Microcosm

Microcosm is a rail-shooter/shoot-em-up developed by Psygnosis and released for various platforms in 1993.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) Overly complex and pretentious plot, none of which actually appears in the game and the manual is padded out with redundant info about things like the solar system of the universe the game is set in.
 * 2) The FMV cutscenes are very long and uninteresting with almost no music, dialogue or even colour.
 * 3) A password system comprised entirely of 3D symbols and gives you only a few seconds to write the password down when you get a game over.
 * 4) The gameplay renders itself pointless; your ship only fires directly in front of it making aiming near-impossible and making it much easier to just avoid enemies instead of trying to kill them. Noah Antwiler aka The Spoony One proved this by completing most of the game blindfolded.
 * 5) The penultimate stage, where you have chase and shoot down a ship before it self-destructs, made near-impossible due to its small size and speed combined with all the winding tunnels in the level.
 * 6) You get a game over if you fail the penultimate level, no matter how many lives.
 * 7) The ingame graphics are an ugly mess of indiscernible sprites over nauseating pre-rendered FMVs.

The Only Redeeming Quality

 * 1) The music is pretty cool.