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The 50 Worst Videogame Names of All Time
Game Revolution has a great feature looking at fifty of the worst-named games ever to require a controller. They dig deep here, unearthing gems like 'Yo! Noid!', 'Awesome Possum Kicks Dr. Machino's Butt!', and 'Huygen's Disclosure'. From the article: "From Dick Butkus to Hootie and the Blowfish to Lake Titicaca, bad names have been with us forever. But thanks to the inevitable collision of reclusive nerds, bizarre artists and painfully unhip marketing execs, the video game industry enjoys some of the worst names of all. The following list was compiled after hours of lively debate, pages of exhausting science and one actual geek fistfight."
This list of 50 badly named games doesn't even have XPlay's "worst named game" Tube Slider or even my perennial favorite Spawn In The Demon's Hand. Not even a mention of Capcom's "Street Fighter" sequelitis with "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" or "Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha".
Speaking of sequels, there are games like "Mega Man X" (right after MM6) and "Wizards and Warriors X" (sequel to W&W2, I believe) that just confuse people as to what game they are playing. Hey, what's all this "Super Castlevania IV" about? Is it better than regular old "Castlevania IV"?
Gah, now I need to make my own list.
Actually, I recall that Wargasm's title had little to do with the game (beyond the "War" part, anyway). To quote IGN: "Apparently someone at DID's marketing department thought that the 'kids' might dig it if they took their latest action title, put a woman in a bulging flak jacket on the cover (maybe she's carrying a bunch of grenades) and named it after something sexual. The PR staff picked up on the Beavis and Butthead vibe and began sending us sheaves of mail with jokes like 'It's time for Wargasm' and 'Multiple Wargasm.' After this ridiculous blitzkrieg of banality (which must have humiliated the actual design team beyond measure) Tal, Jason and I began furiously scrapping over who was going to have to review a game that was sure to be as embarrassing on the inside as it was on the out. I lost (for those of you who keep track of such things, let me warn you that Jason carries brass knuckles) and sadly loaded the game only to find that there was nothing within the actual software that had anything to do with the title, the chick on the cover or anything else we received in the mail. What I did find was a solid action game that is surprisingly hard to put down." So the name clearly turned people off to the game who might otherwise have enjoyed it. That's about as bad as a name can be.
Unfortunately, I can't remember the source, so take it as you will.
In an interview with Miyamoto, he said that he wanted to call the game "Stubborn Monkey" (because the monkey wouldn't give Jumpman/Mario's woman back). After the standard Engrish translation, Stubborn became Dnokey, and Monkey became Kong, giving us the title we've been seeing for the last quarter-century.
Use your imagination with caution