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On The Most Boring Videogames Of All Time

Posted by simoniker on from the snoozeworthy dept.

Thanks to 1UP.com for its feature documenting what the writers consider to be the most boring videogames ever. The intro explains the criteria: "These ten games weren't necessarily bad or good -- they were just really, really dull", before pointing to titles like Donkey Kong 64 ("a mediocre platformer bogged down by forty hours of useless doodad-hunting"), King's Field ("It's kind of like an RPG, and it's kind of like an FPS, but mostly it's like falling asleep"), and Aquanaut's Holiday ("...doesn't really have a point -- it's a blocky, dithered simulation of what it's presumably like to go deep sea diving.") What would your pick be?

154 comments

  1. Gotta be... by Dizzle · · Score: 1

    Xenosaga. My god, I've never been so bored during a game before. It was almost a chore to get through it. Luckily I cut my losses and sold it.

    --
    -Dizzle
    "I most likely AM so interested in myself."
    1. Re:Gotta be... by TRACK-YOUR-POSITION · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Seriously. In fact, I think Satan created this game--which had no random encounters but huge completely empty areas one was required to wander through until you met a mysterious set of conditions, as a "be careful what you wish for!" joke on everyone who hates random encounters.

    2. Re:Gotta be... by Spleener12 · · Score: 1

      Well, Parish has already given Xenosaga enough abuse. I'd also link his review of it on his personal site, but it was taken down quite a while ago.

    3. Re:Gotta be... by Lynxara · · Score: 1

      Xenosaga is one of those games where I wonder why they just didn't sit down and make a TV series. That's obviously what they really wanted to do; the cut-ins get a million bazillion times more effort put into them than the gameplay, which got repetitive and irritating really fast.

    4. Re:Gotta be... by Lovebug2000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      GAH!

      For years, I've wanted something with a deep plot, decent graphics, meaningful characters, and a good music score.

      I've had to live with Final Fantasy et al to be the best I could get in this regard. Yes, what I wanted was a TV show on my playstation. If you ever look at what it takes to make a TV show and make it work, you'll see you can't just blow millions on it and make it, the competition is too fierce, especially in the japanese animated market. But there is a great niche market in video games for this type of thing.

      Yeah, if you go into XS thinking you are going to be doing more than playing an interactive philosophical book, you will be bored out of your mind. But how could you NOT know that this would happen, considering every review out there pastes this fact all over the place.

      No, XS isn't boring, it's a book, and a pretty decent one at that. Treat it any different, and you'll be disappointed.

    5. Re:Gotta be... by ajutla · · Score: 1

      Dude. You're absolutely right. I mean, I liked Xenogears, the "sort-of-prequel;" I thought it was fun and had a pretty in-depth plot. Xenosaga just went completely overboard and was this long, drawn-out, half-assed anime with a game thrown in seemingly as an afterthought. And it would have maybe been all right if the story was interesting, but it wasn't; it was just random, badly-written gibberish that made no damn sense at all. And when you weren't watching boring plot scenes you were walking through these freaking gigantic dungeons fighting the same battles over and over again. That's actually where I put the game down--in that "inside the Gnosis" dungeon that never seemed to end.

    6. Re:Gotta be... by GTarrant · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I think, if one wants to go for console RPGs, that I would cast a vote towards Beyond the Beyond.

      Back before the PSX became the de facto standard for 'traditional' RPGs, all you really had was King's Field to sate any RPG desire. Then came...Beyond the Beyond! I know a ton of people that bought it (including my roommates and I back in our dorm) solely because it was the first traditional console RPG out for the PSX in the US.

      Big mistake.

      The story was incredibly uninteresting, the characters bland, the dialogue pure tripe, and the dungeons were huge, but every room looked the same. The graphics were listed as "3D!!!!" but in reality, battles were done by 2D sprites on a 3D plane - as the camera "moved around" the 3D plane, the sprite would of course not move until the camera moved 90 degrees, when a different sprite would be loaded and placed there for that character instead.

      But the worst was the battles. The encounter rate was higher than I've ever seen in an RPG. In the giant mazelike dungeons, it wasn't uncommon for there to be battles every 3-4 steps you took. And in the battles, they had this system they called "Active Battling". In the instructions, it said something like, hit the button right when you're attacking, and you'll do more damage...or hit it when they're attacking you, and you might defend. At least, that's what it said. In reality, it seemed like mad (and tiring, if you didn't have a turbo controller) button mashing was the only thing that triggered it, and even then, it did so randomly, making the battles not only boring, but tiring, too!

      Ugh. What a letdown. Whomever at Sony greenlighted that one should have been shot.

      T.

    7. Re:Gotta be... by Kyouryuu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Truly.

      I liked the original Xenogears, even in spite of the text... that... read... like... this. The storyline was cool and there were lots of evil characters from the outset, only to be bested by one of them, and then we're left to question whether or not said character was really evil in the first place. And I liked how the intro cinematic was just this disconnected, looming scene until about three-quarters in the game when it finally begins to come together.

      But Xenosaga was a pithy, monumental mess of a game. It lacked any of the interesting characters from the first game. It bastardized the battle system from the first game. It recited its storyline like it was some demented gospel. And it took itself so damn seriously, I honestly laughed. The best part is getting e-mail from this futuristic world, talking about nonsense like AGWS converters, that the game takes for granted I'm supposed to instantly understand. I guess that's what the huge built-in encyclopedia is for. Lame.

    8. Re:Gotta be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FYI - Xenosaga *is* the first game. Xenogears simply exists as a source of material for the universe Xenosaga is developing. Effectively, it's Chapter 5 in the series, but it has already been stated that Namco plans to overwrite Xenogears when they eventually get to Chapter 5.

    9. Re:Gotta be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Speaking of the aforementioned text speed in Xenogears, there's a GameShark code that fixes this problem.

    10. Re:Gotta be... by TRACK-YOUR-POSITION · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, even though I hated the gameplay of xenosaga and eventually sold the game halfway through (too much running down empty hallways), I kind of liked those stupid cutesy future emails and pseudoscience. The one I remember the best was how there was a bug in the nanotechnology that produced buildings, and therefore there were locked "Secret Rooms" throughout the entire game. Like they needed a stupid sci-fi explanation for every convention and cliche of the RPG genre.

    11. Re:Gotta be... by Kyouryuu · · Score: 1

      Frightening part is, you just know someone lost sleep trying to come up with that excuse. ;)

  2. Championship Manager by Killjoy_NL · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't think this is flamebait because I know a shitload of people love this game series, but for the life of me, I can't see the appeal of the game.

    To me it's nothing more than a glorified spreadsheet.

    (not giving one iota about soccer is also a factor I think)

    --
    This is the sig that says NI (again)
    1. Re:Championship Manager by Kyouryuu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It probably appeals to the same folk who enjoy the fantasy sports on Yahoo though. People who don't like sports or staring at statistics, vicariously living their lives through professional athletes, probably can't ever understand.

  3. Wha?!?! by kinema · · Score: 1

    Where the hell is Pitfall? Pitfall has to be the most boring game on the planet, hands down.

    1. Re:Wha?!?! by mo^ · · Score: 1

      only pitfall i remember is the old zx81 (i think?) and amstrad cpc464 game where you had to jump over pits and swing on ropes... that was fucking cool back then!! i loved it, combined the swinging of the Roland games with the death thrill of amnic miner

      --
      bah!*@%!
  4. pretty much says it all by vehn23 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In fact, we're at a loss to remember any of this game's specifics.

    But yet, its apparently one of the boringest games of all times. Now that's journalism.

    1. Re:pretty much says it all by Spleener12 · · Score: 1

      In their defense, aside from a few unique ways of doing things, it(Paladin's Quest) was basically a (crappy)generic console RPG. Part of what made it bad was its constant demanding of you to stop and walk around in circles to gain levels every step of the way. One of the few things that made it unique was that instead of having an MP stat, you basically spent HP to cast spells. Woo. Any number of unique ideas in it were crushed by the fact that the story, graphics, and music seemed to all be conspiring to lull you to sleep. In fact, that's probably why they forget most of PQ's specifics- they fell asleep and forgot it all before they could get anything down.

  5. 2. Lufia: The Legend Returns by Elledan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Having played this game, I must say that I didn't consider the dungeons to be especially boring, although it might be that my expectations were just really low :p

    Anyway, whereas Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES) is definitely one of the best RPGs, the mind-numbing music (not like any GB games ever had 'good' music), among other factors, of this GBC-sequel eventually turned me off.

