Worst Game You Ever Bought?

[+save2600]

...for the trifecta of Mythicon crappiness.

[+thegoldenband]

I like Bugs! I know a lot of people don't, and I remember at least one person here had particular loathing for it. I can't say I would've been thrilled to pay full retail, and I'm glad I didn't save my pennies to buy it as a kid. But as a $2 twitch game in 2012, I think it's totally fun.

 

Actually, Bugs is one of the only games that I'll chase high scores on. I've gotten close to rolling the score on difficulty A (the easier setting, strangely enough), with 853 points. But I recently gave away my best set of paddles as part of a Christmas gift, so it may be a while before I break 1000.

[Chuck D. Head]

I like Bugs! I know a lot of people don't, and I remember at least one person here had particular loathing for it. I can't say I would've been thrilled to pay full retail, and I'm glad I didn't save my pennies to buy it as a kid. But as a $2 twitch game in 2012, I think it's totally fun.

 

Actually, Bugs is one of the only games that I'll chase high scores on. I've gotten close to rolling the score on difficulty A (the easier setting, strangely enough), with 853 points. But I recently gave away my best set of paddles as part of a Christmas gift, so it may be a while before I break 1000.

 

Ummm. Paddles? Maybe I better give it another try.

[Chuck D. Head]

I would have bought Star Fox for the trifecta of Mythicon crappiness, but I didn't have another $5; thank god.

 

For what it is worth, here is an interview with the developer of these fine games that I had not run across before...

 

http://www.digitpres...e_de_graaf.html

 

Notice the pic of the store display; that brings back memories!

Edited January 13, 2012 by Chuck D. Head

[kroogur]

Dragon Age 2

[DemonoidTentacle]

SNES - Stunt Race

 

Thank god I chose to hire this before buying. I really dodged a bullet there.

[DrThielegood]

How did we avoid these games back in the pre-internet, even pre-gaming magazine, days? I clearly remember buying Swordquest: Earthworld with my Dad( with money earned from lawns and other odd jobs btw) and reading through the documentation before playing it. It really hyped me up for what was a splendidly awful experience. What a disappointment. Years later....after nearly an hour of debating and deciding, the boxart was the deciding factor that led me to buy....Deadly Towers. Blechhhh....what a p.o.s.

It seemed to be worse at the time. Maybe since, as I mentioned, I worked hard to earn the cash to buy these games. That was a alot of lawns to buy Deadly Towers.

[DrThielegood]

Dragon Age 2

 

wow...good call. I liked the first one so much that I pre-ordered the second. What a let down.

[kroogur]

Dragon Age 2

 

wow...good call. I liked the first one so much that I pre-ordered the second. What a let down.

 

Years ago Cartoon Network made a video with clips from the Flinstones set to Soul Coughings "Circles" song to poke fun at the lazy looping backgrounds from Hanna Barberra, if I had the editing skills i'd love to do a similar video with clips from Dragon Age 2.

[HuckleCat]

These are games I paid full retail for back in the day and after ripping open the packaging and popping it in, quickly wondered WTF?

 

SNES - Stunt Race FX

 

Dreamcast - Shenmue

 

XBox - Star Wars: KotOR

 

I find myself curious what games you think qualify as good.

[+save2600]

These are games I paid full retail for back in the day and after ripping open the packaging and popping it in, quickly wondered WTF?

 

SNES - Stunt Race FX

 

Dreamcast - Shenmue

 

XBox - Star Wars: KotOR

 

I find myself curious what games you think qualify as good.

 

Most anything you can pickup, get into and play right away. And that includes most turn based strategy games, but for a modern example: Star Trek: Conquest. For RTS, that would include something like Dune II, Warcraft or Defender of the Crown. For RPG, that would be the Final Fantasies, Chronotrigger, etc.. Arcade driving games, NOT the kind of crap that has you picking out tires, the motor, spoilers and the color of your car before you start racing. Good framerates and sense of speed a must. Space shooters that get you right into the action vs. several mundane "training" missions before you get started, etc., etc.

[Torr]

Well I didn't buy it, but I did request it as a XMas present. Super Tennis for the Master System.

I always have been a big Tennis fan for some reason, even at 8-9 years old, so I really wanted this game. Plus living in North America I didn't have any of the other good Euro Tennis game releases available to me.

Not sure what I was expecting really, but was so let down by what I got.

