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The 20 Worst Games Ever

EGM's Seanbaby has a 'director's cut' of a list of the top 20 worst videogames, a list published in the 150th issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly earlier this year. While some top lists may claim authority, this one is the real deal: these games are utter crap. From the article: "#10: Revolution X (SNES) This game is biblically horrific. You're overthrowing an oppressive world order. With Aerosmith. And music is your weapon. That scream of terror you just heard was probably you. Using your weapon, music, you'll fight a massive army of soldiers sent by the government to keep you from rocking. And since the artists were lazy, the army is made up entirely of a man in a yellow jacket and his several thousand identical twins."

66 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. Plumbers don't wear ties? by Gord · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What about the infamous 'Plumbers don't wear ties?'. I remeber this scoring 4% in PC Format (UK) about 10 years ago and holding the title of 'Worst Rating' for many a year, it may even still do so. ..

    1. Re:Plumbers don't wear ties? by Sigma+7 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There's also "J-Space for Windows". The only instance I heard about it was in a small book listing cheats for ~101 PC games in circulation at the time.

      The tip for that game was don't buy it, since it got 4% -- PC Format's lowest ever rating. Other than that single comment, it seems as if the game disappeared from the face of the Earth. I have no idea why it was bad, since that comment didn't really cite when it was reviewed.

    2. Re:Plumbers don't wear ties? by shreevatsa · · Score: 5, Funny
      OTOH, my nomination "most awesome game ever" goes to Desert Bus from Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors game package (it never made it big, surprisingly). The game was an answer to the Jack Thompson-types. Quoting from various sources:
      'Desert Bus' was a game we thought would really appeal to people who didn't like unrealistic games, and didn't like violence in their games. It was just like real, loving life.

      The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused.

      The bus contains no passengers, and there is no scenery or other cars on the road. The bus veers to the right slightly; as a result, it's impossible to tape down a button to go do something else and have the game end properly. If the bus veers off the road it will stall and be towed back to Tucson, also in real time. If the player makes it to Las Vegas, they will score exactly one point: the counter - which was five zeros - went to 1.

      It's available as a torrent; feel free to wallow in its awesomeness!
    3. Re:Plumbers don't wear ties? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I used to be a part time reviewer, and I got sent a game that was so appalling I've never seen anything so bad since - it had jerky 2d motion and after I basically gave up on it found out that there was no quit - the only way to exit the game was to pull the power switch!

      Damned if I can remember its name.. I've blocked it out. Gave it a negative percentage at the time...

    4. Re:Plumbers don't wear ties? by Pluvius · · Score: 4, Informative

      Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors game package (it never made it big, surprisingly).

      That's probably because it was never released commercially.

      Rob

    5. Re:Plumbers don't wear ties? by KDR_11k · · Score: 3, Funny

      That sounds as fun as some of Videlectrix's offerings.

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
    6. Re:Plumbers don't wear ties? by tylernt · · Score: 2, Informative

      Was the game 'Trantor'? Picked it up from the $5 bin years ago, it came in a big box that was empty except for a naked 5.25" floppy that wasn't even in a sleeve. Impossibly difficult to survive for more than about 30 seconds, as I recall it didn't have a 'quit' option.

      --
      DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
    7. Re:Plumbers don't wear ties? by arth1 · · Score: 2, Funny
      The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused.

      It might be a rip-off, or it might be a zeitgeist, but "Journey to Alpha Centauri" as described by Terry Pratchett in the 1992 book "Only you can save mankind" is quite similar:

      'Wobbler had written an actual computer game like this once. It was called "Journey to Alpha Centauri". It was a screen with some dots on it. Because, he said, it happened in real time, which no-one had ever heard of until computers. He'd seen on TV that it took three thousand years to get to Alpha Centauri. He had written it so that if anyone kept their computer on for three thousand years, they'd be rewarded by a little dot appearing in the middle of the screen, and then a message saying, "Welcome to Alpha Centauri. Now go home."'

      And yes, the game itself exists too, in at least two different versions.

