "How could you possible not love it?" We don't just not love it, dammit, we hate it! And we're not afraid to admit it. It's not our fault the rest of you are too blind to see its teeth-gnashing, aneurysm-inducing flaws.

Nonetheless, we'll give it a shot. Each editor has selected a game that has won widespread praise, yet that he or she feels - quite frankly - is crap. Dive into this list with an open mind, and you might just... no, you know what, we don't care. Close your mind. Keep playing these infuriating games. WHO CARES IF WE NEVER GET ANOTHER SKIES OF ARCADIA. GO PLAY MORE CALL OF DUTY. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONGWITHYOUPEOPLE!!

Though the Final Fantasy 13 saga may not be the most well loved of FF titles, of them Final Fantasy 13-2 is certainly the favorite. And oh, what a black hole of hatred I have in my soul for that game. While the battle system was an improvement on 13's linearity, I would have gladly taken 100 Final Hallway games over the shallow plot and shoddy characters 13-2 dropped in my lap.

Where 13 actually had a decent if flawed cast, 13-2 removed all the folks worth a damn, replaced everyone else with flattened and awful versions of themselves (I think I've developed a persistent eye twitch from Serah fawning over how cute it is that Snow's being a jerk to her), and added in some of the most infuriating characters I've seen in a long time. Like Noel. Fuckin' Noel. Refusing to do the one thing that would save the universe full stop because it involves killing a guy with whom he has zero friendly interactions but they're somehow totally great friends! Combine that with inconsistent and illogical time travel, a final 'twist' that might as well have written in the clouds, and the fact that Noel is so goddamn stupid that he's singlehandedly responsible for the death of mortal universe and I...

Ugh, Borderlands. I want to love you! I love shooters. I love action RPGs. I love distinct art styles with lots of bold colors. I love corny jokes. All the elements are there, but I still hate Borderlands. You have to understand, I'm pretty good about giving games the benefit of the doubt even if they don't grab me straight off - particularly if tons of other people seem to really enjoy them. But rarely have I felt more actively disinterested in a game than when I tried to play Borderlands.

Maybe it's how the first region is full of skags and axe-wielding psychos, which makes for rote backpedaling as you unload ammunition into their faces. Maybe it's how the first few hours of the campaign are spent performing asinine tasks for unpleasant characters, like trying to grind through an MMO that calls you names whenever you turn in a quest. Even good co-op company (yes, I was playing in co-op) couldn't keep me from dozing off at best or actively resenting the experience at worst. Maybe Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel fixed all these problems, but I don't really care enough to find out.

I just don't understand the appeal of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Many members of the GR+ staff swear by the game, citing a wealth of special attacks, imaginatively designed arenas, and lashings of Nintendo fan-service as the reason for its greatness. All I see is a mess of color, as if an excitable toddler has vomited Skittles onto an LED screen. I mean, what the hell is happening? It's wanton chaos. It's like the , with all the clawing, naked sinners swapped for Nintendo mascots.

During the games I played in the UK office, literally no-one could work out who was winning or why, which really takes the sting out of victory. "Oh, I came first did I? Fuck me, I thought I just kept falling off a ledge and getting my nose broken by Yoshi." And, honestly, why does no-one see the futile absurdity in someone like Samus Aran smacking the Duck Hunt dog in the jowls, while the Wii Fit trainer tries to brutalise Kirby in the whatever-it-has-instead-of-bollocks? I'm out.

I know I'm going to get hate for this, but I did not like Final Fantasy 7. I've played most of the FF games as they were a big part of my childhood. I even dumped an ungodly number of hours into FF11 - how's THAT for dedication and love for the series? I tried playing FF7 when it came out, but the whole jump to 3D and polygon graphics just did not appeal to me. I was not blown away. I was blown away by the intro to Final Fantasy 8, and when I booted up Final Fantasy X my life changed. But Final Fantasy 7? Meh.

I eventually went back to play through the entire game on PC, and just couldn't bring myself to be invested in any of the characters. That OMG HOW COULD YOU scene? Felt nothing. Meanwhile, the ending to Crisis Core? Cried. I loved that game, but maybe I was just not in the right frame of mind when Final Fantasy 7 came out to really enjoy it. The music was good though. Gold Saucer FTW!

