Bad Games

[Garple]

Tanukitsune's thread about Bomberman Act Zero made me think about the pantheon of bad games. What's up at the top? What bad games have you personally played? Are there any games that are so bad, they're good, or does that principle not apply to games.

[Patters]

Are there any games that are so bad, they're good, or does that principle not apply to games.

The Postal series.

[mikemariano]

I think the most obvious "so bad, they're good" games are those heavily influenced by better games.

You think to yourself, "Man, I had more fun playing that other game, but this is close enough where I'll keep going, even though I see all the flaws that the other game avoided."

Like these games!

Shadow Warrior: Shadow Warrior had the same Build Engine and crude humor that Duke Nukem featured, but it was too noisy and busy. Duke Nukem's inventive weapons (like the Pipe Bomb, Trip Bomb, and Shrink Ray) were genuinely fun to play with. Shadow Warrior's attempts to do the same thing just felt like gimmicks.

Arx Fatalis: I really got into this game, though it has a lame story, weak voice acting, uninspired combat, and bugs galore! I really dug the setting though, which the developers were quick to note was inspired by Ultima Underworld. Ultima! That explains the bugs.

[Tanukitsune]

The Postal series.

Troma was somewhat involved in those games, right? There probably trying make the game like their movies! It was kinda like playing a Troma movies... XP

Stalin VS. Martians would have been so bad that it's good, except the control is so terrible it's unplayable...

Ooooh.... Have I ever played bad games? *shivers*

Bomberman Act Zero is the worst commercial game of this console generation....

Worst low budget indie game? Well, apart from Stalin Vs. Martian which is so bad I think you can't even buy it online anymore, there is Eternity's Child which is boring and has terrible controls too...

Exodus from Earth and Alpha Prime are almost so bad they are funny....

And those "find the item" games are horrid, only because they have a bajillion levels of the same room... When I bought the Popcap collection and when through the whole series of those games I was actually telling myself to stop the torture.... But it was the only way I'd learn not to buy such a horrid game again... Oddly enough Mumbo Jumbo's Samantha Swift's "Item search" games are actually fun!

The worst adventure games I've played? I've always hated Chewy, but then I played Dare to Dream which makes Chewy look like Monkey Island.... And Operation Stealth is so cliche, has too many minigames and it's just dumb....

McDonald land was reviewed by the AVGN, so you can assume how good that was...

That's the worst I can think of...

Oh... Sonic Labyrinth is pretty awful too...

I couldn't say which is the worst of the lot, but it should probably be Bomberman Act: Zero, because they should have known better?

[Moelman]

I haven't played this but my friend wrote a blog entry on how bad Disaster: Day of Crisis was for the Wii, so bad it's good apparently http://www.twilightlynk.com/2010/01/17/game-spotlight-disaster-day-of-crisis/

[Patters]

Troma was somewhat involved in those games, right? There probably trying make the game like their movies! It was kinda like playing a Troma movies... XP

The developer is Running with Scissors Inc. I don't know of any official affiliation.

Another "so bad it's good" game is Brutal: Paws of Fury, a Fighting game on the Sega Megadrive, the premise is you are animals and you beat each other up. Classic characters such as The Dalai Llama and Roxy the Fox, star.

[Sombre]

Final Fantasy 12 for me. It just plays so bad.

[SoulChicken]

Final Fantasy 12 for me. It just plays so bad.

wierdo, that game plays just fine. Story's pretty subpar though.

[Murdoc]

Bomberman Act Zero is the worst commercial game of this console generation....

I don't have perspective in this as I never did touch Bomberman Act Zero; but I'll offer a possible counter point called Hour of Victory. I still have the demo on my xbox as a hilarious and valuable lesson of shittiness.

[syntheticgerbil]

Shadow Warrior: Shadow Warrior had the same Build Engine and crude humor that Duke Nukem featured, but it was too noisy and busy. Duke Nukem's inventive weapons (like the Pipe Bomb, Trip Bomb, and Shrink Ray) were genuinely fun to play with. Shadow Warrior's attempts to do the same thing just felt like gimmicks.

WHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO WANTA SOOOOOOOOOOOOOME WAAAAAAAAANG?!

Man, that game was terrible. I remember buying it from Target and having to go online in 6th grade and download some patch that didn't work in hopes that the blood would turn on.

I tend to think the games that are the worst ever are the ones that manage to get some hype around them as some kind of masterpiece and fail to everyone except those delusional enough to justify their purchase or slog through the game. So while I could say BIG RIGS RACING SUCKS BALLS AND DICK, MAN!, I would somehow guess I would get way more enjoyment out of that game than the terrible experience I had playing Syberia.

