The "Holy Cow - What a Piece of Garbage for a 2600 cart!" Thread

[VectorGamer]

Here's the flip side to this thread:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=144302

 

 

Here are my picks for the games that smelled something foul after inserting them into the 2600:

 

Pac-Man

I believe the opening notes of the game translate to "You-R-a-Te-Rard"

 

Cosmic Swarm

Here's a sperm that helped fertilize the Video Game Crash...

 

Night Driver

I played the arcade game a lot - but someone let loose the three-year old with crayons and construction paper to program the graphics for the home version...<<<B00P-b00p>>>

Edited May 27, 2009 by rmaerz

[kroogur]

Froggo: Karate Words cannot adequately describe the awfulness

[navy09]

There is a plethora of games that had a good premise, but missed the mark on the 2600. I can understand shortcomings, but I don't know how some games got past the think tank.

 

Sneak n' Peek and Custer's Revenge are my choices for the most ill conceived and worthless games on the Atari.

[Kripto]

It appears that I may have taken an oath in a previous life that dictates I respond with "ssSnake" whenever the question of worst 2600 stinkers comes up...

 

I really do understand why people hate Froggo Karate though... The fact that you can't tell whether or not you're actually effecting gameplay says a huge amount about that title.

[classicgamingguy]

Hmm, I really can't think of any bad 2600 carts!!

[Rom Hunter]

I can:

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...ERSION_ID=12329

 

The first level of Bi! Bi! is extremely frustrating and the second level is literally unplayable due to a programming bug.

 

IMO the worst VCS game ever officially released.

 

BTW: the original version by Sancho does not contain the bug.

 

[+save2600]

Hmm, I really can't think of any bad 2600 carts!!

 

Give Burgertime a try. Methinks you'll be changing your mind...

[+RandomPerson]

A good 90 percent of the retail games for the 2600 fit in this thread IMO.

[Foxsolo2000]

Personally I cant believe someone is rehashing a topic that has been done to death already! Come on guys, lets talk about something different (is that possible?) before someone starts slagging off ET again and wakes up Random Terrain

[classicgamingguy]

Hmm, I really can't think of any bad 2600 carts!!

 

Give Burgertime a try. Methinks you'll be changing your mind...

 

I did, and I have...augh, what a piece of crap..

[+save2600]

Hmm, I really can't think of any bad 2600 carts!!

 

Give Burgertime a try. Methinks you'll be changing your mind...

 

I did, and I have...augh, what a piece of crap..

 

LOL! In the mid 90's, when I first discovered Burgertime was even ported to the 2600, I thought "cool, I love this game". Needless to say, I was soooooo disappointed with that steaming pile of dung

[Jess Ragan]

That game always gets Russ Perry's vote as the worst 2600 game ever released, and after spending some time with it several years ago, I'm inclined to agree. The sad thing is, the game could have been almost playable with just a few minor changes to its design. It's that lengthy period of vulnerability when you jump into the water that ruins the game... half the lives you'll lose will be lost just trying to get out of that damned boat!

 

Apollo's Infiltrate is one of my all-time least favorites on the Atari 2600. Take Elevator Action, bludgeon it with a ball-peen hammer until it's severely brain damaged, and that's the game in a nutshell. The graphics are a baby step above the system's launch titles and the gameplay is both frustrating and unrewarding.

 

I can:

http://www.atarimania.com/detail_soft.php?...ERSION_ID=12329

 

The first level of Bi! Bi! is extremely frustrating and the second level is literally unplayable due to a programming bug.

 

IMO the worst VCS game ever officially released.

 

BTW: the original version by Sancho does not contain the bug.

 

[+save2600]

Apollo's Infiltrate is one of my all-time least favorites on the Atari 2600. Take Elevator Action, bludgeon it with a ball-peen hammer until it's severely brain damaged, and that's the game in a nutshell. The graphics are a baby step above the system's launch titles and the gameplay is both frustrating and unrewarding.

 

Now see, I have always liked that game. Eagle grocery stores in Chicagoland used to have a cardboard display of Apollo games back in the day and I bought my copy there. I think the game has a nice fast-paced, almost twitch type action to it. Easy to get in the zone on that one. I also thought the colours were done well. Infiltrate is a title I still pop in once in a while. Oh well, to each their own :-)

[Atarian7]

mogul maniac

[+batari]

Hmm, I really can't think of any bad 2600 carts!!

 

Give Burgertime a try. Methinks you'll be changing your mind...

 

I did, and I have...augh, what a piece of crap..

 

LOL! In the mid 90's, when I first discovered Burgertime was even ported to the 2600, I thought "cool, I love this game". Needless to say, I was soooooo disappointed with that steaming pile of dung

The irony here is that Burgertime used more RAM than any other game released on a cartridge.

[+save2600]

Yes indeedy. Maybe someone could hack this into something more playable? Characters badly need to be enhanced and Peter could be sped up. Of all the hacks out there, I'm kinda surprised nobody has bothered to tinker with Burgertime. Is it because of the extra ram and goofy bankswitching technique they used?

[+batari]

Yes indeedy. Maybe someone could hack this into something more playable? Characters badly need to be enhanced and Peter could be sped up. Of all the hacks out there, I'm kinda surprised nobody has bothered to tinker with Burgertime. Is it because of the extra ram and goofy bankswitching technique they used?