Destiny is mind-cripplingly dull. The 'characters', the 'plot', the 'void damage', the colour coded rarity system of weapons that everyone seems so het up about - I couldn't care less. All anyone ever seems to do is grind. And everyone keeps saying 'oh the game doesn't begin until level 8, 15, 20, 30... WHEN DOES IT GET FUN?

The enemies only seem to have two attacks each. There aren't enough planets. I can't feasibly play with everyone else now because I haven't bought the DLC. There is no spark of life in its cold, dead eyes. I hate the Ghost thing and its stupid disinterested voice. Destiny is a husk of a game and I don't know what anyone sees in it. There, I've said it.

I'll never understand why people praise Gunman Clive. Maybe they've been blinded by the low, low price tag of $2, which sounds like a steal - but I've easily played a thousand free Flash games on the 'net that were 10 times more enjoyable than this trite 2D shooter. The graphics are either bland or butt-ugly depending on your tastes, the controls are floaty and unresponsive, the soundtrack seems to be a sampling from 'My First Chiptune Album', and the stark level designs are straight garbage.

If you're going to rip off Mega Man stage gimmicks, your controls need to be on point, instead of making me feel like a jellyfish in low gravity. Also, it's best to avoid a difficulty curve that goes from toddler easy to 'Why am I still playing this vile horseshiz' hard. The fact that so many people compare this repugnantly unfun grind of trial-and-error platforming to the greatness that is Sunset Riders makes me sick to my stomach. Kill me for this radical opinion if you must - just promise that you'll .

I wouldn't say I hate Skyrim, exactly. Hate is a word I'd reserve for real dreck like Ride to Hell Retribution (or those hoverbike segments in Battletoads). But by God, I will never understand the undying love and devotion this open-world fantasy RPG gets - especially when compared to the vastly superior Fallout series.

There certainly is something impressive about how Skyrim generates seemingly never-ending quests to get lost in, but the world and its characters do absolutely nothing for me. Why should I spend the time talking to everyone and solving all their asinine little problems if I don't even care whether they live or die? Maybe I just prefer dinking around the futuristic wasteland of North America more, but every time I've tried to get into Skyrim, I last about six hours and then I bail.

I don't like Super Mario Bros. 3. There I said it! I was the hugest fan of Super Mario Bros. 2. I loved the weirdness of it and have many, many, many fond memories of playing it with my brother. In fact, it was one of the few games the we beat together.

I was pretty excited for 3. I even faked friendship with a girl who I knew had a copy of the game, just so I could go to her house to play it. And then karma struck for my trickery; a few levels in I was confused and I didn't like it. I know it has Tanooki Mario and a ton of things people other people love but I just couldn't muster any enthusiasm for it. I expect I'll be eating lunch alone from now on.

I've probably put more than a thousand hours into the Call of Duty series, BioShock is one of my favorite games of all time, and I simply can't stop playing Destiny. Outside of a Zelda adventure, blasting away enemies, throwing grenades, and scoring long-distance head shots are my favorite gaming pastimes. But the one FPS game I just can't manage to enjoy at all is Half-Life 2. Matter of fact, I pretty much hate all Valve shooters because they all share the same flaw.

Sometimes it can be the tiniest detail that turns you off to a game, and that one little thing in HL2's case is simply the way the Valve shooters handle. Moving around feels you're just controlling a floating head (and not just because you can't see your legs). Running feels more like flying (not in a good way) and there's no weight to your steps. It sounds like a lame excuse, but for some reason that floatiness kills my immersion immediately. It's really the only hurdle I can't get past, and much like with , I just can't overcome it.

MMO's are video game hell. They strip otherwise interesting genres of all fun and enjoyment. In their place, they stuff their victims full of monotonous tasks (collect 5 beaver pelts), point-and-click combat, and ravenous paywalls. The only tradeoff for all this BS: multiplayer. You can play with an entire world of other people who are running around yelling and cursing and killing one another - often for no reason. Does this remind you of someplace?