Benoit Sokal is a man who seems to have enough clout to convince a huge team to create the most boring, stagnant atmosphere starring one of the most transparent and underwritten token female adventure characters through one of the lamest and ill-conceived plots I've ever suffered through in an adventure game of that caliber. The puzzles were ridiculous too, as if they were designed by someone who hadn't paid one bit of attention to changing puzzle standards in adventure games since 1988.

Phantasmagoria was close in badness, as are most Roberta Williams games, but there's something to be said for the cheesiness of that one in comparison.

Syberia makes me feel angry at anyone who professes it was some kind of symbolic or "genre changing" game.

Also I remember Bubsy games being really terrible as a child. Like it's what you would play if you somehow found it impossible to get your hands on a Mario or Sonic cartridge somehow. The levels made no sense and had the cheap platforming tactic of just putting a bunch of obstacles all over a level and having some kind of garbage to collect (Before collecting this garbage became a requirement in platformers!) that gave you points. I didn't play Bubsy 3D though, which I hear is one of the worst games ever. Not at all surprised.

[Kolzig]

I bought and played Fahrenheit around the time it was released so I paid the full price, but I wish that I would've never done that. The damn demo sold me the game. The demo was actually really good, but almost everything after the demo scenes was really, really bad.

When I sold it away I got like 5 euros for it as the price went down the drain really quickly.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

The worst game I've played was a bizarre adventure game for the PS where you are a six legged dragon who has to get the princess to date you, or something like that. I can't remember what it was called, for the life of me.

When I was younger, my brother had a strange, slightly pornographic JRPG called Knights of Xentar for the PC that I always found horrible and completely hilarious. I think it was supposed to be funny, though.

I've also "played" the Spice Girls "game", but it's too much of an outlier to call the worst.

[Garple]

The worst game I've played was a bizarre adventure game for the PS where you are a six legged dragon who has to get the princess to date you, or something like that.

I don't know...that sounds pretty good. Oh! I remembered one of the worst games I've played: Perfect Weapon.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

Yes. That dragon game was most certainly a "so bad, it's good"er.

If anyone has played this and knows what it's called please remind me.

Speaking of so completely wierd and bad it's awesome, Chulip. Again.

[lobotomy42]

Also I remember Bubsy games being really terrible as a child. Like it's what you would play if you somehow found it impossible to get your hands on a Mario or Sonic cartridge somehow. The levels made no sense and had the cheap platforming tactic of just putting a bunch of obstacles all over a level and having some kind of garbage to collect (Before collecting this garbage became a requirement in platformers!) that gave you points. I didn't play Bubsy 3D though, which I hear is one of the worst games ever. Not at all surprised.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Bubsy, the first one, was a pretty damn good platformer. Yes, it could be a collect-a-thon, but there was a reason to collect every damn thing in sight - you needed to accumulate as many lives and continues as possible in order to complete those goddamn impossible final levels. Seriously, there were some very clever level designs in that game, with tons of multiple paths (some netting you far more extra lives and powerups than others,) shortcuts, etc. And, when I was 12, I enjoyed the goofy death animations and catchphrases. I'll admit the catchphrases seem cheesy now, but Bubsy had some serious personality and charm.

On the other hand, Bubsy 2 was a cheap cross-promotional gimmick that was used to sell a Nerf gun with no difficulty whatsoever (to say nothing of the sudden addition of weapons,) and Bubsy 3D has been recognized the world over as a disaster. Nonetheless, the original was kick-ass.

Now, Smartball - that was a shitty platformer.

[mikemariano]

The worst game I've played was a bizarre adventure game for the PS where you are a six legged dragon who has to get the princess to date you, or something like that. I can't remember what it was called, for the life of me.

A search on MobyGames suggests it's Blazing Dragons.

Gamespot said the game's "good-natured humor keeps the experience rollicking right along."

[Tanukitsune]

Blazing Dragons was made by one of the Monty Python group, it even had a cartoon too! The only bad part about the game I remember were the minigames?

[Squid Division]

Back in elementary school I rented Superman 64. That game has scarred me for life.

[Irishjohn]

Tanukitsune's thread about Bomberman Act Zero made me think about the pantheon of bad games. What's up at the top? What bad games have you personally played? Are there any games that are so bad, they're good, or does that principle not apply to games.

For me the only application of "so bad, it's good" in video games is in story or setting, or maybe lead character. Shadow Complex's protagonist is so douchey it's mind-blowing, but he's surrounding by an amazing game and I really don't care.