      Regards,
      --
      *Art
  2. You're Winner! by stinerman · · Score: 5, Interesting

    #1 has to be Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.

    Also, check out #9, Custer's Revenge, for some hot pr0n. Wow, were they ahead of their time or what?

    1. Re:You're Winner! by iamhassi · · Score: 3, Funny

      "check out #9, Custer's Revenge, for some hot pr0n."

      WHOA! Ook now that's going to far, Custer's Revenge actually was a good game, if only for the hot indian princess sex action reward!

      Can anyone think of any console game where you get to have sex with a Indian Princess after rescuing her? Anyone? How about getting to have sex with any hot girl after rescuing her?

      You have no idea how disappointing super mario brothers was after seeing Custer's Revenge. Race across one screen in Custer's Revenge and you get laid, play 9 levels in SMB and you still don't get any princess sex!

      Girlfriend walks in while i'm reading the review and says "Custer's Revenge. I've played that, you get to rape indian women and shit. That's a f**ked up little game." I couldn't have said it better myself ;-)

      --
      my karma will be here long after I'm gone
    2. Re:You're Winner! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Read the Wikipedia page you linked to for Karateka: you've apparently missed the real ending. (Princesses don't take lightly to being approached in the improper stance.)

      I've never played the game, but I think that it sounds like a pretty damn amusing feature, though obviously a bit cruel if it's hard to finish the game. I'll have to get that game going on an emulator sometime to see for myself.

  3. yay for old news by floatingtrem · · Score: 5, Informative

    this might have been interesting if i hadn't read this, oh i dunno, 6 or 7 years ago when this article was published.

    1. Re:yay for old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    2. Re:yay for old news by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Diakatana isn't THAT bad a game. Honestly, I've played much worse than just didn't happen to get the publicity... even picking a FPS that came out around the same time, IronStorm (I think was the name) was a total piece of crap. If you expand to RPGs, "Wizards and Warriors" came out in like 2001 without the capability of running in Windows 2000 and no 3D acceleration support at all. (And yes, it was a 3D game.) It was also buggy as crap... I think I got about halfway through before getting stopped by a huge game-ending bug.

  4. Old/10 by Kyokugenryu · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think I still have this issue of EGM, from, oh, 2003 or so? How is this on the front page?

  5. Ultima 9: Ascension by owlman17 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Finally, an article on /. about a list of worst games, instead of the usual rehash of the "Top 5/10/20 best games of all time, etc ad nauseum" lists.

    Hmmm. Nobody seemed to mention Ultima IX, a terribly bug-ridden game. From the README file alone: "Be certain you empty your Recycle Bin before installing the game." Or : "We recommend that you not save the game while you're poisoned; this has been somewhat problematic in the current version."

    Wow, why didn't anyone mention that?

    (Another game worth mentioning: Conquest Earth. Its not buggy but... hey, might as well have been.)

    1. Re:Ultima 9: Ascension by NexFlamma · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To show you just how old this new story is, it was originally published on Seanbaby's site before Ultima 9 came out, hence why it's not on the list.

      Does it even qualify as news if it's that old?

    2. Re:Ultima 9: Ascension by Kjella · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hmmm. Nobody seemed to mention Ultima IX, a terribly bug-ridden game (...) Wow, why didn't anyone mention that?

      Well, because there's hundreds if not thousands of games worse than Ultima IX. "Worst game" is silly because the worst games simply wouldn't spread very far - I haven't played a single game on their "bottom 20" list. What they're looking for is really "High-profile games that flopped miserably".

      It's sort of the same as "best game" categories, I would place classics as "Dune 2" and "Civilization" on it, not because I think they're better than recent RTS or TBS games, but because they were so dominant back then (I might be showing my age here...)

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Ultima 9: Ascension by Pharmboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is why I wish there was some kind of moderation that all users could do on stories published here. Not digg style (ugg... don't get me started...) but a way for users to tell the editors here that the story sucked and was a waste of time. I am amazed at some of garbage that has made the front page over the last month. It WAS getting better here, but now I wonder.