At the very bottom of this hell sits World of Warcraft, laughing and weeping into a lake of fire. WoW's corruption is slow and insidious. In the beginning it's all fun and games, but after a year or two the 'fun' becomes 'work' and the 'games' become 'obligation.' It isn't here to entertain you. It's here to enthrall you with its unending quest for loot which will let you get better loot which will let you get better loot which will...

Also the selfie feature sounds dumb.

We've shared some of our darkest gaming secrets with you, dear reader. Now it's time to balance the scales. Let us know in the comments below your least-favorite, but still wildly-popular, game. Just be prepared for plenty of backlash from everybody else.

For the flip side of this feature be sure to check out .

We all have that one game. That detestable, despicable game that sits lost and forgotten apart from our collection. The same one that, when mentioned to friends (or otherwise normal coworkers) gets nothing but praise and cries of "How could you possible not love it?" We don't just not love it, dammit, we hate it! And we're not afraid to admit it. It's not our fault the rest of you are too blind to see its teeth-gnashing, aneurysm-inducing flaws.

Nonetheless, we'll give it a shot. Each editor has selected a game that has won widespread praise, yet that he or she feels - quite frankly - is crap. Dive into this list with an open mind, and you might just... no, you know what, we don't care. Close your mind. Keep playing these infuriating games. WHO CARES IF WE NEVER GET ANOTHER SKIES OF ARCADIA. GO PLAY MORE CALL OF DUTY. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONGWITHYOUPEOPLE!!

Though the Final Fantasy 13 saga may not be the most well loved of FF titles, of them Final Fantasy 13-2 is certainly the favorite. And oh, what a black hole of hatred I have in my soul for that game. While the battle system was an improvement on 13's linearity, I would have gladly taken 100 Final Hallway games over the shallow plot and shoddy characters 13-2 dropped in my lap.

Where 13 actually had a decent if flawed cast, 13-2 removed all the folks worth a damn, replaced everyone else with flattened and awful versions of themselves (I think I've developed a persistent eye twitch from Serah fawning over how cute it is that Snow's being a jerk to her), and added in some of the most infuriating characters I've seen in a long time. Like Noel. Fuckin' Noel. Refusing to do the one thing that would save the universe full stop because it involves killing a guy with whom he has zero friendly interactions but they're somehow totally great friends! Combine that with inconsistent and illogical time travel, a final 'twist' that might as well have written in the clouds, and the fact that Noel is so goddamn stupid that he's singlehandedly responsible for the death of mortal universe and I...

Ugh, Borderlands. I want to love you! I love shooters. I love action RPGs. I love distinct art styles with lots of bold colors. I love corny jokes. All the elements are there, but I still hate Borderlands. You have to understand, I'm pretty good about giving games the benefit of the doubt even if they don't grab me straight off - particularly if tons of other people seem to really enjoy them. But rarely have I felt more actively disinterested in a game than when I tried to play Borderlands.

Maybe it's how the first region is full of skags and axe-wielding psychos, which makes for rote backpedaling as you unload ammunition into their faces. Maybe it's how the first few hours of the campaign are spent performing asinine tasks for unpleasant characters, like trying to grind through an MMO that calls you names whenever you turn in a quest. Even good co-op company (yes, I was playing in co-op) couldn't keep me from dozing off at best or actively resenting the experience at worst. Maybe Borderlands 2 and the Pre-Sequel fixed all these problems, but I don't really care enough to find out.

I just don't understand the appeal of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. Many members of the GR+ staff swear by the game, citing a wealth of special attacks, imaginatively designed arenas, and lashings of Nintendo fan-service as the reason for its greatness. All I see is a mess of color, as if an excitable toddler has vomited Skittles onto an LED screen. I mean, what the hell is happening? It's wanton chaos. It's like the , with all the clawing, naked sinners swapped for Nintendo mascots.

During the games I played in the UK office, literally no-one could work out who was winning or why, which really takes the sting out of victory. "Oh, I came first did I? Fuck me, I thought I just kept falling off a ledge and getting my nose broken by Yoshi." And, honestly, why does no-one see the futile absurdity in someone like Samus Aran smacking the Duck Hunt dog in the jowls, while the Wii Fit trainer tries to brutalise Kirby in the whatever-it-has-instead-of-bollocks? I'm out.