    So, in retrospect, I don't disagree with calling Lufia: TLR a 'boring' game, although I would like to blame this partially on the platform it was made for, and the limitations this imposed.
    Something like the PSX version (Lufia III, cancelled) might (should) have kicked much ass.

    --
    Site & blog: http://www.mayaposch.com
    1. Re:2. Lufia: The Legend Returns by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      L:TLR isn't Lufia 1 or a remake of Lufia 1...that was on the SNES (and was sort of okay, I guess). It's an insanely tedious spinoff.

  6. Metroid by Korgrath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ok, I don't mean to get nintendo fans mad at me, but I always found the Metroid games very boring. Sure, when you get to explore and fight bosses they're a total blast! But it suffers from something that I believe to be the biggest drag in any video games, backtracking. Even with a pretty face like Metriod Prime, backtracking is still backtracking, and doing things like trudging from one point to get an item or flip a switch, only to have to go back through the same area a dozen times or so doing fetch quests, it get's very old and repetitive.

    --
    Theory of flight?! I'll teach you the theory of fist!!
    1. Re:Metroid by vslashg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      To each his own, of course. The purpose of this point is not to convince you that you really do like backtracking (you don't), but to explain why I do.

      The reason I like this aspect of Metroid is how non-linear it can make a linear game feel. Whenever you get a new ability in Metroid Prime, three or four missile packs as well as the next big powerup become accessible. What's great is the obsticles were right out in the open... the game teases you with spider tracks for the first hour until you get a spider ball, for example. Get the spider ball and the world opens up all over the map (though to a very small degree near most of the tracks). Backtracking (to me) doesn't feel so tedious when you're trying to get to five points on the map at once, and you don't know which one is the "important" one.

      All of the new GBA Metroid games (and Metroid Prime if you don't explicitly go into the options and turn it off) have an annoying hint system, which highlight a portion of the map and tell you to "go here next". This completely ruins the otherwise open-world feel that all previous Metroid games enjoyed. Playing Metroid Prime with help turned off is a must, and certainly you should pass up any of the new GBA offerings.

    2. Re:Metroid by Kyouryuu · · Score: 1

      Metroid isn't so much about switch-hunting through. The idea is that on the way to get a super item, you notice places you can't reach with your current powers. Once you get that item, you recur on all of those places where it might be useful. And chances are, you'll reach some new place in the world and explore it, find some other item, and be dumped out in a very familiar location in the game. Backtracking is only bound to get worse in games, I think. As developers fervently try to make every game Final Fantasy length, and as worlds become increasingly more time-consuming to build, developers are going to naturally seek to reuse as much content as they can get away with.

    3. Re:Metroid by moonbender · · Score: 2, Informative

      As developers fervently try to make every game Final Fantasy length, and as worlds become increasingly more time-consuming to build, developers are going to naturally seek to reuse as much content as they can get away with.

      The conclusion is, of course, to make content creation easier. And I'm sure this is already being done: instead of creating a chair from scratch, I guess most world editors offer chair templates.

      An extreme example of "Rapid World Developement" is the Neverwinter Nights editor, which also brings up the danger this can pose: everything kind of looks the same. But then, the NWN editor probably was balanced too much towards easy usability to enable players instead of professionals developers to easily create maps.
      Nevertheless, I'm sure in the future even tools targeted at professionals will enable them to create world as rapidly and actually much more rapidly than in the NWN editor. Instead of creating a tavern yourself, there might be a "tavern wizard" which creates a tavern complete with associated NPCs, side-quests and so on. Conceivable the same goes for whole cities.
      The side-quests could be drawn from a huge pool of quests developed by other folks and dynamically adjusted to the context they're used in: "Go to the carpenter and buy a replacement chair for the one you broke." in the tavern, "Go to the tailor and fetch the the curtains I ordered for a reward." in an NPCs home.
      The main story then could be woven into the template world manually by the designer. Heh - it's fun to make this up. ;)

      The final utopian way of world creation, of course, just takes a verbal description and transforms it into the right world, always doing the Right Thing when the input is too vague - a la Star Trek. I guess that's still some ways off. :)

      --
      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    4. Re:Metroid by MMaestro · · Score: 1

      Indeed, the first three Metroid games were originally all about having a non-linear feel when you knew the game was linear. The only problem with this system, and the main reason as to why its not used anymore, is the fact that its insanely time consuming to track down every door/power-up/secret. Don't forget, this was a time when the only map you had was a map you drew on a piece of graph paper using a pencil and estimating the length of a room.

    5. Re:Metroid by jensen404 · · Score: 1

      The original Metroid had really long repetitive hallways and no guide on which way to go, forcing you to go through the same areas several times. It also had no auto map. I've never liked it.

      What I really liked about Metroid Prime is that every room in the game is unique. And the environments are great... tree roots forming cracks in ruins and running along the walls... stuff like that. It also gives you objectives. When you aquire a new item in MP, it gives you new abilities. That is much more fun than a switch.

      I played a couple of hours of Halo single-player, and I found the environments to be quite drab. And from what I've heard, they are repetitive too (something about a library level?).

      I'd rather have a smaller game with a great environment (great artistically, not just technically), then have a larger game with uninspiring locales.

    6. Re:Metroid by Kyouryuu · · Score: 1
      That's part of it. UnrealEd has a similar thing going with the concept of static meshes, high-poly decorative objects that are shared between all maps.

      But another part of it is reusing entire parts of the world. A random RPG Town could be visited time and again as the quest proceeds. It might be for a weapon that appears there early on, or a particularly omniscient NPC.

    7. Re:Metroid by Osty · · Score: 1

      Playing Metroid Prime with help turned off is a must, and certainly you should pass up any of the new GBA offerings.

      I'd suggest the exact opposite. The play control in Prime is horrid enough that you must have the help system turned on, or you have no idea where you need to go next (and even with the help system on, it's not that big of a help). While I like a good exploration game as much as the next guy, Prime just couldn't overcome its control scheme for me (and I didn't just play 5 minutes and throw it down in a huff -- I have probably 20 hours into my current game of Prime, though my GCN is on loan to a friend at the moment).


      On the other hand, the help system on the map in the GBA games is easily ignored, and they're much more fun and true to the spirit of the original Metroid games. Fusion was good, but Zero Mission was awesome (and has the original Metroid available as an unlockable bonus, too!). Great 2D graphics, great 2D gameplay, a familiar but expanded story and environment, and a real addition to the Samus Aran mythos make the game almost perfect for any Metroid fan. If you loved the original metroid games (Metroid and Super Metroid mostly, Metroid II was a bit of an anamoly in my opinion), forget about Prime and buy Zero Mission.

  7. a c64 classic by Lu+Xun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The Great Escape for the C64, a mostly monochromatic (except for the little border around the tiny game screen) simulation of escape from a German concentration camp. During the day, you had to go through the routine of a prisoner or risk being put in solitary. Solitary involved looking at your character in a locked room until the guards let you out. If you didn't touch the joystick for 5 mins, the game took over for you.

    I never had the patience to collect all the items and info needed for escape; I think my character just died from boredom.

    --
    That's not a soda... it's a caffeine delivery device!
    1. Re:a c64 classic by Dot.Com.CEO · · Score: 1

      The screenshot you linked to was to the Spectrum version of the game. As far as I can remember, the C64 version was significantly better-looking. Also, I don't remember the game being so boring, but I do remember that it was hailed as the best game ever when it came out...

      --
      Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
    2. Re:a c64 classic by antime · · Score: 1

      Nope, the C64 version looked just like that as well.

    3. Re:a c64 classic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sounds exactly like Prisoner of War for the PS2...

    4. Re:a c64 classic by Oshuma.Shiroki · · Score: 1

      I never had the patience to collect all the items and info needed for escape; I think my character just died from boredom.

      Or a Luger pistol shot to the head! What have you done?? Shindler would be disappointed. ;)

  8. Tekken by wick3t · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not a big fan of 3D beat-em-ups. No matter how much I try to like them, I can't. They just don't hold the same ground as 2D fighters like Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Samurai Spirits, Killer Instinct, and more recently SVC Chaos. Of all the 3D beat-em-ups, the Tekken games have to be the worst/most boring. I've beaten seasoned Tekken players by just button bashing. I played Soul Calibur 2 for the first time the other day with some friends and won the majority of games and they didn't want to believe that I had never played it before. Not my idea of fun.