Basically Pong, only when the ball came your way you didn't just have to position a paddle in front of the ball, you also had to press a button as the ball connected with the paddle. Thats it. If Pong played vertically and made you have to press a button otherwise the ball would travel through your paddle, you'd have Super Tennis.

 

Mind you it was 1990-91 and it was my one new game so it did still get heavy play for a while... But thats one time I wish I had asked for ANY other game that XMas.

 

EDIT: Anyone ever notice the STRIKING resemblance of Super Tennis on SMS to Tennis on NES? I think it is the same graphics/gameplay engine for both, but the SMS just makes it look a little better... this pissed me off too, I loved my SMS for being 'better' than the NES, and all I got was a crap NES game.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Torr

[+thegoldenband]

EDIT: Anyone ever notice the STRIKING resemblance of Super Tennis on SMS to Tennis on NES? I think it is the same graphics/gameplay engine for both, but the SMS just makes it look a little better... this pissed me off too, I loved my SMS for being 'better' than the NES, and all I got was a crap NES game.

 

Yes, absolutely. I asked about this on SMSPower, but didn't get any answers to speak of. I think Tennis is one of the very worst NES games, and probably the worst tennis game I've ever played, so it's a pity they ported it! I'd have to think it's the same codebase, because it plays more or less identically, and I can't imagine that someone would sit down and meticulously clone NES Tennis.

[high voltage]

Taboo...what a lot of NES crap again.

[7800Lover]

Donkey Kong Jr. for the Atari 2600

 

At least Donkey Kong on 2600 was playable. What happened here? Bad graphics and they dumped the fruit you can drop on enemies. This baby monkey should have stayed in its crib!

[retrorussell]

Dark Castle for the Genesis. Good game on the Mac, but it needs a mouse. Fortunately I was able to return it.

ME TOO!

"You've got smarts, a buff bod, and a pocketful of rocks", the game sleeve indicates. This guy is the biggest pussy I've ever seen in a video game. He looks like Shaggy. Smarts, buff bod my ass!

[Tr3vor]

American Gladiators for the SNES. oh my gosh is it bad. I hate it. I don't put it in my nes because I fear that It will give my nes cart STDs or something.

 

luckly i paid 3$ for it.

[Austin]

Here are some ones I can think of off the top of my head:

 

Criticom (Saturn/PSX): Horrible "3D" fighting game. This actually used to be sort of an inside joke between myself and some online friends back in the '90s. It was that bad. It had potential, nonetheless, unlike another fighter I will mention below, but god damn is this game bad. On a more pleasant note, a pseudo-sequel was released down the road, Dark Rift for the N64. It was actually pretty good.

 

Shellshock (Saturn/PSX): Some kind of tank game. You go around blasting ****. Literally. I mean, they probably actually say that in the game. You play the role of some hoodrats of some sort, but you go blasting ****. In tanks. Yo. One of the stranger combinations of the late '90s if you ask me. And it's not even that the game is terrible--it might actually be OK later on in the game, but the content made me want to turn it off pretty quickly.

 

Shadow: War of Succession (3DO): I think this one is pretty well known in the mid-'90s gaming circles. It's just bad. Terrible sounds. Terrible visuals. Broken gameplay. It's so bad it's laughable. Go watch a video of it right now. You will laugh. Trust me!

 

Slam City with Scotty Pippin (Sega 32X CD): Yes, I bought this. And I bought Corpse Killer, too. And Supreme Warrior. And Night Trap. What can I say? They were cheap and I was intrigued by FMV that took advantage of the 32X. There was some quality stuff there. Minus gameplay, of course. At least Night Trap was playable. Slam City? Who's bright idea was this one? Complete garbage. Only worth it to laugh at today. And of course, many laughs will be had!

 

Dreamcast - Shenmue

 

I supported the Dreamcast heavily when it was around, and I bought this game on day one. It literally took me three hours to finally "get into" the game. Those first several hours I was knocking on doors and getting BS "get outta here, I can't help you" responses. I did eventually enjoy it, but for those first few hours I was worried I had thrown away $50. I can completely understand why some people are turned off by this game. Definitely one of the slowest starts (after the intro anyway) in the history of gaming.

[+thegoldenband]

On a more pleasant note, a pseudo-sequel was released down the road, Dark Rift for the N64. It was actually pretty good.

 

Yeah, I kind of like that game! It's gotten mediocre reviews, but it's one of the few fighting games that my girlfriend seems to at least vaguely enjoy.

