What are some of the worst video games you’ve ever had the experience to play?

1. Action 52 (NES)
52 boring as hell, badly programmed games.

2. Pit Fighter (SNES)
Boring, dumb, slow and awkward fighting game.

3. Hot Slots (NES)
Sure it’s rare and X rated but it’s 3 dumb slot machine games with odd controls that take some time getting use to.

4. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Atari 2600)
We know it’s legendary awfulness

5. Peek-A-Boo Poker (NES)
As with “Hot Slots” X rating doesn’t mean a damn thing, it’s just poker and nothing more exciting than that.

6. Mario’s Time Machine (SNES)
Cool idea but screwed up SO badly.

7. Mario Is Missing! (NES/SNES)
This game will put you to sleep quick.

I can’t think of any more.

[Lester Knight]

i wish i had not found this thread. i am going to be that person who complains that everything is just crazy!

4. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Atari 2600)
We know it’s legendary awfulness

i love ET. it puts all the important aspects of the movie into an incredibly tiny package. the game is challenging, but yet easy to beat. the only annoying thing are the pitfalls everywhere, which can be avoided once you learn the maps. really, i don’t see what the bid deal is.

5. Peek-A-Boo Poker (NES)
As with “Hot Slots” X rating doesn’t mean a damn thing, it’s just poker and nothing more exciting than that.

sure it is just poker, but it has nudity! remember this is the NES. it had to be an unlicensed cart to get away with it. its also not a half bad game, if poker is your thing.

Dragon’s Lair Arcade
Unplayable. A guessing game.

you have to remember when it was released that it attempted to do something that had not been done before. its a game of memorization. are you saying memorization isn’t a valid gaming tool? not liking the game mechanics doesn’t make it unplayable. if it was so unplayable i hardly feel that it would have been ported to so many systems (dos, mac, cd-rom, dvd, 3d0, gbc, ps3, wii, dsi, android, etc).

Dragon’s Lair (NES)
Awfull game and hard as possible, I couldn’t get past the first screen.

its a fairly challenging game but its not horribly bad. i wouldn’t say its awful by any means. its not cheetahmen II for example.

Adventure (Atari 2600)
Can’t get a more boring of an adventure than this.

what are you comparing it to? adventure is a classic example of a simple adventure game done right. its so extremely basic yet it offers weapons, hidden objects, puzzles, enemies, and even the 1st easter egg.

there is even a great homebrew sequel of it for the 5200.

Milon’s Secret Castle (NES)
Way too difficult and play control needs improvement.

milon’s secret castle is full of secrets. the core of the gameplay is taking the time to discover secrets. the rest is understanding where to go next. all-in-all it isn’t an extremely long game, perhaps you should give it another play? its like most games of that era, they weren’t polished multi-million dollar games made by teams of 200 with credits that scroll for 15 minutes. you have to give them some leeway for their minor flaws.

Rambo (NES)
Zelda 2 rip off.

ok, so character sprites and movements resemble zelda II. but how can you call it a zelda 2 rip off? it is nothing like zelda 2. its just another side scrolling adventure game. you could list any number of games with similar styles of play and call them zelda 2 ripoffs by those standards. with that said, i rather enjoy rambo. i own it on cart and have beat it countless times over the years. it isn’t the best rambo title ever released but its still a great adventure game with plenty of exploration.

• This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by Lester Knight.

Worst recent game I played would be Oblivion. I was less than impressed by Skyrim too.

Worst game ever? I’d have to go with E.T.
So bad, it nearly crashed the industry altogether.

Batman Returns on Lynx. One of the most stupid and bad programmed games I ever had the fortune of owning…

Lester! I’m going to try to counter your defenses of awful video games. Excuse me if I come across as arrogant or so,
I’m not trying to be as much as just expressing my opinion, and I know my opinion isn’t more “true” than yours.

4. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Atari 2600)
We know it’s legendary awfulness

i love ET. it puts all the important aspects of the movie into an incredibly tiny package. the game is challenging, but yet easy to beat. the only annoying thing are the pitfalls everywhere, which can be avoided once you learn the maps. really, i don’t see what the bid deal is.

