What is the worst game you've worked on? Nearly 20 years ago, I was dropped in to firefight on a Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX clone called "Toxic Grind" for the original Xbox. It was runner-up for GameSpot's annual "Worst Game of the Year on Xbox" award.

I spent a couple months fixing the game so it ran at 60Hz (it was ~20Hz when I started), fixed the dynamic player shadows (they didn't work at all), added multisampling, and fixed bugs (memory, threading issues, stuff like that). Behind the scenes the publisher (THQ) was furious.

I was only 26 and honestly I didn't fully realize what was really happening. They were using RenderWare and not testing on GameCube. The GameCube build ran at a snail's pace (if it all) and was unshippable. The team basically only tested on Xbox - not good. THQ threatened to sue.

I saw this pattern several times: A team would use Xbox devkits because it was easier/faster, then wind up having to crunch to ship the build on GameCube/PS2. Some never were able to ship or shipped late and their companies folded.

The development company missed payroll for a few months, and people started to quit. Once the game shipped the entire team was shown the door. I heard THQ only published a tiny number of copies and didn't market it.

Strangely, I showed this game to some friends who were gamers (not developers) and they liked it. After this experience, I just think reviewers are *extremely* picky about games in the "extreme sports" genre.

I have no idea what they were thinking with the "Toxic Grind" title. Seriously, what a terrible name for a game.

I didn't join this company to work on Toxic Grind. I instead was working on World Series Baseball 2k3 (which went on to be very well reviewed), but the company was going to implode so I had to do it.