I know I'm going to get hate for this, but I did not like Final Fantasy 7. I've played most of the FF games as they were a big part of my childhood. I even dumped an ungodly number of hours into FF11 - how's THAT for dedication and love for the series? I tried playing FF7 when it came out, but the whole jump to 3D and polygon graphics just did not appeal to me. I was not blown away. I was blown away by the intro to Final Fantasy 8, and when I booted up Final Fantasy X my life changed. But Final Fantasy 7? Meh.

I eventually went back to play through the entire game on PC, and just couldn't bring myself to be invested in any of the characters. That OMG HOW COULD YOU scene? Felt nothing. Meanwhile, the ending to Crisis Core? Cried. I loved that game, but maybe I was just not in the right frame of mind when Final Fantasy 7 came out to really enjoy it. The music was good though. Gold Saucer FTW!

Destiny is mind-cripplingly dull. The 'characters', the 'plot', the 'void damage', the colour coded rarity system of weapons that everyone seems so het up about - I couldn't care less. All anyone ever seems to do is grind. And everyone keeps saying 'oh the game doesn't begin until level 8, 15, 20, 30... WHEN DOES IT GET FUN?

The enemies only seem to have two attacks each. There aren't enough planets. I can't feasibly play with everyone else now because I haven't bought the DLC. There is no spark of life in its cold, dead eyes. I hate the Ghost thing and its stupid disinterested voice. Destiny is a husk of a game and I don't know what anyone sees in it. There, I've said it.

I'll never understand why people praise Gunman Clive. Maybe they've been blinded by the low, low price tag of $2, which sounds like a steal - but I've easily played a thousand free Flash games on the 'net that were 10 times more enjoyable than this trite 2D shooter. The graphics are either bland or butt-ugly depending on your tastes, the controls are floaty and unresponsive, the soundtrack seems to be a sampling from 'My First Chiptune Album', and the stark level designs are straight garbage.

If you're going to rip off Mega Man stage gimmicks, your controls need to be on point, instead of making me feel like a jellyfish in low gravity. Also, it's best to avoid a difficulty curve that goes from toddler easy to 'Why am I still playing this vile horseshiz' hard. The fact that so many people compare this repugnantly unfun grind of trial-and-error platforming to the greatness that is Sunset Riders makes me sick to my stomach. Kill me for this radical opinion if you must - just promise that you'll .

I wouldn't say I hate Skyrim, exactly. Hate is a word I'd reserve for real dreck like Ride to Hell Retribution (or those hoverbike segments in Battletoads). But by God, I will never understand the undying love and devotion this open-world fantasy RPG gets - especially when compared to the vastly superior Fallout series.

There certainly is something impressive about how Skyrim generates seemingly never-ending quests to get lost in, but the world and its characters do absolutely nothing for me. Why should I spend the time talking to everyone and solving all their asinine little problems if I don't even care whether they live or die? Maybe I just prefer dinking around the futuristic wasteland of North America more, but every time I've tried to get into Skyrim, I last about six hours and then I bail.

I don't like Super Mario Bros. 3. There I said it! I was the hugest fan of Super Mario Bros. 2. I loved the weirdness of it and have many, many, many fond memories of playing it with my brother. In fact, it was one of the few games the we beat together.

I was pretty excited for 3. I even faked friendship with a girl who I knew had a copy of the game, just so I could go to her house to play it. And then karma struck for my trickery; a few levels in I was confused and I didn't like it. I know it has Tanooki Mario and a ton of things people other people love but I just couldn't muster any enthusiasm for it. I expect I'll be eating lunch alone from now on.

I've probably put more than a thousand hours into the Call of Duty series, BioShock is one of my favorite games of all time, and I simply can't stop playing Destiny. Outside of a Zelda adventure, blasting away enemies, throwing grenades, and scoring long-distance head shots are my favorite gaming pastimes. But the one FPS game I just can't manage to enjoy at all is Half-Life 2. Matter of fact, I pretty much hate all Valve shooters because they all share the same flaw.