    1. Re:Tekken by sni · · Score: 1

      Hehe, but I like Tekken and SB for the same reason! It's mostly a matter of timing and maybe sidestepping.. great fun in exactly the situation you mentioned haha - but still, against someone knowing all the moves you do NOT stand a chance with button bashing =P It's even more fun when you play with lots of energy and it's about throwing each other out of the ring ;)

    2. Re:Tekken by hgcrpd · · Score: 1
      You're either really good at these games (Tekken, Soul Calibur II, etc.), and therefore can win consistently, or you're not. It's still fun to half button mash and half know what you're doing and stumble upon some crazy combo.

      This one time, I was playing Ivy in Soul Calibur II. I threw the other guy out of the ring, but then accidentally speared him in the air and pulled him back into the ring...

    3. Re:Tekken by mo^ · · Score: 1

      Must say i never much liked any 1 on 1 fighting games (loved the whole double dragon, vigilante) thing though....

      My problem was that i never owned a console so never knew any special moves and combos and shit and most lads are just assholes and dont share that info.....

      but now i tame their pussy asses all over Generals... muhahahahaha

      --
      bah!*@%!
  9. Genesis Beat-em-ups by dstillz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Some of the later (especially superhero-oriented) beat-em-ups on the Sega Genesis were awfully boring.

    I eagerly purchased Spider-Man and Venom: Separation Anxiety, expecting it to be as enjoyable as the original Maximum Carnage, but it was drudgery.

    The Tick is quite possibly the most boring game ever, with hours and hours of monotonous fighting. "Night of a Million Zillion Ninjas," indeed. Falling into pits and being forced to play the same miniboss/cutscene challenges over and over was worst of all.

    Most of the Batman games for Genesis were horrid. Batman Returns had mundane combat, mixed with some absurdly difficult timed jumping. The Adventures of Batman and Robin had extremely boring combat, except that the occasional tit-for-tat enemy who gave as good as he got and required a bit of movement in the vertical plane. Batman Forever had great motion-capture graphics, but frustratingly repetitive combat.

    Other bad Genesis beat-em-up games include Captain America and the Avengers, the second X-Men game, and the last 2 16-bit Shinobi games.

    You couldn't pay me to play Superman or The Incredible Hulk. I actually used the latter cartridge, along with a broken copy of Sub-Terrania, to prop up my desk hutch during my freshman year of college.

    Early Genesis beat-em-ups could be quite fun. I loved the Golden Axe and Streets of Rage series, Altered Beast, and the original Maximum Carnage. I find most of the "good" games to still be playable today.

    1. Re:Genesis Beat-em-ups by Deraj+DeZine · · Score: 1
      Spider-Man and Venom: Separation Anxiety

      I got bored during the first level in that game. Maximum Carnage was cool, though.

      --
      True story.
    2. Re:Genesis Beat-em-ups by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

      Now wait a second there. Do not, I said do NOT, dare to insult Shinobi 3 - Return of the Ninja Master. That was one of the most fun and intense action games ever made.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
    3. Re:Genesis Beat-em-ups by dstillz · · Score: 1

      If by fun and intense, you mean mindlessly repetitive. It also suffered from stiff controls and "doesn't feel as good as later 16-bit games" graphics.

      If it had played more like Strider or Golden Axe, or been smoother, I'd have liked it more. It feels stilted, rushed, and old-fashioned to me.

      The early Shinobi games were better. I stand by that statement. III and Shadow Dancer are hardly playable anymore. I put them in front of my younger cousins, and found that they prefered Revenge of Shinobi and even the SMS original to the later Genesis games. The older games pass the "controllers don't get thrown" test.

    4. Re:Genesis Beat-em-ups by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

      Yeah, let them get to the wharf. And if they survive that, witness their despair as they face the labyrinth. Let's see if the controllers won't get thrown... Revenge of Shinobi is cool, but these parts are hell! Shinobi 3 is much more fluid.

      --
      Circumcision is child abuse.
  10. Why Donkey Kong 64? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And not Starfox Adventures or Grabbed by the Ghoulies?

    1. Re:Why Donkey Kong 64? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DK 64's hunting for various crap goes so far beyond the hunting for items in those two games that it isn't even funny.

  11. Aquanaut's Holiday by Kris_J · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have Aquanaut's Holiday and I recall it being an enjoyable, soothing game. There was a vast array of creatures to see, an interesting evironment to explore and an artificial reef to build. Any game with leafy sea dragons scores highly in my book.

  12. My vote goes to.. by antime · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Japanese console RPGs. Nothing like a one-hour game that's extended to 40+ hours by including tons and tons of irritating, unavoidable random encounters.
    There's little more tedious than having to trudge through endless maze dungeons where you can take at most five steps before having to waste another couple of minutes fighting some stupid creature that popped out of nowhere. Add to that mechanics that were outdated twenty years ago (seriously, compare the early Ultimas and the latest and greatest out of Japan, and after you've scraped away the candy-coating you're left with a far less enjoyable game) and you're forced to draw the conclusion that they're designed for lobotomy victims

    1. Re:My vote goes to.. by Otter · · Score: 1

      It's a beautiful game and I enjoyed it for a while but -- Shenmue. "Sailors, eh? Try looking in bars."

      --
      What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
    2. Re:My vote goes to.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you'll find a lot of people who disagree with you, especially since Tales of Symphonia is one of the best selling games this year (and will probably be like one of the best games from this year)

    3. Re:My vote goes to.. by GrassMunk · · Score: 1

      Tales doesnt have 'random encounters' instead they made it more like Chronotrigger and put in little avatars that represent enemies (similar to Zelda II). So if you want to continue on with the plot you can just run around them. And i happen to agree the random encounters sucked in all the japanese games. Nothing like being in a hurry to get to the castle only to have to sit through 5 minutes of button mashing.

  13. Shenmue ?? by IntergalacticWalrus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What? No Shenmue on the list?

    I never really understood why people actually liked this game. It was boring as hell, as most of the "gameplay" was dialogue and wandering around, and the only real moments of interactivity were mini-games (the two classic Sega arcade games were more fun than the rest of the game!), a poorly executed battle system, and Dragon's Lair-style sequences that while being very nostalgic, aren't very fun.

    I stopped playing the game when I reached that point where you get a job carrying crates with a forklift. That was completely uninteresting, and a complete waste of my time. I don't play videogames to do fake work. I have enough work in real life, and in RL I actually get real money. What the hell is wrong with the people who made this game ??

    1. Re:Shenmue ?? by Yorrike · · Score: 2, Funny
      Shenmue deserves a top 20 position on the boring list, but not a top 10.

      This Penny_arcade comic pretty much sums it up: http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2000-11 -15

      --

      Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?

    2. Re:Shenmue ?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      there was a nasty bug in shenmue 1. when working the forklift job, you should do it 2 days. on the second day, there is a random encounter, and the plot progresses. the thing is... there are 2 ways to drive the forklift, and if you pik the wrong way, the encounter never happens.

      my friend spend about 8 hours driving virtual forklift before he broke down and looked it up, maybe this happened to you?

    3. Re:Shenmue ?? by CoolGuySteve · · Score: 1

      Can you tell me where I can find some sailors?

    4. Re:Shenmue ?? by steeef · · Score: 2, Interesting

      G4/TechTV had a poll for the worst video games ever, and Shenmue was near the top. Personally, I love the game, but I can understand the reason a lot of people don't. They're expecting a greater action/story ratio.

      I like to think of Shenmue as a good mystery novel, whereas most video games are like an action movie. It's easy to enjoy an action movie, as there is (usually) not a complex plot to follow, and there are enough action sequences to keep you interested. A good novel is harder to get into than an action movie, but can be a lot more rewarding in the end.

    5. Re:Shenmue ?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think liking this game just comes down to some kind of genetic thing that can't be explained. I personally really enjoyed this game (although, yes, even I can admit it got tedious to ask the same question to everyone at times... "about that day..?").

      Still, it was unlike any other game, and I actually found the forklift driving to be quite fun... sure beat the hell out of the crate lifting in Shenmue II :)

    6. Re:Shenmue ?? by raygundan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I kinda liked the game right up until that forklift part. You could ignore all the myriad sidequests for the most part, although I was raising the kitten because it was on my way to and from everywhere.