      Something being "interesting" to one of the editors here is not the same as it being "news". I don't come here to read old, rehashed garbage from 1998. Well, I don't on PURPOSE.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    4. Re:Ultima 9: Ascension by Pluvius · · Score: 3, Informative

      I hear that U9 is quite a bit more playable now than it was when it came out, especially if you include the fanmade patches.

      Rob

  6. Re:The list by bazmail · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You retard, The whole point of the article is not to produce a definitive list, but to entertain.

    You have failed.

  7. Re:The list by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bypass the link:

    20: Extreme Sports With the Berenstein Bears
    19: Bible Adventures
    18: Kriss Kross: Make My Video
    17: Bubsy 3D ...


    Good way to get some karma, but the point of the article is that it's funny to read. The list is totally not interesing, as the games were chosen and ordered apparently randomly (you could say they're just 20 terrible games of probably a thousand terrible games).

  8. Battlecruiser 3000AD by Ullteppe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How about Battlecruiser 3000AD? As to ET, there are actually worse 2600 games than this. Maybe not with the same historical significance, okay...

  9. Re:The list by Walt+Dismal · · Score: 5, Funny
    You forgot Happy Fun Time Cheesegrater Testicle Assault, from Namco for the Atari, voted the most painful game of all time.

    For obvious reasons, I believe no one ever got to the final level, which involved Mexican hot peppers and flesh-eating wolverines. Ahh, let's not go there after all. Those wacky Japanese game geniuses.

  10. Hey, didn't you read the title? by Colin+Smith · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's "The 20 Worst Games Ever."

    --
    Deleted
    1. Re:Hey, didn't you read the title? by Tim+C · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Perhaps some even worse games have been released since, if it's that old...

  11. OLD by jb.hl.com · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I propose we give Sunday on Slashdot a new name. Something like "We've run out of things to post, so here's some old stuff" day.

    Jesus christ, if you don't have anything remotely new or interesting to post, don't post anything.

    --
    By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
    1. Re:OLD by gregmark · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And yet, here you are, reading the crappy Sunday Slashdot. Sounds like you don't have anything better to do, so be glad that you found something provocative enough to entice you to post comments.

      I had never seen this article until now, so I'm glad it was resurrected. It's new to me.

    2. Re:OLD by WilliamSChips · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Jesus christ, if you don't have anything remotely new or interesting to post, don't post anything.
      This quote applies double to the people whining about Slashdot.
      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
  12. Big Rigs by neonstz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm surprised Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing didn't make it to the list... :)

  13. Big Rigs: YOU'RE WINNER! by Poro · · Score: 5, Informative

    At least according to a race sim maniac like me, "Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing" would be a good candidate for a more up to date version of the worst games ever list. Wikipedia has some nice words about this quite extraordinary game.

  14. Bible Adventures! by binkzz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I definitely played worse games (and better ones), I found it kind of pointless that he chooses to just rant about the Bible and his religious views instead of discussing the game.

    --
    'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
    1. Re:Bible Adventures! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, it seems that the reviewer's biggotry had a lot more to do with this being a "bad" game than anything else.

      Then again, if I play another adventure game that starts with "First, the Democrats take over the world, then the aliens come and the world lives in Star Trek like heaven until someone screws it up" (Journeyman Project) or "once religion is elimnated we make real progress - you know, until the aliens come and screw it up" (Homeworld back story in manual). Gameplay-wise, excellent games, but maybe they should be put on a "worst" list because the dogma is offensive to the reviewer. Hmmm... Nah, I think I'll be fair and judge the games on their own merit - unlike this twit who says that "despite the fact that it was written by Christians and for the Nintendo, the graphics are good". What on earth would one's religion have to do with making pixelated art?

    2. Re:Bible Adventures! by Matteo522 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Especially because it really wasn't a bad game by NES standards. I played that game a lot as a kid, and it was a lot of fun. We weren't even Christian growing up -- I got it as a gift from a Christian uncle. I didn't play the David & Goliath mini-game as much as the Noah's Ark one... but it was fairly challenging, had a whole bunch of levels, and decent replay value. Oh well. If you read the rest of his "reviews" (see the CDI Zelda one), you'll see this was just some idiot 16 year old.

