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

Re:One game springs to mind.

[tiled_rainbows]

Mac Casino. I played it ten years ago, but it's probably significantly older than that. Not that being ancient makes it a bad game per se; it could have been reasonably cool; you had slots, roulette, blackjack (I think), and you could go from table to table, trying to increase your funds.

The only problem with it was that they forgot to reseed the randomiser function when you loaded the game, rendering the whole thing utterly useless.

So many to choose from ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've played lots of bad games, more than I care
to remember.

My most recent torment was caused by Masters of Orion 3. I loved 1 and 2 and anxiously awaited the release of the third. In my opinion all they had to do was update the graphics and add a couple of bells and whistles to get another truly outstanding title.

Instead I got the biggest load of crap I've ever played. The interface was torturous the mechanics beyond tedious. The AI is a moron when it works for you and genius when it's against you. I quickly found myself just clicking next turn repeatedly waiting for something, anything, interesting to happen.

MOO3 is my most recent and still most painful bad game memory but there are a few others that can stir up the desire to kill such as Outpost or Anarchy Online (initial release). AO is still my defining benchmark for bad mmorpg's and though I hear repeatedly how they have gotten much better the pain of that initial experience will forever prevent me from buying any FunCom game again, much less AO.

ET? Nobody's mentioned ET?

[HomeGroove]

I'm surprised that ET for the 2600 hasn't been mentioned yet. Jeeze, what a piece of crap that was. Crappy enough for Atari to dump 5 million copies down Mexico way.

Myst

[DavidLeblond]

I remember Myst being advertised as a 7th Guest killer, with better graphics and such. I got it home and low and behold, it was a slide show! And ever since then, everyone else figured slide show games were the way to go.

If anything were to kill adventure games, it would be the "slide show game" genre.

Re:Extreme Paintbrawl

[nelsonal]

I think they kept the games development time to a bare minimum, and got distribution thought walmart at a budget price, since the game was less than $20 and there was excellent foot traffic at walmart, it sold well enough to cover all their costs and make a ton of cash. HeadGames probably didn't need cash support after their first game was released.

Re:I have a whole list of dissappointments:

[ForemastJack]

Hm...

...look at eBay and see the outrageous prices it goes for, because nobody wants to part with their copy.

Wouldn't just not listing the game on eBay be a better solution?

Outpost was a tragedy

[PurpleFloyd]

The sad thing about Outpost was that it had such incredible potential. I remember that Sierra was very proud of the fact they had NASA doing science consultation on the game; if they had put half the effort used in marketing towards designing a good UI and doing a decent beta launch, Outpost would have had the potential to be a true classic. Hell, they would've had gamers lining up around the block three deep to get a chance to beta-test Outpost. It wasn't just the hype: people saw the potential in the concept.

A scientifically accurate game that put you as the leader of one of two colonies on a hostile world, that combined the best parts of SimCity with a bit of Civilization and the inherent coolness of space and Saving Humanity Itself, would have flown off store shelves. The original Outpost did, of course, but only for a couple of days as news of its crappiness dissiminated. If Sierra hadn't bungled Outpost so badly, gamers might still be playing it today. As it is, Outpost remains an exercise in tedium until you try to skip 10 or 15 turns, at which point your colony immediately dies out. Sigh... To think what could have been.

As for Outpost 2, it was a good effort. While the RTS aspect did sometimes feel at odds with the colonization scenario (would two colonies struggling to survive really attack each other?), for the most part it combined the "build a colony" and "crush the other guy" elements well; it had decent systems for both colony management and battles, one that would reward not only good tacticians but also good governors. At its core, it was a solid game that deserved more than it got. I don't think it ever could have been a true sequel to Outpost, or what Outpost should have been. At that point, Sierra wouldn't sink massive amounts of money into a franchise that had floundered on its maiden voyage. Frankly, I'm surprised Outpost 2 ever got past the idea stage - the name practically guaranteed dismal sales. Still, the developers turned out a surprisingly good game, considering the burden of its name.

Re:Ikaruga

[n0wak]

Exactly! Most people here seem to be just blindly responding with their lists of disappointments, which seems off topic, but the parent is absolutely correct.

I love Ikaruga. My favourite game of the year. Yet it pisses me off something fierce, and it frustrates me the likes of which I haven't seen since the 16-bit era. I toss my controller in frustration; I shout obscenities at it; and I scream out loud: "I HATE THIS DAMNED GAME!!" -- but I return everytime, and I love it.