      But the forklift work scene? Gahh. If you quit when you get there, the game's not half-bad. I pity the fool who spent hours "working" in that warehouse just to get to the end.

  14. A few suggestions by RogueyWon · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Not played all of the games mentioned in the article, although I agree with the author on those that I have. A few further suggestions:

    Halo (single-player): sure, the multiplayer's fun, but single-player Halo seemed to basically amount to killing vast numbers of identical monsters over and over again with a couple of samey weapons, while moving between identical rooms. Fun for the first 30 minutes, then unadulterated tedium.

    Unlimited Saga: Normally, I love Squaresoft's games, but god only knows what they were thinking with this one. Hideous interface, soul-destroying combat system a plot it's hard to care about and dismal visuals.

    Resident Evil: sure, it may have pretty much single-handedly created the Survival Horror genre, but when I finally got around to playing this, I was struck by just how tedious it was and how much backtracking it involved. The Silent Hill games and Forbidden Siren are far superior.

    Gran Turismo 4: Prologue: I'm sure the final product will rock, but why anybody would want to spend more than 15 minutes playing this is beyond me (yes, I am just bitter because I spent 20 quid on it).

    UFO Aftermath: I bought this expecting an update of the old X-com formula. Instead, I find they've gutted out everything that made the X-com games enjoyable and not even updated the graphics significantly.

    All of these would have to be in my top 10 most boring games. Other dishonourable mentions - bad, but not quite bad enough to make it into the top list - would include: Aliens vs Predator Extinction, Zelda: Wind Walker, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Unreal 2 and all of the Tomb Raider sequels.

    1. Re:A few suggestions by saintm · · Score: 1

      What a load of old tosh!

      Resident Evil boring? Halo humdrum? Zelda: Wind Waker yawn inducing?

      You are dead inside.

    2. Re:A few suggestions by Robmonster · · Score: 1

      If you liked the X-Com games, then check out the link in my Sig.

      You'll love it!

      RM

      --
      I have no sig yet I must scream.
    3. Re:A few suggestions by RogueyWon · · Score: 1

      Resident Evil: I came to this fairly late, in its Gamecube incarnation, having already played the excellent Silent Hill games and Forbidden Siren. I couldn't believe how much random wandering around and backtracking seemed to be involved, which really wasn't helped by either the annoying control system or the strictly limited inventory. I know survival horror games are supposed to be fairly slow-paced, but I object to artificial contrivances designed to make me play "ferry the items around".

      Halo *is* boring, once you've played around with the vehicles for half an hour and seen the basic weapons and enemies. After this, you've got umpteen hours of fighting through identikit rooms against identical enemies. The guys at Bungie seem to have a serious fixation with the "copy" and "paste" functions.

      Wind Walker would, I knew, be contraversial, because it has such a fairly rabid fanbase. This is partly why I'm so negative about it. I bought it (and a Gamecube at the same time) largely on the basis of the floods of praise I'd read about it from a number of sources, most particularly on slashdot. To find out that it was just a fairly boring platformer, with a plot that sent me to sleep, tedious dungeons and serious amounts of time spent just travelling between locations was a real let-down.

      The dullest games aren't always the fairly-obscure 10 year old console releases. There's plenty of tedium in the sales-charts on the most modern systems.

  15. DK64 had good boss fights at least by kisrael · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Too much damn collecting, but DK64 had some excellent boss fights...maybe Rare realized the dichotomy, because once you beat a boss you could select the fight from a menu off of the title screen. So I give them some kudos for that.

    --
    SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  16. three little words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    sega
    bass
    fishing

  17. Worst videogame of all time by veganjay · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well I know that it is not always true that "worst = most boring".
    But, Barbie for the C64 can definitely qualify for both! Get this:

    Ken calls Barbie, asks, "Would you like to go to dinner?". She says "sure", and he replies, "Great! Pick you up in an hour." So she drives around and goes shopping for clothes for dinner, gets her hair done, etc.

    Ken calls back, "Barbie, plans have changed! Would you like to go to the prom? Pick you up in an hour." She drives, shops, Barbisizes some more.

    However, when she gets home, Ken is again indecisive: "Barbie plans have changed! Want to go to the movies? Pick you up in an hour"

    Finally Ken makes up his f*ckin mind and they goto whatever final destination he chose after Barbie has spent several hours answering to his every whim!

    Not only is this the worst game, but what does this teach our children? To be ready for whatever demands Ken makes, not having any input for the decision, and making unreallistic demands like getting ready for "a Prom" in an hour?!?

    1. Re:Worst videogame of all time by Sigma+7 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Ken calls Barbie, asks, "Would you like to go to dinner?". She says "sure", and he replies, "Great! Pick you up in an hour." So she drives around and goes shopping for clothes for dinner, gets her hair done, etc.

      Ken calls back, "Barbie, plans have changed! Would you like to go to the prom? Pick you up in an hour." She drives, shops, Barbisizes some more.


      IIRC, you had to return home on the hour to proceed to the next step. It's one of the more obscure things that I might recall from the game (don't ask). If you return too early, you get the change in plans (but the game might eventually give up with early returns and let you finish anyway), and if you return too late, the game ends.

      I haven't played that game in 15 years (and that's a good thing). Thus, details are naturally very sketchy.


      Not only is this the worst game, but what does this teach our children? To be ready for whatever demands Ken makes, not having any input for the decision, and making unreallistic demands like getting ready for "a Prom" in an hour?!?
      Well, it is a perfect emulation of a standard Barbie doll - frequent changes in clothing done very rapidly, along with the Ken doll appearing after the final change...

      Then again, Barbie dolls aren't that interesting anyway.
    2. Re:Worst videogame of all time by veganjay · · Score: 1

      Forgot to mention that it was my little sister playing the game ;)

      Although the one cool thing about the game is that you can give Barbie green hair like a punk rocker. Which is kind of funny - I used to do the same thing with her Barbie dolls - cut the hair with scissors and die it green with food coloring! (oh she absolutely loved that!)

    3. Re:Worst videogame of all time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't be so hard on Ken... After all you would most likely have mental problems too if you lacked genitals and had underwear stamped right on to your body.

    4. Re:Worst videogame of all time by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 1

      How hard would it have been for the makers to come up with a Barbie Dream Labyrinth, complete with a BFG, triple armor and quad damage. That'd teach Ken to keep changing those stupid plans.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
  18. Mazes by Flyboy+Connor · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Old text adventures had mazes. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the maze, the more boring the adventure. Later on adventure makers caught on, and either delivered games without a maze, or put in "a maze with a twist".

    Unfortunately, when some nincompoop license holder thinks it is a good idea to create an adventure game based on his license, he invariably seems to give the assignment to a game developers that know squat-all about adventures. And thus, we see "Star Trek DS9: Harbinger". Not only a terribly boring and unattractive game, but also the game with the biggest, saddest, slowest, and most irritating 3D maze it has ever been my misfortune to wade through.

    I stopped playing "Myst" when I got in the underground maze, came to a dead end, and realised I had to track back for at least 10 minutes to get to the right path again. Can't say Myst is a boring game on the whole, but in the maze it sank to the pits.

    Strangely, some games that were fun to play 15-20 years ago are terribly boring nowadays. Who remembers "The Bard's Tale"? Who enjoyed it? And who would loathe to play it today?

    1. Re:Mazes by dstillz · · Score: 1

      I remember the Bard's Tale, but it was actually before my time. I got it on a disk of pirated games from a guy my Dad worked with, when I was about 8.

      I can still play through the PC version of the first game from memory, and did so recently, in a let's-boot-up-the-386-for-friends demonstration that included Neuromancer and other fine "guess which word you're supposed to say to the character" games. The Mac and NES versions seem unbearably slow to me now.

      I never really enjoyed the Bard's Tale games, especially because I'd already seen Doom, Wolfenstein, and Shadow Warrior. Beating them was a matter of principle. The third one was beyond a shadow of a doubt the worst.

    2. Re:Mazes by Sigma+7 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Old text adventures had mazes. As a rule of thumb, the bigger the maze, the more boring the adventure. Later on adventure makers caught on, and either delivered games without a maze, or put in "a maze with a twist".
      While I can tolerate mazes within text adventures (technically, the entire map is a maze), pushing things to the extreme will get annoying, such as the infamous "You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike."

      Not only that, but some of those text adventure games (such as Adventure) also had a time limit on how long you could play, by either having a limited amount of battery power for your lamp, or by some other limitiation.

