Videogames You Love To Hate

Thanks to FiringSquad for their editorial discussing why sheer wretchedness is (allegedly) a good thing in gaming. The author rhapsodizes: "Bad experiences define this hobby. As much as we all enjoy sharing love stories about great moments in gaming, we tend to play up the bad stuff even more. Even though I'll always have fond memories about racking up 400,000 points in Donkey Kong... while a crowd cheered me on... the time that Daikatana taught me the true meaning of sorrow will somehow always be more powerful." Which legendarily bad games have given you fondly hateful memories?

Comments

sheer wretchedness

[patch-rustem]

From the editorial:

Computer and video gaming is probably the only pastime on the planet where sheer wretchedness is one of the main drawing cards.

He obviously hasn't watched alot of US television.

Re:Extreme Paintbrawl

[PurpleFloyd]

How do you figure that? No matter what, the game had to have certain costs: pressing CDs, printing a manual (even if it's just a single sheet describing how to install Acrobat Reader), printing the box, shipping to retailers, and of course paying employees. While it's certainly possible to make a profit making bargain-bin games (look at Serious Sam), costs like pressing the first run of CDs and paying developers, marketroids, and managers are constant no matter how many copies you sell. While corners weren't as much cut as bombarded with tactical nuclear devices, I still can't see HeadGames making more than $5 per copy sold, or maybe $2.50 on the bare jewel case versions released after a while.

It seems to me that HeadGames went after the less PC-savvy market with the "Extreme" series of games; people who play paintball would probably, on average, have less computer knowledge than the general population (although I do know a few sysadmins, programmers and the like who play paintball, most of the people I know who like paintball aren't the computer-savvy type). Thus, it's possible to rip them off once or twice before they're turned off to HeadGames or gaming in general.

Another possiblity is a Producers-style scam; for some reason, the upper management wanted the company to fail. After all, word does get around about software, especially something as outstandingly awful as Extreme Paintbrawl. To ignore this fact is rather naive, and I am surprised that whoever was providing HeadGames with financial backing would continue supporting them after they saw a product as awful as Extreme Paintbrawl. Perhaps someone needed to lose money fast for some reason (taxes, laundering?) and decided to sink it into a POS company and run it into the ground.