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Top Ten Shameful Games
Posted by
michael
on Sun Dec 29, 2002 08:09 PM
from the cowboyneal's-revenge dept.
from the cowboyneal's-revenge dept.
Ant writes "Not necessarily the worst, but the most wrong -- here are 10 of the most seriously flawed titles of all time according to GameSpy."
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Top Ten Shameful Games
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Lots of these lately (Score:3, Interesting)
Hunt the Wumpus for the TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A (Score:5, Funny)
But why all the "worst games" lists?
The usual hype. But I was surprised by the lack of one hugely important game:
Hunt the Wumpus.
Hunt the Wumpus was apparently an old Unix text-based RPG, which Texas Instruments brought to life on their under-rated but massively overbuilt TI-99/4A home computer [glowingplate.com] in 1980 or so.
The TI-99/4A (and its rare older brother, the TI-99/4) had a 16 bit TMS9900 processor chip (in 1979 and 1981, boys and girls!), a kick-butt video chip (the TMS9918) which had 32 sprites and a video overlay feature. But Texas Instruments, a company which is/was making more chips than Frito-Lay, hobbled the machine by using the video chip's RAM as the console's main memory, bottlenecking the expanded memory down to 8 bits, and creating the single slowest BASIC interpreter ever designed by having it interpreted TWICE (from BASIC to GPL - "Graphics Programming Language" - then to machine language).
With this nasty kludge, they released a graphical version of Hunt The Wumpus. Horrible sound effects, and game play which made you feel like you were drunk and on LSD. Oh, and attempting to add graphics to an old text-only game is doomed to fail [wanadoo.fr], don't even attempt it.
Re:Hunt the Wumpus for the TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A (Score:5, Funny)
My mind is actually reeling. HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME??! You know how long it's taken me to forget that? And -- uhhh -- the sound it makes when you incorrectly guess the direction of the fat little fucker? I think I'm going to be sick.
It's ok. It's ok. (rocking back and forth) Think pleasant thoughts. The new agey music and colours underwater in DK Country. Ok, your sanity is slipping just a little, like that marble in Marble Madness. You're having trouble grasping the controls, like that little fuck Q*bert. But it's ok. I'm almost back to my Prague sanctuary in Vampire, Masquerade Redemption. See how I keep my faith objects though they're useless to me? Think weird, alternate universe, in Super Mario II. Happy little running mushrooms. I'm selling Tandelovian Happy Juice to the Teeelveee in Starflight 2, Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula (system 125, 95). And I'm getting a REALLY GOOD price. Nice Teeelveee. See, everything is JUST FINE.
This has been done before (Score:5, Informative)
The two lists seem to be very similar...
That's it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That's it? (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad GameSpy isn't a game... (Score:5, Insightful)
... otherwise they'd be the number one most shameful game. Taking bets at which community they will buy out and kill next.
You can tell... (Score:5, Funny)
There must be *something* going on somewhere?
Obviously, this tester never played... (Score:5, Informative)
50% of the games which have been created for PC
Something Awful [somethingawful.com] has:
Game reviews [somethingawful.com]
and
The ROM Pit [somethingawful.com]
Don't say I didn't warn you.
I owned one of 'em, and liked it! (Score:4, Interesting)
As for Action 52, as the story hints at, there is a pretty funny and interesting story that goes along with the game. Here's a link [somethingawful.com] to the Something Awful Rompit Review of Action 52, and go here [gamefaqs.com]
for the Gamefaqs.com reviews page for Action 52. I've rarely laughed as hard as I did reading this stuff.
On a side-note, if you are at all into video games, browsing Gamefaqs for the reviews of really bad games can be a laugh riot sometimes. There are a few people who seem to make it their mission to completely eviscerate the worst offenders of the old cartridge console games. Some of the crappy PSX games get some hilarious reviews, too. For when you've got some surfing time, at least.