Sometimes it can be the tiniest detail that turns you off to a game, and that one little thing in HL2's case is simply the way the Valve shooters handle. Moving around feels you're just controlling a floating head (and not just because you can't see your legs). Running feels more like flying (not in a good way) and there's no weight to your steps. It sounds like a lame excuse, but for some reason that floatiness kills my immersion immediately. It's really the only hurdle I can't get past, and much like with , I just can't overcome it.

MMO's are video game hell. They strip otherwise interesting genres of all fun and enjoyment. In their place, they stuff their victims full of monotonous tasks (collect 5 beaver pelts), point-and-click combat, and ravenous paywalls. The only tradeoff for all this BS: multiplayer. You can play with an entire world of other people who are running around yelling and cursing and killing one another - often for no reason. Does this remind you of someplace?

At the very bottom of this hell sits World of Warcraft, laughing and weeping into a lake of fire. WoW's corruption is slow and insidious. In the beginning it's all fun and games, but after a year or two the 'fun' becomes 'work' and the 'games' become 'obligation.' It isn't here to entertain you. It's here to enthrall you with its unending quest for loot which will let you get better loot which will let you get better loot which will...

Also the selfie feature sounds dumb.

We've shared some of our darkest gaming secrets with you, dear reader. Now it's time to balance the scales. Let us know in the comments below your least-favorite, but still wildly-popular, game. Just be prepared for plenty of backlash from everybody else.

For the flip side of this feature be sure to check out .

Remakes and remasters are a fun facet of modern gaming that allow old games to feel fresh. They give new players a chance to enjoy retro titles in the HD era, while older fans can play the titles of their youth without digging up a CRT television. But what about the opposite? What happens when more recent games get redone as pixelated adventures? That’s how you end up with demakes.

Demakes are clever tributes to the games of today that reimagine them as if they were on the consoles of bygone eras. Whether by the developers themselves or inventive fans, these jokey prequels let you celebrate your love of retro games in a whole new way. And these have to be the most clever demakes out there...

Speaking of Capcom, after Platinum’s staff left the company, the publisher went in a number of new directions. Not all of Capcom’s experiments were successful - for every Dead Rising, there was a Dark Void. The jetpack-based action game wanted to be a serious AAA contender, but it’s a dreadfully boring game, and it doesn’t have half the spirit and sense of fun as its jokey spin-off, Dark Void Zero.

Starting as an April Fool’s goof by the developers at Other Ocean Interactive, Dark Void Zero fast became a reality. The silly 2D download purported itself to be a Playchoice-10 game, because that was one of the earliest dual screen arcade machines that the DS could replicate. A mix of old Metroid, Castlevania, and Contra, this game started as a promotional tool for Dark Void proper. Now Dark Void Zero, a fictionally forgotten game, is the only thing people remember about the series.

A lot of these demakes stick with the warmer, friendlier worlds of 16 and 8-bit gaming, while Halo 2600 heads back to the truly primitive days of Atari. The aged system’s games ruled the United States in the early ‘80s, and are the gaming equivalent of cave paintings today, which is just the feel is going for. It molds Master Chief into the hero of second gen classics like Adventure or the catastrophically bad E.T. game, only you’re the one killing extraterrestrials this time.

It’s a cute way to kill your free time, but it’s also noteworthy for being more connected to the source material than most fanmade freeware. The game is credited to Ed Fries, who older gamers may recall as one of the earliest Xbox bosses. He worked hard to get developers like Bungie on the console, so that explains his connection to the Halo franchise. Halo 2600 came out a few years after he left Microsoft, proving that even if he doesn’t collect an Xbox paycheck, he couldn’t give up on the Chief.

The most recent, faux-old entry is a cute bit of fanservice from Platinum Games. The Osaka, Japan team is known for hiding dense Easter eggs in its games, and the same can be said for Platinum’s website. If you find yourself on the , you’ll be treated to a simple game that recasts company star Bayonetta as a 16-bit angel slayer in a pixelated shooter.

The Flash game obviously lacks the depth of a proper Bayonetta battle, but it’s a cute treat nonetheless. The graphics and chiptune soundtrack feel like a labor of love from fans who dig their own work. I’d happily buy a downloadable offering of a much fuller game. It has the unmistakable vibe of a SNES-era Capcom game, which isn’t surprising considering more than a few Platinum employees were with the company back then.