      I stopped playing "Myst" when I got in the underground maze, came to a dead end, and realised I had to track back for at least 10 minutes to get to the right path again. Can't say Myst is a boring game on the whole, but in the maze it sank to the pits.
      There is a solution for a maze - when you enter a node for the maze, you hear an audio sound that gives a hint on the direction you are supposed to go. It's possible to learn the sounds from the world with gears, but can be learned through "trial and error" within the maze.

      However, this maze is still annoying due to the long transition times, especially since there is no indication on whether or not you are on the right track at any point. (The audio alert that I mentioned doesn't count, since it incorrectly assumes that the player is always capable of hearing such information.)

      Strangely, some games that were fun to play 15-20 years ago are terribly boring nowadays. Who remembers "The Bard's Tale"? Who enjoyed it? And who would loathe to play it today?
      I wouldn't exactly loathe that particular game, but I tend to prefer other game genres over RPGs because of the amount of time spent levelling up your characters to ensure that they can defeat the end-game boss. The only issue would be the lack of map and the encounters that pop-up randonly, but that is not too much of an issue considering the maximum complexity of the engine at the time.

      (BTW, I heard that one player managed to get an unlimited number of songs from his bard. Don't know how it happened or how to reproduce it, but the infinite healing songs basically made his party invulnerable.)

      I wouldn't loathe other old games, provided that there aren't any annoying puzzles or mazes. As long as the game is designed properly, there is no problem playing it at all.

    3. Re:Mazes by nuggetman · · Score: 1

      And let's not forget the not one but two (three?) annoying as hell maze sequences in Max Payne.

      If i hadn't had 5.1 to be able to listen where the screams/cries were coming from, I never could have finished them.

      --
      ...and that's all there is to it.
    4. Re:Mazes by chris411 · · Score: 1

      Strangely, some games that were fun to play 15-20 years ago are terribly boring nowadays. Who remembers "The Bard's Tale"? Who enjoyed it? And who would loathe to play it today? I remember wasting months on the first Bard's Tale. Literally. While I liked it, the main reason was that I was stuck -- possibly for more than a year, before I broke down and bought the hint book. (Turned out I had missed a single square inside a dark area.) At least, by then, my party had leveled up enough to easily beat the monsters within the remaining dungeons.

    5. Re:Mazes by dstillz · · Score: 1

      Same here, the first time around. And I was even drawing my own maps, with what I thought was completeness.

      The Bard's Tale series and other Interplay games from that period, like Neuromancer, could be punishing, if you didn't know exactly what word to say to a character, or if you'd missed that one crucial item that you had to give to someone. Luckily, game saves were easily hacked.

    6. Re:Mazes by Kris_J · · Score: 1

      I loathed Bard's Tale back when it first came out. Even then I didn't have the time needed in a single sitting to play some of the major tasks and get back to the save point.

    7. Re:Mazes by Nyder · · Score: 1

      Bard's Tale is fondly remembered by me. It was, I think, my first RPG I ever played.

      It's actually being remade. here's the offical link: http://www.thebardstale.com/

      Here's a few reviews:
      http://www.gamezone.com/gamesell/p22973.htm
      and
      http://www.pcgameworld.com/details.php/id/5184/ that one is a link to a mov of the game
      here's another:
      http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/bards-tale/498130p1.html
      and here's the last I grabbed for you:
      http://pc.ign.com/articles/512/512557p1.html

      --
      Be seeing you...
    8. Re:Mazes by golgotha007 · · Score: 1

      one of the great things about maze type adventures is you get to break out on the pencils and graph paper!

      Some of the best games i did this for was Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (C64), Bards Tale (C64), Eye of the Beholder (Amiga) and all of the AD&D games (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Champions of Krynn, etc, etc on the Amiga). Damn, now that I think of it, those gold box AD&D games absolutely rocked!

      It just seems that there's more magic in those older games. perhaps in the newer games, gameplay actually gets covered up by fancy graphics.

    9. Re:Mazes by LSD-25 · · Score: 1

      I drew my own world map for Ultima IV. It filled twenty pages of graph paper.

  19. Panzer Dragoon Orta by bigman2003 · · Score: 2, Funny

    This was one of the most boring games I've played in a long, long, long time.

    Sure, it looks pretty. But the gameplay consisted of me basically holding down the 'A' button to shoot.

    I got through the first level, and to the first bossfight. Basically I circled some big ship for about 10 minutes until it finally blew up.

    Then the next level I was flying up some river, and went past some butterflies- then the butterflies started to attack me in some way, so I held down the A button there. Then finally two giant caterpillars started attacking me.

    I didn't have the patience to hold down A long enough to see what was next.

    --
    No reason to lie.
    1. Re:Panzer Dragoon Orta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, this game is in my top 10... You should have pressed B and C. That would have varied your gameplay a little. O yeah and Halo single player was painfully boring... But then again so was the longest journey.

    2. Re:Panzer Dragoon Orta by bigman2003 · · Score: 1

      Well, I loved Halo...you should have pulled the right trigger- that would have made it better.

      To each his own...

      --
      No reason to lie.
    3. Re:Panzer Dragoon Orta by antime · · Score: 1
      I got through the first level, and to the first bossfight. Basically I circled some big ship for about 10 minutes until it finally blew up.
      My most boring bossfight ever was Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid on the Playstation. Dumb as I am I never got the "use your other brain" hint and beat him the "straight" way. You could get in one hit during his minute-long pattern and I probably spent close to an hour trying until I finally killed him.
    4. Re:Panzer Dragoon Orta by DavidTC · · Score: 1
      No kidding. The Metal Gear Solid games are really bad at this. Each has enemies that are near-impossible to beat unless you figure out a trick, and the bad thing is the near-impossible bit. So half the time you don't realize you've missed the trick and spend fricking hours fighting one guy, cheering every time you manage to knock off tiny fraction of his life bar. When you should have used weapon X during time Y, which would take exactly seven hits.

      Don't get me wrong, I love thoses games, I'm probably going to buy 3 when it comes out, but I've learned that if I'm fighting the same guy for more than five minutes, and he's not down by at least 25%, I'm probably doing it wrong. So I go google it.

      I beat the mind-reader guy with explosives, I believe. The game isn't actually psychic, obviously. It just had his reactions to your button press be extremely fast...but it didn't cheat and move him out of harm's way if the harm was coming in too fast for him to move normally. So all you had to do to beat him was to set it up where he couldn't move out of harm's way...and C-4 worked nicely. Push the button, ka-boom. (Or you could pay attention to the hint.)

      Or maybe I'm confusing him with Vamp, who I know I beat with C-4. You're apparently supposed to snipe him, but that's way too much work. If you stood in a certain place, he'd always land basically the same distance from you, and start walking towards you. So I'd turn to there, place C-4, and run back, being careful to stand outside the shadow, and wait for him to land. Sometimes he'd be too fast for me, or come in while I was still placing the C-4, and I'd have to run like hell.

      C-4 was much underrated in that game. Sure, you couldn't use it while wandering around trying to stay hidden, but it worked against basically all the bosses, because they were too damn stupid not to walk on top of it.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    5. Re:Panzer Dragoon Orta by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess it just wasn't for you then. I personally loved it, I bought an xbox *just* to play it.

  20. Harvest Freaking Moon by Kleedrac2 · · Score: 1

    OK, so I'm gonna take some flak from my gf on this one to say the least. But after the first year of farming you are almost FORCED into a routine or the game doesn't work! Every "day" in the game you water your damned crops, feed the damned animals, collect the damned eggs/milk/whatever, woo the damned girl. The monotony doesn't end ... ever!! Oh well ... if you don't mind that ... and you're a girl (no offense but I've never met a guy who likes the franchise) ... then I spose it's all right :)

    Kleedrac

    --
    Sure we wang, can.
    1. Re:Harvest Freaking Moon by Calmiche · · Score: 1

      Hello. My name is Calmiche, I'm a guy, and I'm addicted to Harvest Moon.

      Now, are we talking about the original Harvest Moon on the SNES or are we talking about the misguided newer versions? (Sadly, I own all of them. I even had to break down and buy a GameCube this year just so I could play the newest one.)

      I loved the original one, but the rest of them put me to sleep. I still pull the SNES one out every couple months and play through again. It takes about 30-40 hours, same as a normal sized RPG.

