When I was in the 8th grade, my best friend got a Nintendo game called Infiltrator for his birthday. It was a first-person helicopter combat game, but damned if you couldn’t really fly, you couldn’t really shoot, and the instrumentation panel was really colorful but not communicated in anything resembling English. I always thought he got a defective copy, but if he didn’t…
wow… I thought I would have been the only one to bring this one up… lol…
worst game ever…
I always figured Rebellion (which I did like, btw) was really just a computer version of Avalon Hill’s board game “Freedom in the Galaxy”. Same basic idea, same missions structure, etc. Although, since Freedom was as close to Star Wars in plot and concept as it could be without AH being sued, I didn’t mind. The interface was confusing, though.
Back in the 80’s my aunt bought me the Smurf’s game for the Atari 2600. It was horrible. The whole point was that in each panel you only had to do one thing (jump a stream, jump on a chair, jump down a step, A STEP, etc.) The music was the la la la la smurf’s song OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER, well, it wasn’t really “music” it was just beeping and in the end (you rescued Smurfette"), she kissed you, screen faded to black, more of the beeping music, and then you started OVER again (I don’t think soooo) It was the least challenging and most annoying game ever.
Does anyone remember a text-based game for early Commodore 64, about some sort of “indiana jones - type” explorer in some pyramids where you had to type what you wanted to do, and kept typing until you phrased your line correctly?. It went something like:
-“You have reached a door”.
Then you would input: “open”
-Command not recognized.
“open door”
-Command not recognized
“open door, please”
-Command not recognized
“open the door”
“you open the door”.
(inner voice: WOOO HOOOO)
After a while, you realize you had to something else… So you would type:
“walk”
-Command not recognized
“walk inside”
-Command not recognized
…
It was horrible, but strangely entertaining at the same time.
I was going to say Pong! I don’t understand why the discussion is even continuing. Spiff already gave the right answer: PONG! Nothing else you’ve mentioned even approaches its level of lameness. Two vertical bars and a little square bouncing back and forth between them. It looked something like this…
H H
H H
H H H
H H
H H
And, as a bonus, it destroyed your TV’s picture tube. You can’t get any lamer than that!
ooh hey, Pong had its moments. Like Pong Kombat, the PC freeware game that combined Pong and Mortal Kombat. Each paddle had a different special move, and fatalities!
More info on Smurf Rescue.
Y’know, I have a confession to make; I’ve enjoyed, nay, loved games that would (and have) sent other gamers running for Mommy. I think it’s akin my love of certain bad movies (it’s a curse, I swear, and I try not to inflict it on other people), or to my interest in some bad music (I burned myself a copy of William Shatner’s “The Transformed Man” just for Mr. Tambourine Man). It’s not like I don’t know they’re severely flawed; I just…like them. Games like Quest 64 (finished it twice, and if I could find my -stolen- copy of it, I’d play it again), the entire King’s Field series, or what was released of it here. My introduction into the Castlevania series was Castlevania 64, Tom and Jerry on NES (most frustrating game ever, I tell you), Mario’s Time Machine (NES), and others whose title escape me at the moment.
I’m cursed as a gamer, apparently. But at least the curse only extends to entertainment, and not the rest of my life, right?
…A modest nomination for The Hunt for Red October, for the NES. Most of the game wasn’t bad-just a side-scrolling submarine game. But after god knows how many levels (including ones like “The Tropics,” and the even more brazen “Crystal Zone”), the player was suddenly thrust into a “SABOTAGE!” level, where you controlled Captain Ramius as he had to run around the missile tubes to do…something. This level wasn’t even mentioned in the manual, much less what the player was supposed to do when they reached it, or what the controls were. And even if you managed not to get shot by one of the saboteurs (I THINK that’s what those guys were), the timer would run out, and he ship would explode. And it would end the game if you went through three lives, even if you were using the Game Genie.
And…did I mention that there was no “Save Game” feature on this game? I found that out after staying up till midnight on Christmas Eve playing through the 30 or so levels until I was faced with “SABOTAGE!”
I needed a hug.
Worst game ever was Bill Lambier’s Combat Basketball I can’t even describe how bad this game was.
Well, golly. That explains a lot.
And I remember playing Bill Lambier’s Combat Basketball. I seem to recall there was only one button to push that did everything.
What did it do? Throw elbows?
When I first saw this thread my first thought was Frank Herbert’s Dune. This game was awful, and that is tough for me to say because I love Dune and everything associated with it - except this game. The vantage point was awful and the keyboard controls were pre-set and could not be changed and they worked differently than any other game that I have played. Just a major disappointment.