  15. Re:The list by donaldm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Never played any of them and never will.

    I have have always said that a good game to some may be a crap game to another and vice versa. To really rate games you need to stick to groups (ie. FPS, RPG, platformer, adventure .... etc) and if the game is for the PC and/or console and not try to lump them all into one heap. Of course you end up with a book instead of a few pages and even then some people will disagree with you.

    Like it or not sales can help better than someones comments, however when you are first or near first to market (I think "Night Trap" falls into this) then people will buy it even though they find out later it stinks and the company cries all the way to the bank. When this game came out the Internet was young and not many people had access to it so the only ratings for a game was to ask the retailer and you can imagine what they would say or wait till the monthly gaming magazine came out (assuming it rated the game). This does not happen as much now although for any purchase it still is "Caveat Emptor" (Latin for "Buyer Beware").

    Still the article was light reading and was fairly humorous in its descriptions (condemnations) of the games.

    --
    There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  16. This list is awful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This list is one the worst I've read. The author just lists games out of his ass, and he is not even coherent with his previous list about "Worst 20 NES videogames", so you find that some NES videogames that scored less on that list scored more on this, and the supposedly worst (Deadly Towers) is missing on this list. What the...?

    Suggestion: Avoid reading. Leave game trashing to professionals.

  17. Digging up E.T. by Sippan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The funniset thing in that article was the sentence "So if you ever lose your mind and want a copy of E.T., or maybe five million, grab a shovel and drive out to the desert. They're free."

    It's funny because you can't actually do it - Wikipedia: "Starting on September 27, 1983, a layer of concrete was poured on top of the crushed materials".

    Crushed, buried, sealed in concrete. Now that is one bad video game.

    --
    Frog blast the vent core.
    1. Re:Digging up E.T. by frogstar_robot · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Wintergreen made a video about the whole E.T. disposal debacle. It has nice touches like the 2600 E.T. running around the desert where his carts are buried. Funny stuff.

      http://keithschofield.com/et/

  18. Re:The list by lisaparratt · · Score: 2, Funny

    I dunno, that's sounds like my idea of fun >:>

  19. This info is rather stale (like the 2600) by christoofar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This list has been rather arbitrary, however the "official" list can be found and edited on Wikipedia.

    I agree on #1 though. I cannot forget how much ET sucked (and I was a little tyke around this time). I had JUST gotten exposed to the 2600 and the crappy Pac-Mac clone released for it when the console abruptly was shoved into the closet never to see the light of day again.

    I did enjoy the Atari 400 my mother had bought for my older sibling. We would both play Zaxxon for hours on it, which required starting a rather chunky and heavy cassette tape machine which you connected to the 400. There was some cheesy elevator music with some marketing propoganda (you had to turn the volumn down to ignore it). After going to get a soda and cigarettes at the store for my brother, the game would be completely loaded into RAM and we'd spend a good part of the afternoon trying to top scores.

    ET however managed to suck the life out of Atari and it destroyed the company. Had it not done that, NES would have had no void to fill.

    In fact, the Atari caused so much damage to the video game market (and all the other cheap video game systems), that Nintendo had to market the first 8-bit consoles by showing only the Nintendo R.O.B. (remember that thing?) The ROB had a major suck factor, but it was such a cool gimmick that the "seperate console" it needed to play the game managed to suck in enough kids that eventually the ROB was discarded (within about 6 months after it released).

    The ROB gimmick was quickly removed from the marketplace and the only boxes you could find where the standard console and the one with the Duck Hunt gun. The original issue had everything--the NES, the ROB and the gun with all those games! What a steal!

    1. Re:This info is rather stale (like the 2600) by gozar · · Score: 3, Informative
      I agree on #1 though. I cannot forget how much ET sucked (and I was a little tyke around this time). I had JUST gotten exposed to the 2600 and the crappy Pac-Mac clone released for it when the console abruptly was shoved into the closet never to see the light of day again.