 

Shadow: War of Succession (3DO): I think this one is pretty well known in the mid-'90s gaming circles. It's just bad. Terrible sounds. Terrible visuals. Broken gameplay. It's so bad it's laughable. Go watch a video of it right now. You will laugh. Trust me!

 

If I'd bought this at retail, instead of getting it for $5.50 from a fellow AA member, it would've been #1 with a bullet. Hilariously awful, and one of the very worst games I've ever played, with the production values of a Flash game ca. 2000.

 

BTW if buying a game new/at retail price isn't a prerequisite, then I'd say that Hockey/Soccer for the Odyssey^2 might be the worst game I've ever purchased (I got it at a flea market). It's almost literally unplayable. However, my copy turned out to be an ultra-rare Japanese edition, so I'm really glad I bought it!

[Austin]

Yeah, I kind of like that game! It's gotten mediocre reviews, but it's one of the few fighting games that my girlfriend seems to at least vaguely enjoy.

 

Dark Rift isn't a particularly deep fighting game by any means, but it controls well, it feels good when you land a combo, it looked good for the time, it sounds decent, and most importantly it runs smoothly which lends it to hold up better today than some other titles from that time. It's far from the best of course, but I think for the couple of dollars you can get it for, it's worth it.

 

BTW if buying a game new/at retail price isn't a prerequisite, then I'd say that Hockey/Soccer for the Odyssey^2 might be the worst game I've ever purchased (I got it at a flea market). It's almost literally unplayable. However, my copy turned out to be an ultra-rare Japanese edition, so I'm really glad I bought it!

 

Yeah, I wasn't sure what the prerequisites were. I am pretty sure I purchased all of the ones I named used, but still, they were purchases nonetheless.

 

If I had to only list games I purchased when they were new, then, well.. Hmm..

 

R-Type III for the Game Boy Advance: I got that on day one, and was severely disappointed. It's a poor port of the SNES game that feels like it runs in molasses.

 

Silpheed: The Lost Planet on the PS2: I don't remember if I bought this new/sealed or not, but I did get it about six months after it hit, when I bought my then-relatively-new PS2. It was dreadful to play, easily the most boring shmup I have ever played in my life. The shame is that it was simply beautiful for the time, and I also really liked Silpheed on the Sega CD. That doubled with the PS2 game having been developed by Treasure, my hopes were high. That was definitely a low point for them, heh.

 

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (XBOX): I was really, really looking forward to this one. Loved Lament of Innocence on the PS2, and expected this to be more like it. Unfortunately, they mixed SOTN elements in with it, which wouldn't have been so bad had the visuals not been completely bland and uninspired along with the game consisting of one long, empty hallway after another. I had to literally force myself to finish this one, only to trade it in immediately afterward. It's more fun to go back to it now, now that it only takes $10 or less to obtain a copy, but for $50, it was one of the lowest points in the series for me.

 

Painkiller: Resurrection (PC): Just read the Steam forums for this one. It was and is pretty bad. It was a "new" game developed by guys that had only worked in the MOD community prior. These guys clearly had no idea what they were doing. It was full of bugs and glitches. Events wouldn't trigger, keeping you from progressing in the game. The engine used was five or six years old at the time, yet the game ran like ass on modern machines, terribly optimized. Crashes happened all the time. The levels were uninspired, with no rhythym or rhyme to them, unlike the original Painkiller (which was meticulously crafted). Bleh. Truly disappointing, and it still is, even after the long-overdue patch. Painkiller "Redemption", as I think it is called, is even worse, if you'd believe it.

[+HammR25]

Every Turbografx sports title.

[+save2600]

Every Turbografx sports title.

World Class Baseball rocked!

 

Takin' It To The Hoop was fair to partly cloudy also...

[Bloodreign]

Daydreamin Davey, some might find it ok, but I don't like it. I forgot from briefly trying it in emulation what it was, said hey cool game (big brain fart on my part there), brought it home, gave it a try and just didn't like the fact that I bought a game I swore I'd never buy. Didn't help that I didn't have a to buy list for each system I wanted back at that time.

[NE146]

Every Turbografx sports title.

World Class Baseball rocked!

 

I remember in college I had almost the entire school baseball team constantly coming over to our frat house to constantly play World Class Baseball (some of those guys are in the MLB now). But heck, the fact they'd play it meant it was obviously good.

Edited January 18, 2012 by NE146