      All the other versions kept my interest for a day or two. The Gamecube version lasted about a week. (Then I figured out I had acomplished 95% of the tasks in the game and they still expected me to play for the next 10 years of storyline.)

    2. Re:Harvest Freaking Moon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also a guy, and also a fan of Harvest Moon.

      I think my first experience came with the PS1 version, but I've also played the original gameboy edition, the PS2 version (stinks) and the latest "Friends of Mineral Town" for the GBA which has been my favorite.

      Yeah, its monotonous, yeah it's farming... but I can't explain it... it's just a whole Zen style relaxation thing... and the desire to see whats going to happen next.

      The biggest reason I stop playing these games is that you eventually run out of things to do that are NEW. I played FoMT no stop until I got married, but after that it just of seemed anti-climactic and I haven't picked it up since.

    3. Re:Harvest Freaking Moon by demo9orgon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I feel your pain brother.

      My cthonic wifette is nothing short of a "Harvest Moon: It's a Wonderful Life" farming scientist. She has tracked everything in the game. The only people with better notes on the lifecycles, productivity cycles, and farming mechanics are the development guys from Natsume's Japan offices...I think even they would be surprised at the "otaku" level to which my wife has plumbed the highs and lows of the game. Her biggest complaint is that you can't hug/kiss/anything with your wife, while you can talk to and and nuzzle your cows/horse/sheep/goat/chickens. That's kinda messed up. The only thing guys can hope for is that there's a "Sex-rated" version of the game somewhere where you can bed any of your three potential wives (Nami would probably shag the farmboy rotten and leave before he wakes up, Muffy would look like death warmed over and sneak away, and Celia would would be so cute you'd automatically push the A button labeled "Sex" again and again--forget the crops we're working on "sister"!). If the game featured even some highly edited sex, or the ability to hug your wife, it might be less of a downer. You get more love from your livestock.

      Expect to shell out another $40+ when they come out with a "female protagonist" series of Harvest Moon games.

      I find the damn thing to be the digital equivalent of ether...puts me right out. Even two litres of Diet Coke are worthless against a farming sim for me. I'm an adrenaline junky (RTS/FPS/SSXn/Combat Flightsim) gamer, so anything that doesn't have me shaking the windows with subwoofer amplified battlecries and storm-god channeling which has the neighbors peering into the windows to see if I'm killing everyone or breaking stuff has a sedative-effect.

      --
      Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
  21. Gran Turismo 3 by happyhippy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I really really really REALLY like driving around a track for an hour or two and get the same car prize as I got the last two times I played it.

  22. Peasant's Quest Sucked! by tommyServ0 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I always thought Peasant's Quest sucked even worse than Rabbit Algebra. It only featured 16 colors and 2 bit mono internal PC Speaker sound.

    Peasant's Quest

    Also, Strongbad reviewed the games he would make if he could. They all sucked too.

    SB Emails

    --

    Consider the daffodil. And while you're doing that, I'll be over here, looking through your stuff.
    1. Re:Peasant's Quest Sucked! by kisrael · · Score: 1

      One thing about Pesant's Quest...total nerd nitpick, but CGA is the "maximum requirement"? Those were clearly at least EGA graphics...

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
    2. Re:Peasant's Quest Sucked! by raygundan · · Score: 1

      Seriously. CGA was all about "how can we pick the least appealing colors possible." Four colors in the graphic mode, and they where Cyan, Magenta, White, and Black. There was a second mode with yellow, red, green, and black-- I have never figured out why the first set was the more popular. I'm not sure I ever saw a game using the second mode. I only learned of its existence when I googled to check my memory of the awful CGA palette.

      But yeah, Peasant's Quest has to be at *least* EGA. I see more than purple there. I am hoping it's as hilarious as it looks...

    3. Re:Peasant's Quest Sucked! by kisrael · · Score: 1

      I saw a few Yellow Red Green games, I think maybe the version of Boulder Dash? Dunno.

      Is Peasant's Quest going to make it past the preview stage? I thought it was just a gag. I know they are making that RPG for the Atari 2600 for real...

      --
      SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
  23. Rise of the Robots by QEDog · · Score: 1

    The CG fighting game that promised to be revolutionary. It was SO boring. Even the animation was glitchy, the collision detection horrible, and moves had a really weird timing, and things like just jumping would respond. What a piece of crap!

    --
    "There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
    1. Re:Rise of the Robots by Fred+Or+Alive · · Score: 1

      I think there's a line between boring, and total crap. I think to qualify as boring the game has to actually be playable first, and ROTR certainly isn't.

      --
      10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
      20 GOTO 10
  24. Tedious Game by Sludge · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The most absolutely tedious game I've ever played was on a Sesame Street Cookie Monster Counter. Cookie Monster tossed a couple cookies back and forth, and when one made contact with his hand, you had half a second to press the juggle button. Between the lines, the goal of the game was not to let your eyes glaze over from the rhythmic tedium.

    I remember seeing full grown adults playing it for an hour at a time, trying to beat their old juggling highscores.

    1. Re:Tedious Game by Kura · · Score: 1

      I used to play this game all the time as a little kid. I always lost at the instant the bastard threw an extra cookie or two into play.

    2. Re:Tedious Game by Bobulusman · · Score: 1

      I had one of those. I could get up to 3 or 4 cookies, but then, yeah, eye-glaze time.

      --
      Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
  25. Myst? by Turn-X+Alphonse · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Where the myst option? There was..... well I don't know whatthere was, I got sick of it after five minutes and gave up. Donkey kong on the other hand I played throughfor quite a few levels (damn loyalty to the old country games!)

    --
    I like muppets.
    1. Re:Myst? by Kyouryuu · · Score: 2, Funny

      Myst has a devoted following and some people must enjoy it for them to keep making it. But, from game one, I never understood what all the hoopla was about. It was as boring as a Hypercard slide show. Oh wait...

    2. Re:Myst? by mo^ · · Score: 1

      here, here!... i still find myself draggin out the orginal cd (i borrowed it from someone who never wanted it back) and try to work out wtf?!?!

      oh well

      --
      bah!*@%!
    3. Re:Myst? by gr0ngb0t · · Score: 1

      when i was at teacher school about 8 years ago, one of the assignments was to play Myst and, as a team, finish it... i was a big gamer at the time, and the 3 chicks in my group had never played anything... so i got basically lumped with it.. i dropped out of this course shortly afterwards, and i can't help but think this boring, boring pointless game was partly to blame.

  26. Tail of the Sun by Calmiche · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've actually got a copy of "Tail of the Sun" in my entertainment case just a couple feet from where I'm sitting.

    I don't think it deserves to be called the worst game ever. It wasn't great, but it wasn't completely without merit either.

    Theoretically, the idea of the game is to collect food, build up your civilization, invent weapons, etc. Eventually, you are supposed to hunt down hundreds of Mammoths and collect their tusks. The only way to win the game is to build a tower of them tall enough to reach the sun.

    In actuality, the game was more about exploring and discovering Easter eggs. The world is HUGE, and without a map or compass, it can be a bit hard to find things, but there are giant stone monoliths, caves, creatures, lakes, oceans, hidden islands, things to hunt, aliens, monstrous fossils, Stonehenge.. The list goes on. You can literally spend hours exploring, always finding something new.

    It gets boring after awhile, but it can still give a good 10-15 hours of play without running out of things to do.

    -Calmiche,

    1. Re:Tail of the Sun by chris411 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Mind you, the article was about boring games, not bad games. So it wasn't called the worst game ever in the article; just the most boring one.

    2. Re:Tail of the Sun by th0mas.sixbit.org · · Score: 1

      I too have a copy of this game, and while I agree that you can explore for awhile, there was no feeling of reward when your little cave men died and we went back to the hilarious chacter selection screen to pick the new midget caveman to run around.

      I do remember having some fun with this game though. The greatest feeling was the running-sleeps. Anyone who's played the game knows what I mean. When the character gets tired enough, they fall asleep. Doesn't matter what they were doing. Fall asleep on a hill? Watch your character slowly slide into the water, and continue to emit z's until death.

      Also, if anyone gets a chance to play this game, before you give up in exasperation check out the data information on the coloured things you pick up. Funniest in game stats I've ever seen.

      --
      twitter.com/gravitronic
  27. Halo by BigBadaboom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe not as boring as some of the games listed here, but am I the only one who thought Halo was completely over-rated? Seemingly endless sequences of room after room that looked the same?

