Why Do We Love Bad Games?

JD writes: If you haven't read my review of Amy just yet, allow me to summarize: It is a poorly constructed, buggy mess. Tasked with giving the game a fair and balanced assessment, I simply could not overlook the multitude of problems that arose both technically and from a design standpoint.

That being said, there is still a dark, masochistic corner of my heart where a morbid sort of affection burns dully for Amy. While I would never recommend someone fork over their hard-earned cash for the game in its current state, a part of me is willing to admit that I kind of liked various bits and pieces.

But some of the gaming community has taken that bizarre fondness a step further. A quick search of the Gamefaqs message boards yields dozens of posts wherein the authors profess their love for Amy and recommended their fellow survival horror fans ignore the reviews and go download it immediately.

Those people are daft.

Then again, maybe it's wrong of me to fault someone for loving terrible things. I'm guilty of this myself from time to time. (I quite liked the Bionic Commando reboot, for instance. Yeah, I said it.) This makes me wonder what, exactly, makes someone cling to such a monstrosity. No matter how bad a game is, there's always someone willing to stand up and defend it.

In this week's Infinite Ammo, I ponder some of the possible reasons for this contrarian behavior.