I feel like I've wiped the worst games I've played from my memory. I personally loathed the Leisure Suit Larry games despite the fact I loved all the other Sierra point and click games.

[Fuzzy Lobster]

A search on MobyGames suggests it's Blazing Dragons.

Oh, yeah! Blazing Dragons, that was it. I had forgotten that it was made by one of the Monty Python dudes. I've also completely forgotten the minigames. That game was pretty ridiculous.

I personally loathed the Leisure Suit Larry games despite the fact I loved all the other Sierra point and click games.

Leisure Suit Larry is a pretty worthy addition to the terrible games list. My brother had 3 or 4 of them right next to his gross RPG. I always found them wildly funny and kind of addicting, though.

I'm going to have to throw in the Dead or Alive Volleyball games as almost hilarious and yet a bit too creepy to tolerate for more than 5 minutes.

[ThunderPeel2001]

There's a crap load of bad games out there, but certain ones made a lasting impression. The stuff I suffered through after the Amiga had long died were particularly memorable, perhaps because I was so desperate for something halfway competent.

I loved adventure games, so I tried to get my hands on adventure games from small selection of titles that were still being released. Sixth Sense Investigations promised LucasArts style gameplay, but just the thought of the game literally makes me feel nauseous... it was so ugly, so badly written, so bad designed, so... horrible.

If the only way to buy an Amiga game wasn't over the internet/mail order at that point, I might have spotted trouble when the box read "The base storyboard tells of a crazy young guy who has the ability to communicate with the spirit of a sarcastic man". The same astonishing attention to detail ran throughout the game, yet they had the nerve to charge me FULL PRICE that piece of shit. It was a horrible waste of meagre student funds.

The only people left creating games for the Amiga in 1998 were the die-hards; the die-hard fans (see above) and the die-hard techies. From the latter camp came titles like Virtual Karting and Capital Punishment.

It was a horrible time and place to be a games lover... Until, one day, my mother decided she needed a PC. So I helped her set it up, and picked up the LucasArts titles I'd not been able to play. Oh glorious moment! I never looked back and my Amiga was never powered up again. (Not that I dislike the Amiga, but man, it was time to move on!)

Those titles (and others from the same era) have got to represent my worst games-playing experiences... I'm so glad I moved on to better things!

[Jayel]

What the.... I can't believe the amount of negative posts about Leisure Suit Larry series on this thread! (2) It's quite possibly my favourite sierra adventure franchise. It's definitely neck-to-neck with Gabriel Knight series.

Recently I had the misfortune of playing through the first Broken Sword game on DS. I hated just about everything about it, and it's probably the worst adventure game I have ever played. What's puzzling to me is that this game was received quite well critically, and often mentioned in "favourite adventure games" conversations and such. The only explanation I can think of is that this game is so bad, it's good.

[toblix]

Recently I had the misfortune of playing through the first Broken Sword game on DS. I hated just about everything about it, and it's probably the worst adventure game I have ever played. What's puzzling to me is that this game was received quite well critically, and often mentioned in "favourite adventure games" conversations and such. The only explanation I can think of is that this game is so bad, it's good.

What?! No, no, it's not that it's so bad, it's good. It's that it's so good. I can't speak for the DS (or iPhone) versions, but the two first Broken Sword games definitely are among my favorites. The atmosphere and level of polish is exceptional. The background art, animations, voice work and music are probably the best the adventure world has ever seen, and the story and puzzles are also terrific. Everything is so smooth, so polished, so well-animated. It really was the peak of adventure games, right before that mother fucking third dimension (the "turd dimension") came along and ruined every game for about five years.

[Patters]

What?! No, no, it's not that it's so bad, it's good. It's that it's so good. I can't speak for the DS (or iPhone) versions, but the two first Broken Sword games definitely are among my favorites. The atmosphere and level of polish is exceptional. The background art, animations, voice work and music are probably the best the adventure world has ever seen, and the story and puzzles are also terrific. Everything is so smooth, so polished, so well-animated. It really was the peak of adventure games, right before that mother fucking third dimension (the "turd dimension") came along and ruined every game for about five years.

Going to have to back this up. Broken Sword 2 is probably my favourite adventure game of all time.

[Lu]

I join the Toblix-Patters Collective™, even though I played the first 2 such a long time ago. I wonder if I should go back to them and see how they held up; I'm kind of curious.

On second thought, I probably won't. MY NOSTALGIA WILL REIGN SUPREME!