    Am I crazy?

    1. Re:Halo by BigDork1001 · · Score: 1
      Single player HALO sucked. Almost all the stages could have been 75% smaller but they just had a lot of repetition. Especially the Library or whatever the Hell it was called. The reason HALO is given so much praise is for it's multi-player aspects. I've had a blast every time I've gotten together with 15 other friends and done HALO parties. The ability to link 4 X-boxes together is great and makes for a very enjoyable night.

      And the best part of HALO has to be cloaking and then running around and pistol-whipping everyone in the back of the head.

      --
      "Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
    2. Re:Halo by Wyatt+Earp · · Score: 1

      The single player of Halo, sucked. For a Bungie game, it was terrible.

      The multi-player is good, fun, but it should have shipped on Xbox with XBoxlive support.

    3. Re:Halo by imyourfoot · · Score: 1

      That would have been a neat trick, since Live came out about a year after Halo was released. Bungie wanted to incorperate support, but Live wasn't sufficiently developed to allow them to do so, and since Halo was the star launch title there was no way Microsoft would let them push back the release date six months or more.

    4. Re:Halo by The-Bus · · Score: 1

      No, not at all. I love Halo and wish its first player mode wasn't based on 3 maps that were endlessly repeated.

      --

      Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    5. Re:Halo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes.

  28. Universal Studios: Theme Park Adventure by Mirkon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ever wanted to pick up trash in exchange for points to play mundane minigames?

    Of course, if you really wanted, you could also just wander around the park in a dazed attempt to figure out where you're going or how to get somewhere else. Humanity has yet to accept this ultimate challenge.

    --
    Glog!
  29. All the boredom of the real thing.. by kmahan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Bass Fishing games..

    I guess to me "real" fishing is more about being out with friends and drinking beer than it is trying to outwit a fish.

    --
    Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
    1. Re:All the boredom of the real thing.. by Seraphim_72 · · Score: 1

      Same with the Hunting Games. You mean I have to walk out into the woods, sit for 10 minutes 'til comes by, shoot it and then....?

      --
      Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
    2. Re:All the boredom of the real thing.. by raygundan · · Score: 1

      Which is why if you're going to play it, you should invite a bunch of friends over and drink beer. The game is about as important as the catching of real fish.

      In fact, skip the fishing and the videogames altogether. Friends and Beer.

  30. RareWare by MrLint · · Score: 1

    I recently finished StarFox adventures. Hopefully that curt statement will give you some indication of how lackluster it was. It kinda f felt like it wanted to be Zelda for kids, which would be a nice concept id it didnt suck so badly.

    I wonder if there is a 'dull' warning. Some places are needlessly obtuse to get to, often you have to run back all the way through an area after you've done the important put of returning whatever thing belongs there. Boy howdy thats tedious. I could go one, but then that would likely be as dull as this game was.

  31. #1 most boring by ninja0 · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised no one mentioned this yet. Hold the button

    --
    --If the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.
    1. Re:#1 most boring by RailGunner · · Score: 1
      OK, I checked out Hold The Button - about 6 seconds into it I was done.

      And the record? 3 Days. Did the duct tape fall off the mouse after that long? Or was there someone who held out hope that "any second, something cool is going to happen, I can feel it".

    2. Re:#1 most boring by Matrix272 · · Score: 1

      I'm surprised no one mentioned this yet. Hold the button.

      Oh, man, that game rocks! I wonder if/when they'll make an Xbox version, with a green button...

      --
      "It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
  32. Golden Sun by prator · · Score: 1

    I recently picked up the GBA RPG Golden Sun for a long plane ride. It seemed liked I had to read 10 pages of text for every battle I got into. Maybe I was just in a bad mood because of the long plane ride, but I've already put the game back up on eBay.

    -prator

    1. Re:Golden Sun by Incoherent07 · · Score: 1

      You get used to repeatedly tapping A throughout the whole battle. It's not a bad game at all... then again, the story ends rather abruptly with a "go play Golden Sun 2"-type message, and Golden Sun 2 bored me to tears with all the sailing.

      --
      This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
  33. unavoidable situations by slothman32 · · Score: 1

    I don't have a boring game per se but some RPG's can be interesting. In FF1, for example, much of the game was level building. Just walking around killing for XP. in FF2/4 though that isn't needed at all. Now the rest of FF1 was good so I don't think of it as too boring but many games almost try to have stuff like that.
    Basically unavoidable situations that are virtually identical to a thousand others make for a boring game. Really early games such as those for Atari were often like that because they couldn't put in much.

    --
    Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
  34. Think back people, think WAY back.... by Lisandro · · Score: 1

    Remember LCP for the C64? (http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemo n64.com/reviews/view.php%3Fid%3D77). Think of a Tamagochi inside your C64 and you'll have a pretty nice description of it.

    I was a boy back then, but i remember people flipped over this one. I never saw what the great deal was.

    1. Re:Think back people, think WAY back.... by metamatic · · Score: 1

      I kinda feel the same way about The Sims. I've tried to get into it, but it just doesn't work for me somehow.

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  35. My vote for the most boring videogame by DocSnyder · · Score: 3, Funny

    Windows 95 Hardware Detection is scanning your system...

  36. 3 WORDS: King of Chicago by British · · Score: 1

    I remember playing it on the Apple //GS.

    The game was 99% waiting around watching 1-line cut scenes from gangsters. Sometimes you got to choose a line to say, sometmes you got to do some haphazard drive-by shootings. Mostly, your pointer was a fly on the wall.

  37. Everquest by realdpk · · Score: 1

    Everquest started out interesting, but quickly became boring as everywhere you would go there would be a group or a single person camping an item or a spawn. You'd play striving to see something new and interesting someone told you about, and then finally, when you're close, you learn that that new and interesting thing now has a calendar set up to schedule who's allowed to "enjoy" it.

    It became one of the more boring games I've ever played. Sad, because I thought it had a lot of potentional except for the camping issue.

    1. Re:Everquest by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 1

      And if something better were offered, how much would you pay for a subscription?

      I've been toying with some software that could handle maybe up to 200 simultaneous players on a modest colo machine.

      First off, some rules.
      1) No playing out of character. Your subscription money isn't worth you ruining the game for everyone.
      2) Not everyone is invited to play. You fill out an application, and maybe we accept you. This isn't totally to just be pissy... but if you work 3rd shift EST, we can kind of get an idea who will be playing when.
      3) No character classes, levels. You'd more likely end up a bookstore owner in the village that passes for a city on serfworld. Or a town guardsmen/constable. But in the end, everyone is a human, not a "fighter level 4". If your application is accepted, you get a choice of up to a dozen or so pre-existing characters, complete with a short biographical history.
      4) Game characters don't disappear when you're not playing. They go into bot mode (but can't be murdered or suffer terrible losses). When they do die, they're dead. You get to start over. No respawning bullshit. (I realize some will think that's a dumb idea, but if your game is a story that you partake in, then that story is over, and I'd happily provide another)
      5) Freeform treasure. Even in the real world, there are what, 50 current currencies floating around, who knows how many denominations? Gold might be historical coinage, bullion with 1 of 1000 different stamps, or even just a nugget of some odd weight. And yet the fantasy world has a single world currency?
      6) Games don't revolve around scheduling calendar dates to slay monsters. Most likely a fantasy world, but you'd get something like a freeform storyline. There would be DM's of a sort, that could be playing many NPCs at a time, keeping track of where you are, and bringing NPCs to life.

      For instance, say you chose the first bookstore owner. The first week or so, they'd go easy on you, letting you learn the game, and what not. But how fun can it be then? Well, there are all sorts of story possibilities. On your way to the market one morning, an old hag steps in front of you, in a way that you can't help from knocking her down. Ugly, cataract eyes (well, that might be too much for the engine, but work with me) she casts a curse on you. Flustered, you go about your day. But from then on, the DM's keep track of you, making sure to use their powers to move the "story" along. No real grief, you see... bad luck kind of things. Maybe they give you enough time to react, escape a few, others you can't help. Increasing the heat, a degree at a time. And just waiting for cues on how you want to handle it. There wouldn't be any pre-concieved solution. Do you try to track her down and apologize? Go see the witch doctor/shaman/crazy man and see if he can lift it? Who knows.