      I don't know why everyone hates E.T. much. I still dig it out from time to time to have ET put the transmitter together and phone home. People hate the pits... Here's a pointer for you, stay away from them! It's not like ET has any control issues, just keep him away from the pits.

      E.T. follows the movie pretty well given the limitations of the 2600. You have ET, you have Elliot, and you have the bad guys trying to get ET.

      Plus you get to revive a flower.

      --
      What, me worry?
  20. Re:The real fun is reading the reviews. by Xian97 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In contrast, the review of Neverend at Just Adventure's website http://www.justadventure.com/reviews/Neverend/Neve rend.shtm rates it as an A-. I think many of the Gamespot reviewers are given games to review in genres that they don't like and it is hard to write an objective review. Gamespot in particular always seems to give adventure games a bad review with only 2 games in the genre getting a rating over 8 in the past few years, and not since Syberia in 2002 has there been a rating over 9.

    I haven't played the game myself, but I just thought it a stark contrast that the site where people enjoy adventure games rates it very high and a site where the reviewers are more generalized pan it.

  21. Re:Battlecruiser 3000AD by Fred_A · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In defense (sortof) of BattleCruiser 3000, it seemed to be developped by a lone maniac with a fairly strong following and appeared to be fairly innovative since it covered all the aspects of futuristic combat, from space to ground.

    OTOH, it did too much, didn't do it very well and I have to admit I never really managed to play it. However I would give it some points for the sheer magnitude of the effort. It was an impressive piece of work. Kind of unuseable but still impressive. Which is why I wouldn't put it in the worst. In the "most impressive attempts" maybe.

    --

    May contain traces of nut.
    Made from the freshest electrons.
  22. Revolution X by filthWisard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is it just me or does Revolution X sound like it could have been a good idea for a game if you replaced aerosmith with spinal tap?

    1. Re:Revolution X by markimusk · · Score: 5, Funny

      it's just you.

    2. Re:Revolution X by davidesh · · Score: 2

      actually I remember playing Revolution X at the arcade long ago and it was a really good game for its time.

  23. Worst Website? by KDR_11k · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I nominate this for a pretty high ranking in the Worst Websites Outside Of Myspace list. Seriously, I had to turn off the CSS to avoid eyebleed and my system is already blocking GIFs and Flash, I don't even want to know what this would look like to some poor IE user.

    --
    Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  24. Re:The real fun is reading the reviews. by Flyboy+Connor · · Score: 2, Informative

    and not since Syberia in 2002 has there been a rating over 9.

    And, having played Syberia, I can honestly say that as an adventure game it sucks donkeyballs. All puzzles are incredibly easy, except for one which is completely undoable. In itself this is not enough to invalidate the game, but the puzzles are virtually all ridiculously illogical. I mean, at one point in the game the main character cannot climb a certain ladder because there are birds sitting in front of it, and "she is afraid of birds". Now, instead of just stomping right through the birds, or throwing something at them, or making a loud noise, or just waiting until they fly away (which are all impossible), you have to go on a long, boring quest which goes all over the map, to get some birdseed or something so you can lure them away. The game is also dead slow, and the main character is unsympathetic and presented as being quite stupid. The only good thing about the game is that it looks absolutely stunning. Which is probably why Gamespot gave it such a high ranking. Visuals, you know.

  25. Airport Tycoon by SpryGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The worst game I ever purchased was "Airport Tycoon". Talk about abysmal. The concept had so much promise, but the result was so buggy and unfinsihed and ugly and unplayable, that it's the only game I ever uninstalled completely after less than one day, and then shredded and destroyed rather than taking it back for a refund. The only pleasure I got was destroying that piece of crap game.

    Examples of what was wrong: all the graphical colors were muddy earth tones, just ugly. Placing buildings was buggy as hell (many times a building, road, or runway would refuse to be placed, for no apparent reason). Placing things inside the terminal (like ticket counters and security) was pointless... you could pile everything up on top of each other so people couldn't possible reach them, and it didn't matter. All that mattered is that you placed them somewhere. Also, what happened on the screen showed ZERO relationship with what was going on in the game. The game would say that the runway was too crowded, but the display would show an empty runway.