2600 Pacman & Space Invaders could've been bet (Score:4, Interesting)
Some 2600 Roms have been hacked by people who I suppose wanted to expunge some bad memories. Ms. Pacman for the 2600 wasn't at all bad and somebody hacked it into a fairly arcade-faithful Pacman. Since Ms. Pacman was decent to start with, the hacker limited it to one maze that is a good approximation of arcade Pacman's maze. The prizes were fixed in place below the ghosthouse and edited to match arcade Pacman's prizes. Go to Atari Age and check it out. [atariage.com]
Several credible jobs were done on reforming space invaders. There is no reason why 2600 Space Invaders couldn't have been more accurate as this proves. [atariage.com]
Oh well, anyone who played games in the early eighties knew that crap was rushed out the door. Most of us bought it anyway. Me too. Suckers....
What gives? (Score:5, Funny)
Any shameful game list just HAS to include the disaster called Outpost that was released for the PC in the early 90's. It had a great guide (sold separately) that made the game look great. Too bad most of those features didn't actually make it into the game. What a stinker.
Re:What gives? (Score:5, Funny)
They should have called this article "Top Ten Shameful Games on Consoles No One Under 20 Has Ever Heard Of".
Hey! I keep my old 2600 & ET cartridge around just so I can scare young children.
"HAHA! You fell into the pit again!"
Trust me, there are people under 20 who've heard of that one...and it haunts their nightmares.
Old old old (Score:5, Insightful)
What about recent titles that were 'shameful'? Would someone from Jerry Falwell's congregation like to chime in?
Re:Old old old (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Old old old (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of some customers I had at work. They were trying to find a game for their son, and somehow had stumbled across Diablo. The two were obviously religious from their reaction to a game featuring demons, the undead, and of course, Diablo himself. After looking at the box for a while, asking my coworker some questions, and saying 'oh my' or what have you, they asked their final question, which it seems no religious advocates seem to consider.
'So... you're supposed to kill Diablo?'
'Yep, that's the whole point of the game.'
'That doesn't sound too bad then. We'll take it.'
These parents seem to realize what most religious groups don't: namely, that games like Diablo, that feature unholy evil, are not necessarily bad. Why? Because you're KILLING THE EVIL. You can be a Paladin, a holy warrior of God. How is this bad?
--Dan
LOL (Score:5, Funny)
This list is simply hillarious. For the worst of the worst games (i.e. Custer's Revenge) I was thinking that the screenshot shows a cowboy shooting to the left an Indian to the right. But... the explanation is about pr0n. LOL....
Go straight to this game's explanation [gamespy.com].
What they don't tell you... (Score:5, Informative)
The entire gameplay is on that one screen, moving toward the woman while dodging arrows. The arrows fall in a random, unpredictable, unlearnable pattern. They often appear in volleys that cover too much area for it to be possible to avoid them.
All in all, the perfect choice for the worst game ever.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Informative)
Wanna try [classicgaming.com] it?
ask slashot: (Score:3, Funny)
If I replace the ENIAC boss with a "beat the living hell out of whoever submits top 10 lists to
If I make my own top 10 list [dnsart.com], will it get on slashdot? Will anyone bother to RTFA?
Too bad that TRS-80 dungeon game that tried to be realtime but couldn't keep up with my typing as a 10 year old isn't on the list. These lists are made to "suck up" to the average reader, not the average supergeek.
what, no cheap shot? (Score:5, Funny)
OK, maybe the indian rape thing was worse.
Re:what, no cheap shot? (Score:5, Funny)
Ghostbusters for NES (Score:5, Funny)
Does anyone remember this digital trainwreck? Your character is 2 pixels worth of ghostbusting hero and the climax of the game involves you repeatedly pressing a "climb" button to go up 30+ floors to the top of a building to fight StayPuff Marshellow Man. I actually beat the game once, and the win screen was a simple typed message thanking you for playing "this truly awesome game!!!"
After playing this piece of shit I no longer wanted my eyes.
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, their bullying and underhanded tactics towards the entire industry is damaging everyone (try to use a game finding tool other than Gamespy -- the alternatives don't support as many games, thanks to "exclusive content"). Their entire site, as defined by virtually every hardcore gamer I know, is a complete joke. There are many interesting websites out there dealing with games. Please quit linking to the worst one.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
Better yet are actual fan sites for games you're interested in. A good way to find some is to check the game's official page for a list of fan sites or simply talk to other players. To show you what happens when real gamers put together web sites...
Warcraft III: (Excellent replays)
www.theinclan.com [theinclan.com]
Counter-Strike: (Replays and configs)
www.sogamed.com [sogamed.com]
Quake: (News)
www.quake3stuff.com [quake3stuff.com]
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Funny)
And you're ranting about this on Slashdot?