This demake may have the weirdest backstory and the strangest shift in gameplay styles of all. Fallout has always been a very Western-centric series, but with Fallout: New Vegas, publisher Bethesda had a clever plan for introducing the title to a new audience. When you headed to New Vegas’ , a version of Fallout would boot up that looked suspiciously like a 8-bit RPG.

Turning Fallout into Dragon Quest is a cute trick, and perhaps I could’ve soaked in more of the cleverness if I could actually read Japanese. As it stands, the pixelated world and turn-based action is an adorable way to introduce fans of JRPGs to the long-lived postnuclear roleplaying series. Hopefully this radical strategy convinced at least a few fans of old school Dragon Quest to take a trip down to New Vegas.

Now this here is a pretty passive-aggressive demake. The indie dev team behind Super Meat Boy were resistant to porting their game to iOS. Mainly because the two Meat Boy creators felt that phone games lacked any real depth, and that mobile titles were the current day equivalent of those crummy Tiger Electronics ports from decades ago. Then, to prove their point, the developers literally created a .

As the devs put it, the crappy on-screen controller is both true to iOS gaming and the terrible LCD screens of the early ‘90s. The platforming is intentionally terrible, going along with developer Tommy Refenes' belief that iOS controls of the time But, as intentionally poor as the gameplay and graphics may be, Super Meat Boy Handheld is a humorously ironic lark, and now it feels extra special because the game has since been removed from the App Store, with an actual Meat Boy iOS game coming soon.

Retro City Rampage on the surface feels more like a nostalgia-rific tribute to the games of the ‘80s and ‘90s than a true demake. A bit like a mix of Grand Theft Auto, Mario, Metal Gear, Contra, and a stoned afternoon watching Back to the Future, Retro City Rampage is also a Cinderella story for the makers of unlicensed demakes. More than a decade before its final release, RCR began as one fan’s attempt to make an NES version of GTA3.

In 2002, developer Brian Provinciano had thought it’d be fun to build his own dev tools for the NES, eventually crafting a homebrew title called Grand Theftendo. The top-down action and inventive use of graphics became a cult hit in the indie community, and Provinciano decided to go all out in expanding the cute tribute into a full game. By 2012 Retro City Rampage came out, packed with more references to Generation X than anyone can handle in one sitting.

AM2’s Virtua Fighter games broke boundaries for 3D fighters, and the series was also on the forefront of demakes. While so many other entries in here are postmodern throwbacks, the Genesis/Mega Drive version of Virtua Fighter 2 saw release around the same time as the Saturn version. And because Sega’s 16-bit machine could scarcely handle polygons when porting Virtua Racing, the Genesis version flattened the perspective to make the premiere 3D fighter .

Unless you were still a dedicated Genesis owner in 1997, you likely missed this game, but that’s no great tragedy. It’s a slightly above average 2D brawler that halfheartedly recreates most of the characters and moves of its three dimensional sibling, though the sound is atrocious. The music and SFX are the noise equivalent of pouring an exquisite wine through a dish rag. My heart goes out to any kid who asked for Virtua Fighter 2 as a gift and got this version.

I have strong nostalgia for the Game Watch handhelds of the early ‘80s, though advocating for them sounds like I’m saying, “Ditch that car for a horse and carriage. Sure, it’s out of date, but the buggy whip is outstanding.” Nintendo’s clock combos have simple action akin to the cheapest of today’s iOS games, and you can get a pretty accurate feel for them in , a unique tribute to God of War.

Invented by fans for the granddaddy of Flash gaming, Newgrounds, Greek Wicked takes the Hydra boss battle that opened up the first GoW and makes it as lo-fi as possible. The characters may be flat silhouettes, and the noise beeps ‘n boops, but it’s still a faithful recreation, right down to the QTE conclusion. And just like in classic Game Watch releases, you can beat Greek Wicked in minutes, and are expected to repeat it endlessly until your character dies. Truly, this version of Kratos is worthy of GW’s legacy.

That’s a diverse set of tributes, including a number that are more than a little official, but am I missing any? Drop some links in the comments, because I’m always ready for another dose of faux nostalgia.

Looking for more remakes? Check out .