    Just horrible all around. There wasn't a single redeeming value.

    --

    - Spryguy
    There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
  26. Re:The list by dr_dank · · Score: 3, Funny

    15: Total Recall

    For those of you at work today, you might want to skip this one. Unless, of course, you don't mind your boss seeing the triple-breasted martian prostitute. Hell, it might make for interesting conversation during your annual review.

    --
    Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
  27. Was pretty funny until it got homophobic by twjordan · · Score: 2, Informative

    I was enjoying this article until I got to the review of Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. At first, I thought he was committing the sin of just being a jackass and using "gay" as a term to mean lame, but not actually connecting it with homosexuality, then I read "Now do the math on this: experts in ass ramming estimate that about 10% of the world is homosexual, and if you consider that only 5 people actually wanted a CDI machine, that means that this game was made specifically for a target audience of one half a person."

    "Experts in ass ramming" eh?

    Sounds like this guy has got a problem, oh I figured it out, he's a fucking idiot.

    1. Re:Was pretty funny until it got homophobic by WilliamSChips · · Score: 4, Funny

      Except that it's not funny to anybody with more than two braincells.

      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
  28. Hold the button by edxwelch · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't know if this would rate as the worse game, but it's good for a laugh anyways:
    http://www.holdthebutton.com/

  29. Re:Battlecruiser 3000AD by skwang · · Score: 2, Informative
    I have to admit I never really managed to play it.

    You're in luck. Derek Smart (the lone maniac developer) has released the old versions of the game for free on the game's Web page. A while back I downloaded BattleCruiser Millenium, the 2nd generation of the title. [BattleCruiser 3000 was the 1st.] I have to admit, it is impressive. The scope of the idea of the game: space cruiser combat, space fighter combat, and (FPS) ground combat is very ambitious. Unfortunately the gameplay is not very good and the game itself is unstable. It doesn't help that Derek denies that his games have any stability problems.

    I recommend you try it out.

  30. Extreme PaintBrawl by ESqVIP · · Score: 4, Informative

    Another possible missing game is Extreme PaintBrawl; as far as I know, it got the lowest rating ever on IGN in 1998 (0.7 out of 10) and since then has never been topped (uhm, "topped" doesn't seem the right word for such games...).

    1. Re:Extreme PaintBrawl by The-Bus · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A friend of mine was a developer on that title. He said they just ran out of time and money and no one wanted to finish it. No one works for free I guess, and it's not the kind of title you'd be so proud of you'd be willing to make some sacrifices.

      --

      Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.

    2. Re:Extreme PaintBrawl by Quietude · · Score: 4, Informative

      PC Gamer gave it a single-digit rating, which led to the lead programmer writing them a letter and begging them to re-review it after the patch that added AI to the game was released.

  31. Re:The list by Vreejack · · Score: 2, Informative

    If there is some minimum bar, or aggravating factor for getting position on lists such as this then I would include such things as "hype" and number of sales. Since Since John Romero's Daikatana didn't make the list I have to assume that hype was left out, but the fact that E.T. came out number one on his list suggests that sales figured in his calculations. E.T. was actually investigated by a television news team for being so terribly awful. Its creator was interviewed and shrugged it off on camera, saying that he was just a hired contractor who was required to meet a deadline. I even recalled Mad magazine making fun of this bomb of a game, which listed for something like $50 when it was released.

    Curiously, Custer's Revenge also made the TV news, though for different reasons (native protests played a small part). Amusingly, the broadcaster decided to blank out the offending part of Custer's anatomy, making the roughly pixelated penis look larger, and black.

    Dana Plato certainly made some poor choices in her life. Perhaps this game was one of them, but as a fan of hers I prefer to think of her as a "pioneer." Lots of has-been and would-be actors would be discovered or buried in these video game roles in the years to come.