The important aspects of running away from the authorities and getting to the spaceship are the only similarities to the movie, the rest you are imagining. I don’t think ET never assembled a telephone in the movie, and he didn’t fall into any pits and extended his neck to fly out. (I can be wrong on this, I haven’t seen the movie in years) How you can call an annoying game challenging is interesting to me…

Dragon’s Lair Arcade
Unplayable. A guessing game.

you have to remember when it was released that it attempted to do something that had not been done before. its a game of memorization. are you saying memorization isn’t a valid gaming tool? not liking the game mechanics doesn’t make it unplayable. if it was so unplayable i hardly feel that it would have been ported to so many systems (dos, mac, cd-rom, dvd, 3d0, gbc, ps3, wii, dsi, android, etc).

I don’t think the excuse of “they were trying something new
and bold” excuses a bad game. I’d say memorization is not
in fact a valid gaming tool except for like the card minigame in Super Mario 3. Dragon’s Lair is unplayable for me too, except for the first screen there’s no clues as to what to do, unlike the sequel. It feels very very random.
Now trial and error is a valid gaming tool, but did they really have to make it this annoying? 😛
And it’s been ported to so many systems because it’s part of gaming history, and the cartoon graphics still enthrall people. Gameplay is not
at the forefront at least.

Dragon’s Lair (NES)
Awfull game and hard as possible, I couldn’t get past the first screen.
its a fairly challenging game but its not horribly bad. i wouldn’t say its awful by any means. its not cheetahmen II for example.

Now this game IS horrible. I think Cheetahmen II is a lot better, I mean Cheetahmen doesn’t have one hit kills, Cheetahmen doesn’t have as slow controls…
Dragon’s Lair on NES could have been decent if the controls
weren’t so bad. And again, challenging is not quite the word I would choose.

Adventure (Atari 2600)
Can’t get a more boring of an adventure than this.

what are you comparing it to? adventure is a classic example of a simple adventure game done right. its so extremely basic yet it offers weapons, hidden objects, puzzles, enemies, and even the 1st easter egg.
there is even a great homebrew sequel of it for the 5200.

Here I agree with you Lester, this was made in 1980 and
they did what they could. You have to use your imagination
a fair bit. And it’s certainly not as broken/annoying as ET
or Dragon’s Lair. I suppose it’s a bit boring, but to each
is own, or something.

Milon’s Secret Castle (NES)
Way too difficult and play control needs improvement.

milon’s secret castle is full of secrets. the core of the gameplay is taking the time to discover secrets. the rest is understanding where to go next. all-in-all it isn’t an extremely long game, perhaps you should give it another play? its like most games of that era, they weren’t polished multi-million dollar games made by teams of 200 with credits that scroll for 15 minutes. you have to give them some leeway for their minor flaws.

Here I also kind of agree. If you play Milon with just you
and the controller, it’s a bad game. But if you play with a strategy guide, it’s a good game. Now they shouldn’t force
you to use one like they did with basing everything around
secrets, but if you do have one it’s a good game.

Rambo (NES)
Zelda 2 rip off.

ok, so character sprites and movements resemble zelda II. but how can you call it a zelda 2 rip off? it is nothing like zelda 2. its just another side scrolling adventure game. you could list any number of games with similar styles of play and call them zelda 2 ripoffs by those standards. with that said, i rather enjoy rambo. i own it on cart and have beat it countless times over the years. it isn’t the best rambo title ever released but its still a great adventure game with plenty of exploration.

Except the fact that Rambo doesn’t have an overworld, I do think it qualifyes as a Zelda II ripoff, like Sony All-stars qualifies as a Smash Bros ripoff, even though they do some thing different. The experience system, the dark areas needing a lantern, the numbers when you kill enemies(exp system at work) And no it’s not just another sidesrolling adventure game. It’s not like Contra, not like Rush n Attack, not like Astyanax, not like Megaman, etc.

Now, I’d like to add one game for you to defend:
Superman 64. It would be interesting! Also, what games don’t you like? Or was that in this thread already..?

Protoman85 wrote:
Lester! I’m going to try to counter your defenses of awful video games…

4. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Atari 2600)
We know it’s legendary awfulness

i love ET. it puts all the important aspects of the movie into an incredibly tiny package. the game is challenging, but yet easy to beat. the only annoying thing are the pitfalls everywhere, which can be avoided once you learn the maps. really, i don’t see what the bid deal is.