      Even for the bookstore owner, there are any number of possible stories. A dark mysterious stranger walks in one day, won't say where he's from. Asks if you can procure a copy of some book you've never heard of, one that is almost definitely prohibited by the church. Or the town guards start shaking you down for money every week, threatening to burn down your store, your home if you don't cough up some money. Petty rivalries, betrayals, infidelity, lots of lesser stories, and more than one greater story that you could choose to have a part in (or not). And that's one of my not-quite-so-well thought out characters on offer.

      Does this interest anyone, and would I be able to even find 500 subscribers at $50 a month? At $40 a month? Hell, even at the going rate of $20 a month?

    2. Re:Everquest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All MMORPGs that focus at all on what level you are, and making you perform mind-numbingly repetitive tasks to achieve a higher level, are boring.

      I'm currently playing Star Wars Galaxies, and it's terribly boring, yet I can't seem to stop playing. :(

      I miss my consoles.

  38. At the risk of sounding like a troll... by nicksthings · · Score: 1

    There's this one game I had been hearing about for a long time. I've seen people play it, I've heard them rave about it, but I just never really got around to playing it. A few months ago, I finally took the dive: I found the game to have silly and cliched dialogue, repetative sequences, drab and uninspired artwork, music that didn't necessarily seem to fit the action, and pretty much everything I've seen in other games in it's genre...it was a competent game, but just kinda, you know...boring.

    Overall, I found myself simply marching forward, plugging away, only beacuse I thought I owed it to myself to play what some people might argue is one of the best games of all time. Turns out, I found myself literally falling asleep while playing. No joke.

    That game? It starts with an "H," it ends with an "O" and there's a sequel coming out in November. True story.

    1. Re:At the risk of sounding like a troll... by slumpy · · Score: 1

      I actually agree. It's actually funny that the music makes no attempt to fit the action. But yeah, pretty boring. Can't tell that to legion of millions though.

      --
      http://www.commaecho.com
    2. Re:At the risk of sounding like a troll... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes yes, this is the third shot at Halo in this thread. Success breeds contempt, and all that.

  39. World Pool Championship... by sammaffei · · Score: 3, Funny

    on the XBox. I could never find anyone on Live to play. I think I was the only one stupid enough to buy it.

    --

    Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.

  40. Harvest Moon... not boring by urbaer · · Score: 1

    Agreed, the GC version is probably the worst. I shelled out a fair bit for it and was dissapointed. Certainly the earlier versions of the game were better (I think it's got something to do with the top down view).

    I hardly think though that a game is 'boring' because it's in a genre you don't like. If you take the sub-genre of Farm Management (I think I just made up a sub-genre, then how about John Deere. Must admit I've never played it but... I get the impression you can't run over your cows in any tractors.

  41. ET? by urbaer · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No one has mentioned ET yet? Or were boring games only invented in the last decade?

    1. Re:ET? by Bobulusman · · Score: 1

      ET wasn't so much 'boring' as 'unplayable'. The first time I played, I never figured out you could just lift out of the hole and kept resetting every time I fell into one.

      Even after I figured that out, it was pretty dang unplayable.

      --
      Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
    2. Re:ET? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about Raiders of the Lost Ark for the 2600? I think I hit about 3 screens then fall to my death or get taken out by the tsete(sp?) flies.

    3. Re:ET? by urbaer · · Score: 1

      Good point, perhaps ET doesn't count as a game at all.

  42. Drakken for SNES by b00m3rang · · Score: 1

    Boring scenery where every screen looked the same, boring castles where every room looked the same, boring music that, well, you know.

    My dad actually spent the weeks required to beat the game, but I never saw the point.

  43. Ugh, agreed. by Mongoose+Disciple · · Score: 1

    Not only was the encounter rate ridiculously high, you often needed to seek out even MORE encounters to progress in the game. Talk about super levelling grind. I'm glad we demand more from our games these days.

  44. *boggle* by Mongoose+Disciple · · Score: 1

    I'm stunned that Ys Book I & II is on that list. I'd still rate that as one of the top ten games in the history of ever.

    I've never actually encountered someone before who played that game and didn't love it. From the text of the article, it seems like the author didn't understand how combat in the game works. I mean, no shit it seems like a dumb game if you don't understand its relatively simple mechanics. Soccer would seem like a pretty dumb game too if you thought the sole object was to see how hard you could kick the ball.

    1. Re:*boggle* by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I'll totally agree... I recently played that game for my first time (a few months ago) and was really impressed - the soundtrack is great, and the voice acting is even good... Seeing that game in 1990, when it first came out, would've been awesome. There's a certain charm to the simplified mechanics of battle, nothing like marching head-on into 20 enemies and destroying them (like, the tavern basement in Ys 2)

  45. The Sims by Robmonster · · Score: 1

    Oh my god, I cant believe The Sims is not on their list.

    I honestly dont understand the fascination that this game has for some people. As far as I can tell you have to make sure your little sim gets up for work on time in the morning, has something to eat, goes to the loo and then gets to bed.

    Thats far too much like my own life. I play games to escape the mundane, not to immerse myself in it. The only time I have ever enjoyed the Sims is when a friend added a cheat to get loads of money and then designed the house however he liked.

    Its seriously dull.....

    --
    I have no sig yet I must scream.
    1. Re:The Sims by Calmiche · · Score: 1

      Sadly enough, that's the only way I play any of the Sims games.. I HATE playing them, but I can sit and build, zone, change stuff around and bulldoze for hours at a time.

      I was really angry that SimCity4 didn't have a cheat mode like SimCity 3000. Sure, I understand that some people think that it ruins the game to cheat, but for me, having to build something and keep my budget ridgedly under control ruins the game for me. I just want to build!

      Same for the Sims. I just cheat, get a couple million and start building. When I finish a house, I play for a couple hours, then evict my Sim, bulldoze the house and start over.

      -Calmiche

    2. Re:The Sims by Seddie · · Score: 1

      Eh, I played to kill the little buggers. Get them a job, nice house maybe a wife or something, then POW - they find themselves starving to death in a room made of windows. Pretty entertaining. ;)

  46. ET for Atari? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is a reason that a million of these cartridges were dumped into a landfill in the desert.

  47. ET, Atari 2600 by Icephreak1 · · Score: 1

    ET for the Atari 2600, hands down. That game didn't seem to have an end or an objective, ferchrissakes.

    1. Re:ET, Atari 2600 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *shrug* I managed to beat it several times. I actually enjoyed it as a kid, before it became common internet knowledge that you were supposed to hate it.

    2. Re:ET, Atari 2600 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Me, too. Am I weird for reading instruction manuals? I'm pretty sure the manual of that game told you what to do, but everyone who talks about it now acts like the game didn't have any objective. I can almost understand not reading the manual of a modern game, since most games have an in-game tutorial or are just like the last ten games before them, but back then it just didn't make sense to dive in when you couldn't even tell whether you were supposed to hit the red square or the green dot just from the game itself.

  48. From a review: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Xenosaga, a lengthy Evangelion wannabe cutscene intersperced with a game.

  49. Already released! by raygundan · · Score: 1

    I have no idea. At least one of the other games they mention in their "from the makers of" section is already a flash game on their site. I particularly enjoyed discovering that if you burninate a peasant and they run back into their hut, the hut catches on fire.

    I'm guessing they'll make it, but it will be a flash game that looks like a mid-80s era EGA King's Quest title, except with short pants and burnination.

    Whoops! I stand corrrected! Since I looked last, it's already been released!

  50. Star Wars Galaxies by JSBiff · · Score: 1

    Seriously, played this sleeper off and on for a few months (how could I play a boring game for so long? High tolerance for boredom I guess. . .). Actually, I thought it would get more interesting as I got into higher level content, but it really didn't. It has *got* to be one of the most tedious MMORPG's ever (most of them *are* pretty tedious anyhow).

    I'm kinda surprised at how tedious most MMORPG's are. In theory the chief design consideration is keeping players paying subscription fees for as many months as possible. Sure, tedious levelling treadmills can keep players around for a few months, with the expectation that once they have a levelled up char it'll get a lot cooler. But, if you actually have fun, engaging content, I bet you could keep players around without stringing them along with stupid artificial goals ("Hey, only 2.5 million more exp till my next level and I get some crappy upgrade that lets me do 5-10% more dmg! It'll be great!").

    Anyhow, my biggest beef with SWG was the almost complete lack of content at high levels. I mean, where is the Galactic Civil War that I was promised? More like a Galactic Civil Bore.

  51. Some people baffle me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Friendster