    --
    "Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
  32. This guy works for EGM? by gravis777 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is the most pathetic article I have ever read. Other than being horribly offended by the language of the article, it read mostly like it was written by some teenage kid on his blog. While I must agree with his game picks, I feel that he was overly harsh in many areas, especially graphics. The Kriss Kross game and the Zelda game made early use of video compression capabilities, and especially with the Kriss Kross game, the idea that you are mixing videos, real-time, on the fly, on hardware the likes of the Sega CD, limited to 64 colors being able to be displayed at one time, was quite a technological marvel. Several of the games he mentioned had sucky graphics not because of poor design, but because of limitations of the NES and the Gameboy color. Actually, from the screenshots he posted of stuff like Bubsy, Kriss Kross, Barensteen Bears, Total Recal, and so forth, the graphics were on par with other games of the same genera on the same platform. Shoot, even ET, with as AWFUL as that game was, had graphics that were on par with other Atari 2600 titles.

    While I must admit that all of these games sucked, the reasons given in the article were not good. It looks like games were picked at random, I mean, with the exception of ET, I can think of many other games that should be on this list instead. I would much rather be forced to play Bubsy than that horrible Home Alone game for the SNES, Galaga 13 and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker could be put in the same category as Total Recal, and I cannot believe that not a single Barbie game made the list. And what about those games that were released that were so buggy that they could not be played? Three Dirty Drarfs for the Sega Saturn actually CRASHED on me every time I get to a certain point of the game, which, I have not played it in years, so cannot remember if its the first or second level, but made the game practically worthless. I have played racing games where physics seemed to be a concept the game designers left out, making it perfectly alright to drive through solid objects. How in the world did Aquaman not get on this list?

    Once again, I must admit that all these games suck, but if you are going to work for EGM, stop acting like a 14 year old who is having a tempertantherum because he just got grounded.

  33. Zero Wing by fuzzybunny · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can't believe nobody's brought up this classic.

    The game itself is, meh, average, but the fact that the introduction was so hilariously bad as to spark an Internet phaenomenon....well, all your bad game are belong to us.

    --
    Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
  34. Re:The list by irving47 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well in my case, it provided a lot of closure. I always felt like a retard when I tried to play that ET game. I'd sit awake in my room at night figuring, "OK" I just need to be smarter or pay more attention. I can't believe a video game on the atari would be wrong or bad, so it must be me!!"

    When I saw the article title, I thought, "Oh please God, let it be on the list. Anywhere on the list!" Number One... There is a God.

    --
    I had a sucky sig.
  35. Worst Game Ever by BigFootApe · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't know how they missed Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.

    Wikipedia has a pretty good list:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_c onsidered_the_worst_ever

  36. Re:The list by hmccabe · · Score: 3, Funny

    You sir, must never has scratched your balls after slicing jalapenos.

  37. hardcore game journalism by cdrgonzo · · Score: 2, Funny

    let's take 20 games everybody says sucks, bag on them, throw in homophobic references twice a game and say fuckity shit shit poopy fuck to buy a few laughs since i lack enough talent to be funny without them.

    u are sucks

    how about a list of the top twenty games every gaming dork beats off to despite knowing deep down it's boring garbage?

    1- myst, totally gay
    2- shenmue, jap fag, if i pooped i could have made a better game
    3- final fantasy, 60 hours of homosexual gameplay, homos.
    4- GTA, that guy is hardcore and bones babes, but im jerking it 50% for the guy and 50% for the woman, GAY.
    5- Pikmin - i could imagine one of those flowers going up my butt, and pulling out a daisy that smelled better than this gayness...
    6- Call of Duty - greek warriors were gay, so are american warriors and the gay artists that drew them...

    i'm done, feel free to continue the list...

  38. Heroes of the Lance? by The+Wooden+Badger · · Score: 2, Informative

    Heroes of the Lance was bad enough to be on the list? It wasn't great, but it wasn't that bad either. Oh, I just read the article, and he's talking about the NES version. The PC version was decent at least. The NES version looks like crap compared to the PC version (EGA baby!).

    --
    Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
  39. Re:The list by lisaparratt · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Sir"? The word you're looking for is "Mistress"!