The important aspects of running away from the authorities and getting to the spaceship are the only similarities to the movie, the rest you are imagining. I don’t think ET never assembled a telephone in the movie, and he didn’t fall into any pits and extended his neck to fly out. (I can be wrong on this, I haven’t seen the movie in years)…

I can verify that you are not wrong on that, Protoman85. ET never assembled a telephone in the movie, at least not in the way that he does so in the game. Also, ET never fell into pits and extended his neck to fly out. Ahhh… just thinking of that aspect of the game makes me smile and brings back the memories. Every time I stepped onto a new screen, I was already falling into a pit that I never had a chance to see and was extending the neck to get out. Then, I was out… free at last, right? Nope. For some reason, I’d try to move and there I was, falling back into the same pit again for some unknown reason. The controls and setup certainly left a lot to be desired in my opinion.

Dragon’s Lair Arcade
Unplayable. A guessing game.

you have to remember when it was released that it attempted to do something that had not been done before. its a game of memorization. are you saying memorization isn’t a valid gaming tool? not liking the game mechanics doesn’t make it unplayable. if it was so unplayable i hardly feel that it would have been ported to so many systems (dos, mac, cd-rom, dvd, 3d0, gbc, ps3, wii, dsi, android, etc).

I don’t think the excuse of “they were trying something new
and bold” excuses a bad game. I’d say memorization is not
in fact a valid gaming tool except for like the card minigame in Super Mario 3. Dragon’s Lair is unplayable for me too, except for the first screen there’s no clues as to what to do, unlike the sequel. It feels very very random.
Now trial and error is a valid gaming tool, but did they really have to make it this annoying? 😛
And it’s been ported to so many systems because it’s part of gaming history, and the cartoon graphics still enthrall people. Gameplay is not
at the forefront at least.

I have to admit that it was, indeed, only the very neat cartoon graphics that drew me to this game. The motion on the control pad that was necessary to progress in the game didn’t make sense to me so many times. The countless deaths that were necessary to figure out the game were pretty frustrating. I ended up writing down all of the moves that were necessary for each screen after I figured them out upon many deaths and did, in fact, memorize them for the whole game. Only then was it fun to watch the whole game through like a movie and try not to die a single death. Dragon’s Lair 2, however, was much harder to figure out the moves and the timing in my opinion. I never made it past the first few screens because I got so frustrated with it, but maybe I’ll try it out again as this subject has brought back good memories of the series, despite its flaws.

Having played and eventually….beat E.T. I have to agree that it is the worst all around game I have ever played (keep in mind my field of play is quite narrow as a gamer)

A close second for my is Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Heroes of the Lance. Generally a game can be figured out without a manual. HotL cannot. You can’t even get by the first screen without a full manual description. You just die. None of the controls work like you’d expect, the graphics were weak for the time, and the title made you expect so much more out of the gameplay.

It just came to my mind that I really really hate “Lost Planet”. It is the only game that I ever sold at GameStop. I can even tell why but just thinking about it makes me feel sick.

The worst game I can think of would probably be Super Monkey Daibouken. Such a boring game…

I’ve been playing around with “Touch My Katamari” for PSVita for a few days. I’m pretty sure it loosely translates to “Touch My Balls.”

The further I play through the game, the more the dialogue becomes sexually ambiguous. The Prince and the King have something secret going on, but I don’t think I’m willing to play through the game to watch that storyline develop.

It’s much the same as the other Katamari titles, which I have only seen friends play. However, this franchise just isn’t my cup of tea. Dare I say, this is quite possibly the worst game I’ve ever owned.

Terminator 2 on the SNES
Super stiff controls and worthless jump

Spongebob Squarepants: The Legend of the Lost Spatula on GBC
I don’t remember much about this game since I got it when I was little, but I remember B being the jump button while A was for attacking which always messed me up.

Bug’s Life on the PS1
Didn’t play this much when I first got it, but I remember the game being hard and the camera sucking.

The worst game I ever played was “The Legend of Kage” on NES, it’s like a worse version of “Demon Sword.”

There seems to be an unending list of terrible games I’ve played. I’ll just try to hit the high points. =) Some awful games are actually still quite fun to play though!

