The Top 100 Worst Games: Nominations

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:18 am

I am taking nominations for what you, the JC populace, believe are the worst video games, computer games and console games ever made.

(This list is not including pinball games, as they were not included in the Best 100 list.)

I'm not looking for the usual suspects: I won't be including the 2600 version of Pac-Man (disappointing, but not that bad in retrospect) or E.T. (2600 adventure games did the best they could). Custer's Revenge is notable only because it's offensive. From what I understand, the gameplay is simply that of a horizontal version of Freeway. I'm not trying to create a list of games that have offended people.

A good example of the kind of game I am looking for is a PC game of recent times called "Republic: The Revolution." It required specs way beyond what the average consumer had at the time, even though there was nothing groundbreaking going on with the game. The manual was horrible. The gameplay incomprehensible. Nobody could makes any sense out of it and it never got a patch to really solve its many issues. It's a shitty game. Everyone would agree to that.

So let me know what you think. Game name and platform and over the course of the rest of this year I'll check 'em out. We'll start off 2008 with the new list.

Excelsior!

Knuckles the CLown · Post by **Knuckles the CLown** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:53 pm

Madden

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:56 pm

E.T. really was that bad. Look at Warshaw's Raiders to see how to do an epic 2600 adventure right.

But, in any event:

Colecovision, "It's Only Rock and Roll"
2600: "Slot Machine"
PC: "Daikatana"

Adam

jjsonick · Post by **jjsonick** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:20 pm

PC: Destiny. It was this very ambitious attempt to do a god-strategy-civilization-like game with full 3d, in real-time, all the way from stone tools to modern warfare, AI and cities all independently working on things in real time...and this was all attempted in 1996.

I bought it, based on its delicious-sounding epicness and hype-filled interviews with the creators. It was basically a huge, slow, incredibly bug-filled mess.

Definite contender for a 'bit-off-hundreds-more-pounds-than-they-could-chew' category.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:46 pm

C64 Skool daze.

It looks sort of fun at first but then you struggle for the simplest acomplishments then give it up and have to go eat something fried.

THE
CHICKEN STEAK TWINKIE
AARDVARK[/url]

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 6:07 pm

2600: Swordquest: Earthworld (and Fireworld and probably Waterworld and thankfully there was no Airworld)

2600: Crypts of Chaos. There's a right way to do an RPG on the 2600, and that way is Dragonstomper. This is not the right way.

PC: Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing. I haven't actually played this one, but from what I've heard....

Colecovision: Illusions. Cool premise, I think. But totally and utterly baffling to play.

Bruce

hygraed · Post by **hygraed** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 5:20 pm

Seconding Bruce's nomination of Big Rigs.

I would also like to see "Action 52" for NES on the list, as well as Matt Barringer's AGT game "Detective."

jjsonick · Post by **jjsonick** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:00 pm

hygraed wrote:I would also like to see "Action 52" for NES on the list, as well as Matt Barringer's AGT game "Detective."

That reminds me, for text adventures, there definitely should be, even though he's kind of the IF world's punching bag, some mention of one of Paul Panks' startling retro-failures.

And anything from the Malinche guy, since they're a) such horrible games and b) he's such an amazing ass for pretending he's the inheritor of Infocom's mantle and the only person keeping IF alive today.

Vitriola · Post by **Vitriola** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:18 pm

Anything programmed by my ex.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 11:58 pm

Knuckles the CLown wrote:Madden

WHICH version, Silent Gus?

hygraed · Post by **hygraed** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:15 am

jjsonick wrote:And anything from the Malinche guy, since they're a) such horrible games and b) he's such an amazing ass for pretending he's the inheritor of Infocom's mantle and the only person keeping IF alive today.

God, I can't even read his website. The smugness levels are off the charts.

jjsonick · Post by **jjsonick** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 11:45 am

hygraed wrote:
jjsonick wrote:And anything from the Malinche guy, since they're a) such horrible games and b) he's such an amazing ass for pretending he's the inheritor of Infocom's mantle and the only person keeping IF alive today.
God, I can't even read his website. The smugness levels are off the charts.

Yeah, I visited it for the first time in awhile after making that post, and I think it's worse then ever in terms of his cranked-up self-praise. And I love how the "Text Adventure Games" section of his Links page doesn't mention, say, Inform, the fucking language his games are written in, or the Interactive Fiction archive which has thousands of free text games, etc.

All good reasons for him deserving some kind of smackdown in this '100 Worst' list.

ADDENDUM: Ok, I now see his 'About Us' section does actually mention Inform, but that all comes many paragraphs beneath the bullshit heading of 'Proud to be The World's Only Publisher of Interactive Fiction' and his self-description of "Not stopping with the incredible responsibility of being the world's last active Implementor of Interactive Fiction..." BLARF!

Lysander · Post by **Lysander** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:39 pm

HALO No, no, seriously, if you want to find bad games look no further than the crapfest created by hte horror of licensed TV-to-video game cash-ins. I'm thinking in particular of the Reservoir Dogs game, the Small Soldiers game (though that's not so much bad as just uncompelling), Independence Day. (Although that might just be sour grapes because I never got to play as one of the aliens) and, of course, Street Fighter: the movie: the video game. Also how about one of the Dragon Ball Z fighting games? Enter the Matrix? Mario II? (just seing if you're still paying attention) I want to start throwing in obscure games from teh NES like Die Hard and Total Recall but that might be cheating a bit.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:45 pm

Super Mario Bros II (yes, I was still paying attention) was originally not designed as a Mario game, but fitted with Mario graphics after the fact, right? And didn't everyone hate it?

Lysander · Post by **Lysander** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:08 pm

Correct. Also--this probablywoudln't make the last, but it's hot exactly a great game, either: Appocalypse, for the Playstation. Starred Bruce Willis for some inexplicable reason and featured a control scheme that consisted of one 'fullscreen clear weapon' button, a jum button, weapon cycle buttons and... four weapon fire buttons, AKA square fired diagonal to the left, triangle was up and right, etc. Some silly half-baked "plot" involving one guy taking on an entire futureistic society being run by the "reverend" and taking out the four horsemen of the apocalypse with Really Big Guns (TM) Even thoguh it was first-person it still required you to jump across "bottomless" pits/pits filled with deadly lava/water/acid/acid water/whatever jsut for the sheer joy of it, and natch if your back tow landed in lava your characer would boil himself to death. Did I Mention the Alien game? Again, not so much bad as just pointless.

hygraed · Post by **hygraed** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:15 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Super Mario Bros II (yes, I was still paying attention) was originally not designed as a Mario game, but fitted with Mario graphics after the fact, right? And didn't everyone hate it?

It was originally going to be an Arabian Nights-themed game called Doki Doki Panic.

edit: SMB2 was a pretty good game on its own merits, but it was panned because it didn't play enough like a Mario game.

Also, I take issue with AArdvark's qualification of Skool Daze as a bad game. That game was the cat's ass--and I mean that in a good way.

Jack Straw · Post by **Jack Straw** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 7:31 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:
Knuckles the CLown wrote:Madden
WHICH version, Silent Gus?

...ALL of them.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 12:58 pm

Game sucked. I played that thing for about an hour on many different occasions and it just seemed to suck more every time.

THE
MORE BAD
AARDVARK

Jack Straw · Post by **Jack Straw** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 5:36 am

Madden?

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Sat Apr 28, 2007 1:27 pm

Resident Evil 1, any of the Dead or Alives.