A Small Victory

Uhhh... I got nothing, good luck finding something so bad that it can compete with that.

ET for the Atari 2600.

Duh! Maybe next time I'll read the entire post before I comment. OK - 2nd choice - Pacman for the 2600.

I hate that you made me admit I know this, but:

"Mary-Kate & Ashley Crush Course "

Cheese Chase

The latest disappointing game (probably not the worst of all time) I acquired was Contra: Shattered Soldier.
Why disappointing? Well, I was so hooked on the original Contra game for NES. Up up down down left right left right B A B A start.
Then comes this el stinko version for the PS2, with graphics that look like they're still for the NES, lousy gameplay, and really annoying cutscenes.
So I thought to myself: hey, maybe if I play it with some cheat codes it will be fun.
Wrong. Even in invincible mode I couldn't wait to turn it off.

I just recently completed a PC game called Chaser that was basically "Total Recall" without Arnold. I'm telling you, I'm a dirtier person for having played it.

But, boy, ET is tough to beat. Come out swinging why don't you.

From my experience, that award should go to the game B-1 Nuclear Bomber by Avalon Hill.

http://free-game-downloads.mosw.com/abandonware/pc/strategy_games/games_b/b_1_nuclear_bomber.html

(for some reason, your comments box refuses to let me leave active links - sigh)

Anyway, I'm sure you can imagine the thrill of a text-based flight simulator.

Or not.

As a big fan of Transformers growing up, I was excited when they announced the game for the PS2 ... oh my, what a disaster. Apparently I missed all the episodes where they started doing ninja kicks.

ET. Oh yeah... Worst.Game.Ever

The Friday the 13th game. Just terrible, but I still own it...

Riven, the sequel to Myst. The expectations were so high, the play so lame. Whole lotta disk-swappin' goin' on, too, which killed what little momentum you could build up.

Agh! Leave it to Lileks to bring up Myst! I had that freakin' game for Sega Saturn (yes, remember Sega Saturn?). The game intrigued me for about one week, at which point I decided that interactive photographs with creepy background music was somehow more a waste of my time than REAL video games.

You cannot possibly compare any bad game that ever existed ever in the history of the universe to ET. As long as the game had one single solitary redeeming value, it was light years ahead of ET.

A pointless game with annoying controls, stupid characters, and an overall complete lack of fun.

Good call, Michele. I don't think a worse game has ever been made.

It's off topic, but Andy Pettitte is a New Yankee no more. He just agreed to a 3 year deal with the Houston Astros.

Thanks Steinbrenner, you jagoff. Why do I see a period like the late 80's and early 90's coming on again?

AWWWW JAMES!!!!!!!

I thought Riven was amazing!

I still think Raiders of the Lost Ark for Atrai 2600 oughta be in the mix, too.

Weird Dreams - early '90's game for the ST and Amiga (I think). It had wonderful graphics, but the gameplay sucked rocks.

Most disappointing game ever: Tomb Raider. All the stupid camera angles that meant you couldn't see what the Hell was going on.

"Up up down down left right left right B A B A start."

Holy crap Jon, you just caused one of those "I can't believe I remember that" moments. Although I seem to recall a "select" before the "start," for some reason.

I got nothing for worst game; there are a lot of them out there.

Up down up down left right left right
B A select start

When I heard it used as a rap lyric, I was left speechless for the rest of the day.

Moonwalker for Sega Genesis. It's, it's, just so horribly wrong.

Steve,

The select sets up two players ;-)

I play a lot of NES games on pc emulators and can't seem to pull that code off on the Konami games any more. Guess I'm just too old now, or rusty

lol

No contest.

Ghostbusters for NES.

"You need a beam! You need a beam!"

And there's no way to get one, as far as I can tell.

Never played it myself, but "Daikatana" is infamous. Any game in which one of the NPC's catchphrases is "Suck on it" has to at least be in the running.

Clearly, you fortunate souls have never played the Kool-Aid Man game for Mattel's Intellivision or you would all realize it was the worst game in the history of carbon-based life forms. Just thinking about it makes me want to cut off my hand so I can never be reminded of it again.

Most Disappointing Game:

Harpoon 4

been waiting for that game for 5 freakin' years...

was supposed to be finished in Spring of '04

UbiSoft cancelled it about 3 weeks ago.

Gotta disagree on Raiders Dodd. I always liked that game - although the controls were very flakey.

Custer's Revenge

What the hell is wrong with Cyranno's hand that it reminds him of the Kool-Aid Man?

"The Adventures of Dino-Riki" for the NES. Bad graphics, horrible, horrible controls for jumping combined with a ridiculously small margin of error for your jumps, and only four levels, after which the game loops back on itself. Not to mention that I've only ever seen one person who could actually make it past the first jump in the first level.

The Smurfs - Rescue in Gargamel's Castle for Coleco.

Others mentioned above that I agree with as contenders include the awful MoonWalker and KoolAid man.

Oh, let's see:

Burger Time for the 2600

Worst video game I ever recieved.

Oh, and Space Shuttle. Stupid, stupid, stupid and boring.

Boulders and Bombs for Atari 8-bit: this review calls it "quite an original and fun game to play". Well, it certainly opened new vistas of tedium and frustration. It was like a cross between Dig Dug and that dream where the train is about to hit you and you can't move your legs, played at board-game speed. Move the joystick in a circle to drop a bomb. Wow.

I picked up a copy for $7 at some closeout, and called it a bad deal. This was when you could spend $50 for pac-man on the 2600. Then my cheap chump of a friend got me another copy as a birthday present, at the same closeout. What a life.

Here's a picture of the cartridge. Believe me, a picture of the cartridge is a lot more fun than the game.

My votes:

ET: the game that almost killed the console industry single handedly. It brought about the downfall of Atari and opened the door for the asian invasion of the next decade. http://www.snopes.com/business/market/atari.asp

Diakatana: Tens of millions of dollars, close to five years in development and in the end a terrible cluster f$%@ that cost some friends of mine their jobs. Good going Romero. Suck it.

WW2 Online: I was working on a company that had an online game in development at the time. We picked up a copy of this miserable bug ridden unplayable mess and spent the rest of the week laughing at it. What's best is that this was suscription based. Gotta love it.

DOH!

Scott beat me to it.

Dai-Katana. Easily the most over-hyped and under-fun game of all time. Laying this big dog turd cost Romero his career.

D

ET, definitely. Although the Kool Aid Man is a close second. Thanks for the memories.

Redneck Rampage (esp the Mac conversion) what a total load of shite that was...