2600 Pac Man (Score:5, Interesting)
On the day of the game's release, there were lines at the electronics stores, lines at Sears, lines at K-Mart, lines everywhere that sold 2600 stuff. Some places had given out lottery bracelets (like they do at ticketmasters). But there were lines anyway. All these people were waiting to bring the magic of Pac Man home with them.
Then the game came home. What a horrible, horrible dissapointment it was. Ugh. I think that was the beginning of the end for Atari. They pissed off a lot of kids (and parents) with that piece of crap.
This was also about the time that the TRaSh 80 was out, along with the Commodore and Vic machines (I think). Anyway, some of us started getting interested in computer based games after the Pac man debacle. Shortly after that, a number of us left our 2600's behind for the promise of real computers.
Personally, I haven't had a new game console since the 2600. Not because of the Pac Man mess though. I don't see the point of having a dedicated, fixed hardware game platform. A PC does so much more, and the games are generally better than those available on a console.
Re:2600 Pac Man (Score:5, Interesting)
In order to preserve the Pac Man gameplay, Atari didn't follow that rule and had to multiplex the players. Thus the anoying blinking.
One of the reasons that games from Activision had much better graphics, was because their games were designed around the limitations of the 2600.
I saw something similar to this (Score:5, Informative)
A worse version of Super Pitfall exists! (Score:3, Interesting)
And that would be the version that was released for the Tandy Color Computer 3. I never played the NES version but I do own still the CoCo version. I imagine it has all the bad gameplay of the NES version. But I can't imagine the NES version playing as sluggishly as the CoCo version. I mean this game runs slooooooooooow.
(I liked 2600 PacMan)
A pretty arbitrary list (Score:5, Interesting)
Plus, how can anyone leave Trespasser off the list of worst gaming travesties? Not only was the game monumentally awful, but it was also accompanied by such stomach churningly over-the-top hype from Seamus "Media Whore" Blackley, that the resulting derision meant that he later felt compelled to 'redeem' himself by attempting to take credit for the Xbox.
Slot machine games (Score:4, Funny)
Donkey Kong Engrish (Score:4, Interesting)
Thes rest, as they say, is history...
Re:Donkey Kong Engrish (Score:5, Informative)
"Because of his desire to penetrate the American market, [Shigeru] Yamauchi wanted the game to have an English name. Since Miyamoto spoke only a little English, he used a Japanese-English dictionary to find the correct words for the title. He wanted to name the game after the ape -- "Stubborn Gorilla." Looking throught the dictionary, Miyamoto selected the word Donkey as a synonym for stubborn and the word Kong for gorilla."
Another interesting tidbit from the book:
"Before Namco showed Pac-Man to Midway, one change was made to the game. Pac-Man was originally named Puck-Man, a reference to the puck-like shape of the main character. [Masaya] Nakamura worried about American vandals changing the "P" to an "F." To prevent any such occurence, he changed the name of the game."
"So when you're there in class, learning `his story' Learn a little of your story, the real story" -- Boogie Down Productions, "Part Time Sucker"
They left out the arcade one (Score:4, Funny)
I remember thinking 'He's been captured by the Booger Tribe..."
F-15 Strike Eagle? (Score:4, Funny)
What about games released for Timex/Sinclair 1000? (Score:4, Interesting)
5200 Joysticks (Score:3, Informative)
However, the joysticks kept breaking on me. It wasn't so much that they weren't self-centering, but that the primary red buttons on the sides failed to always respond when pressed.
My fondest memory was of the baseball game that came out for it. It had a 3D physics model that seemed pretty realistic. Long drives bounced off the outfield walls, curve balls dipped down which affected the grounder/flyball outcomes. Playing the game on hard difficultly often yielded 2-1 games where runs had to be manufactured by bunting/stealing. It was great, but I couldn't play it do to the joysticks always breaking. Much sadness ensued.
A bit unfair with Atari 2600 Pacman (Score:5, Informative)
It's no wonder the ghosts flickered, it must have been impossible for the little 8 bit CPU to manage to keep everything on screen all the time at 25pfs...
There's an old article about programming the 2600 here [kuro5hin.org] which may open a few eyes!