NES:
-Jetsons
-Seicross
-Super Pitfall
-Robodemons (It’s actually really fun though!)
-Winter Games

SNES:
-Captain Novalin
-Pitfighter

N64:
-Superman 64
-War Gods
(Several fighters for the system are awful)

PS1:
-Bubsy 3D (This one takes the cake)

Gamecube:
-Aquaman
-Charlie’s Angels

Xbox 360:
-Brave: The Magical Warrior
-Dark Sector

Wii:
-Dragon Blade: Wrath of Fire

I’ve played Champion Boxing(or Campion Boxing) on the awesome SG-1000. While that system has many great games, his one is not. I have a CIB copy of it. The only redeeming factors about it are that it is Yu Suzuki’s first game, and that Pengo makes a cameo appearance. 🙂

I finally got a Sega CD, a lot of games suck on that system. Mainly the ones with those grainy, aweful acting cut scenes with gameplay that’s rather boring.

Batman Forever (SNES/Genesis):
Mortal Kombat/platformer, with crappy controls and based off of a lame movie. No Thanks.

Cybermorph (Atari Jaguar):
Boring, just boring.

Lord of the Sword (Sega MAster System):
I don’t know why I don’t like it, I just don’t like it.

Virtual_Link wrote:
4. E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Atari 2600)
We know it’s legendary awfulness

I’ve never played it. I also haven’t played the fixed version, but I want to!

It’s an interesting read if you’re into assembly language or game system internals. It probably helps if you know something about the Atari 2600 (or the 6502 chip in general), which I don’t, but I still liked it.

Pac-Man 2: The New Adventure (SNES/SG)
Taking out the fact that its nothing like any of the other games before and after it was released. Its tedious, poor controls and just bad.

Heavy Nova (SG)
Bad, sluggish controls.

Highlander for the Jaguar cd. By far the worst game ever made. Horrible graphics, awful sluggish controls, just moving around is painfully slow, constantly changing and disorienting camera angles, boring gameplay, just plain awful in every way.

Let’s see…

Flink- Sega CD; overhyped garbage. Looks amazing but has irritating music, like nails on a blackboard except the blackboard is your eardrum itself. The character moves so slowly too, I hate when you need a few steps to build momentum. Boring!

New World Order- PC; bargain bin chore of a game.

Resident Evil 6- Xbox 360; I played the 5th game and loved it, fanboys be damned! Me and my best friend have never had more fun with a co-op campaign. But the 6th one with its four mini-game type things, incessant “think fast” button prompts during cinematics, and those incessant cinematics too! Why?! Just let me play the game already, or watch the crummy cutscenes without having to mash buttons randomly.

Gex- 3DO; this game was just awful. I hated it. Now I can’t even remember why exactly, but the way the camera kept moving every time I’d turn around was one reason…

Sonic games; Remember that guy who shoots down Marty McFly’s band in Back to the Future? “I’m afraid you fellas are just too darn loud”…I feel that way about Sonic, only that he’s too darn fast.

Mega Man 1, 7, 8 and Mega Man X5, X6, X8; I absolutely hated the change in direction each series took- the annoying cartoony art style, goofy voice acting, some RPG elements, those ridiculous boss names. And the very first MM game just drives me nuts, I only played it to try and complete the PS2 compilation.

Kasumi Ninja- Jaguar; occasionally fun to play while making fun of it, and I definitely rock the headband it came with at band practice sometimes. Let’s face it though, it’s almost unplayable.

Plok- SNES; weird and just not fun, that’s what I get for buying a game sight unseen.

Vortex- SNES; Swing and a miss!

Great, now I’ve written too much and gotten all worked up. Thanks a lot haha…

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat for the orginal xbox. I owned this game for about 3 days before getting rid of it. I really wanted to like it but I just couldn’t. I am also going to add TMNT Smash for wii on here. I was expecting a game like super smash bros…..I was mistaken. It was similar,but no where as fun as smash bros.

HPLoveThrash wrote:

Sonic games; Remember that guy who shoots down Marty McFly’s band in Back to the Future? “I’m afraid you fellas are just too darn loud”…I feel that way about Sonic, only that he’s too darn fast.

That guy was none other than Huey lewis… as in Huey lewis and the news. Not just a guy someone very famous.