It would need a new kernel and kernel setup code. The game's graphics are bad because only two objects are players (hot dog and chef) and the other three are the missiles and the ball. The game uses RAM wastefully - IIRC, RAM is filled with player/missile/ball graphics surrounded by lots of zeros.

 

I'm sure that players could forgive the bad graphics if the gameplay were more like the arcade. My personal issue is with the controls - it seems like you need to be exactly positioned by a ladder in order to climb it, otherwise you walk right on by.

[+save2600]

I'm sure that players could forgive the bad graphics if the gameplay were more like the arcade. My personal issue is with the controls - it seems like you need to be exactly positioned by a ladder in order to climb it, otherwise you walk right on by.

 

Exactly why I sold my copy of Alfred Chicken :-(

[Jess Ragan]

Yes indeedy. Maybe someone could hack this into something more playable? Characters badly need to be enhanced and Peter could be sped up. Of all the hacks out there, I'm kinda surprised nobody has bothered to tinker with Burgertime. Is it because of the extra ram and goofy bankswitching technique they used?

It would need a new kernel and kernel setup code. The game's graphics are bad because only two objects are players (hot dog and chef) and the other three are the missiles and the ball. The game uses RAM wastefully - IIRC, RAM is filled with player/missile/ball graphics surrounded by lots of zeros.

 

I'm sure that players could forgive the bad graphics if the gameplay were more like the arcade. My personal issue is with the controls - it seems like you need to be exactly positioned by a ladder in order to climb it, otherwise you walk right on by.

 

In all fairness, a lot of Burgertime translations had the exact same problem. The NES version was especially guilty of this... getting on the ladders was stupidly difficult, making an already lackluster conversion that much worse.

 

So here's my question... why would they even bother putting extra RAM in a cartridge that wasn't going to use it? It reminds me of that cheesy Saturn conversion of Final Fight Revenge, which required the four meg RAM cart yet looked noticeably worse than Virtua Fighter 2, which used no expansion at all.

[+batari]

Yes indeedy. Maybe someone could hack this into something more playable? Characters badly need to be enhanced and Peter could be sped up. Of all the hacks out there, I'm kinda surprised nobody has bothered to tinker with Burgertime. Is it because of the extra ram and goofy bankswitching technique they used?

It would need a new kernel and kernel setup code. The game's graphics are bad because only two objects are players (hot dog and chef) and the other three are the missiles and the ball. The game uses RAM wastefully - IIRC, RAM is filled with player/missile/ball graphics surrounded by lots of zeros.

 

I'm sure that players could forgive the bad graphics if the gameplay were more like the arcade. My personal issue is with the controls - it seems like you need to be exactly positioned by a ladder in order to climb it, otherwise you walk right on by.

 

In all fairness, a lot of Burgertime translations had the exact same problem. The NES version was especially guilty of this... getting on the ladders was stupidly difficult, making an already lackluster conversion that much worse.

 

So here's my question... why would they even bother putting extra RAM in a cartridge that wasn't going to use it? It reminds me of that cheesy Saturn conversion of Final Fight Revenge, which required the four meg RAM cart yet looked noticeably worse than Virtua Fighter 2, which used no expansion at all.

The game did use the RAM, but it used it wastefully. Surrounding graphics with lots of zeros is one way to make it easier to code a kernel, as you don't need to do any checks (e.g. skipdraw-like techniques) just write the data line after line. IMO they could have done the same thing with much less RAM and more effective programming.

[Godzilla]

i couldn't stand raft rider. never had bi bi outside of in an emu and could barely play it then. I thought night driver was good for its' time as was pac man and cosmic swarm was meh/ok but not garbage at any rate. sorceror has to rank as the first gfx hack sold on cart in the us (hack of firefly,) and tho im no lover of firefly (I don't hate it tho,) sorceror stinks.

[Jess Ragan]

Burgertime had the dubious distinction of being one of the few 2600 games that disappointed me when I was eleven. It's easy to be let down by games when you're old and jaded, but when a game sucks so much that it leaves a child who shouldn't know better wondering what went wrong, you know it really, REALLY sucks.

 

Nearly all of those M Network games were various shades of mediocre. I wrote in my review of Burgertime that the game was crap because the Blue Sky Rangers wrote it under duress, but that's only a theory. I guess the only way I'd know that for sure is to ask them.

[cvga]

Burgertime is a stinker but I like many of the MNetwork games. I agree with whomever mentioned Sssnake and I'd add Bugs to that list also. I was also extremely disappointed by Miner 2049er. It looks good but it's practically unplayable because it moves so slow!

 

Do I even need to mention that all 3 games by Mythicon are total duds?

[+Nathan Strum]

Pac-Man and Defender. I had been a huge fan of both arcade games, and these were the first two 2600 titles that I had been utterly disappointed by. Both games could have been improved with some relatively minor changes to them (as several hacks have proven), but as released, they were utter train wrecks. Both sequels, oddly enough, were two of the best arcade ports ever on the 2600.

 

With Mythicon, by the time their games came out, the market was in full-on glut mode. So it was more common then for an unknown company to come out with utter garbage (especially at their price point), and the expectation was never high to begin with. And they met those expectations.

 

As for the inevitable - I never expected E.T. to be good (I was never a fan of the movie), so I didn't care what the game was like, and still don't. But it makes for a great punchline!

 

Of the modern-era, N.E.R.D.S and The Last Ninja still stink out loud. Truly, the present-day Mythicon. (But then again, I never did buy E.T. Book Cart. )

[+Omegamatrix]

River Patrol. Guaranteed to drive you insane.