Then I was reminded of Outpost. That game kept me weary of Sierra products for a long, long time. The game was nothing like what the box depicted. Sucked.
Of course Evolution was about as much fun a watching paint dry. Basically, I would watch my critter become another critters dinner, or just starve to death. Oh joy.
Smurf’s rescue has got to be in the top three – the review was hysterical! A deadly tuft of grass! Bwa ha ha!
But I don’t know about Pong. Perhaps if we were looking at what would be the worst game to play, right now, but I think it’s fair to adjust for historical era, so I’d give Pong a pass.
No votes for Daikatana as of yet. Not as bad as first thought?
In their classic 100th issue, Nintendo Power had a lot of top 100 lists, and a special top 10 worst Nintendo games ever. It had some hilarious reviews, including something like: “Color A Dinosaur: Imagine Mario Paint without anything fun it it.”
Bebe’s Kids was on there, but I don’t think it was #1.
Firstly, curse you for making me remember this. Secondly, curse me for still having this information in my brain.
As I recall, if you didn’t have the ball, pressing the button would cause you to lunge in the direction you’re facing in an attempt to tackle the ball carrier and steal the ball (it was a sorta futuristicky type basketball game). If you were carrying the ball and pushing a directional button when you pressed the button, you would pass the ball in that direction. If you had the ball and weren’t moving in any direction, you shot the ball. And that was the game.
Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza
For some reason, they thought it would be a good idea to have another actor redo all of Hans Gruber’s lines (and all other characters lines), even though they were the exact same lines. This would’ve been fine, if the voice acting didn’t suck sour frog ass.
Really… how much more expensive would it have been to acquire the rights to take some sound clips from the movie?
another vote for outpost, as stated above many things didn’t work, some of them were fixed in later versions of the game. Serria actually put out a walkthru of the game, problem is if you didn’t follow it each and every time your conony would be lost. Outpost 2 OTOH was a pretty good RTS game that due to the flop of Outpost went for $10 a month after the release.
Another potentially great game that was doomed due to a terrible interface was this game I can’t remember. It was one of the 1st if not the 1st multi CD game (4 CD’s IIRC), beutiful graphics that encouraged you to upgrade to 16 mb ram, sort of a private eye theme as seen 1st person. The one fatal flaw was the interface. To move forward you would move the mouse forward a little and hold it there, you would continue moving forward till you move the mouse back.
Also I heard that lawnmovewman was horrible but never played it.
Outpost is nowhere near the worst game ever, although it was kinda boring and didn’t promise all its features right off the bat.
However, my nomination for the worst game would be Drakkhen for SNES. Running around the “3D” world was crappy, the enemies always had the same sound of “BLEH!” and it just sucked hardcore.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, i give you:
Rise of the Robots
That game sucked arse like nothing has sucked arse before.
You could virtually beat the entire game with one goddamn move - i think it was “across and punch”.
“Ahhhhhhhh” I hear you say “But its a beat’em up - surely it doesn’t matter how crappy the computer is at it since the real fun is in multiplayer!”
BOLLOCKS
the one move thing still worked.
If you were the first player to get a punch in and repeatedly did the move you couldn’t lose.
I couldn’t even not play the game - all my mates knew i had it - none of them had it, so of course every time anyone came round my house they wanted to play it - they’d seen the ads in the newspapers, on tv, in the cinemas. It was even getting rave reviews from several lying-bastard-scumbag games magazines whose claim to be “unbiased” i was fast learning to doubt.
EVERY time ANYONE came round my house this would happen:
Warning - due to over-immersion in Ninja Turtles the following youth flashback contains excessive “Dude-ing”
Mate: “Cool! Rise of the Robots!”
Garius: “Dude it sucks arse.”
M: “No way! I’ve seen the ads it looks f*cking cool!”
G: “Seriously man it bites! There isn’t an arse big enough in the whole world for that game to suck - lets do something else.”
M: “Dude! Shut the f*ck up! You’re just saying that cos you want to play Lemmings again! I’m putting it on!”
G: sigh “fine.”
Thirty minutes later
M: “Dude this game sucks arse.”
and so on…
I swear to god that i had to do that about 30 to 40 times before people stopped insisting on playing it. thats 30ish times 30 minutes (the average time it took to reach people’s “this sucks” level). Add in the time it took me to complete the game and stop trying to convince myself it was a good thing to spend my birthday money on and thats about 20hrs
I lost virtually a day of my youth to Rise of the frikkin Robots
someday someone will pay for that.
oh yes.
someone will pay.
Oh my God, I forgot The Lawnmower Man.
Remember how bad the movie was?
It was a GOOGOL times worse than the movie.