Worst games you ever played!

[Cless Aileron]

I was thinking about this.  As much as I didn't like Tales of the Abyss, I'm just remembering games I ended up playing that were pretty horrible that it's much worse than what I thought of that game.  Not to mention, when it comes to getting shady with emulation, it gets tempting to play these games that are mentioned as horrible (I'm pretty much guilty of this and I know I'm a complete dork for doing so).  So I decided to try this topic.  I mean, if I'm thinking Halo 2 is the worst game ever (and I don't, even if I'm not fond of Halo), it would be obvious I never looked at the bottom of the barrel (also help to realize some games aren't so bad after playing bottom of the barrel stuff).  We played awful games, haven't we?  Either falling for a hyped up game that later professional reviewers exposed it as being bad, falling into a licensed game cash-in, or got too curious.

So the topic...what are the worst video games you ever played?  Also, make sure you explain the bottom of the barrel quality about why you mentioned that game.  Also, you have to have played it, so don't say Big Rigs unless you were actually forced to play it, wise guy !

Since I manage to expose myself to many awful ones, I'll just start off with three games (Note:  Some of these games I have played outside of emulators, so not all these awful games were done in emulation).

*Friday the 13th (NES)
Yes, this game based on an R-rated slasher film series (had to emphasize that considering the time period this game was released in) is as bad as they say it is.  The music will annoy you but don't mute that TV because if you do, you won't be able to hear the alarm that tells Jason's out and about to kill someone (and when you fight him, your health meter is going to really look like you were getting killed).  Good luck exploring the woods/caves since the graphics are so repetitive that you're going to get lost in there.  The only worthwhile thing in this game?  The game over screen, and not just because the misery has ended.  It's because of what was displayed.  The game over screen said, "You and your friends are dead!  Game over!"  (I know!  Very cruel!)

*Justice League Task Force (SNES)
Here's a fighting game featuring DC comics heroes and villians.  Only thing is...it plays poorly.  Go play Marvel Super Heroes instead!  This fighter has some stiff controls and bad designs, including unbalanced fighters.  I mean, the superhero that everyone mocks because his superpower is talking to fish happens to be broken.  That's right, Aquaman is the most broken character in the game and can pretty much beat anyone up.  Oh yeah, if you have Superman and Aquaman use their projectile moves against each other at the same time, forget it canceling out because they'll both get hit.  Only Green Arrow can cancel out Superman's projectile with his own for some reason.  I may have told you how bad this game is but there's actually one big kicker.  Guess who developed this game?  Blizzard Entertainment!  Yes, the company known for greatness like Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft had a big mistake and this is it.  Just please don't let their big mistake scare you off from Starcraft II.

*Rise of the Robots (SNES)
This fighting game is so horrible that summarizing its horridness is out of the question.  Now that I feel compelled to blog, I can at least give a link to an entry where I talk about this so I can say everything without feeling like I have to make a long arse post.  Read what I have to say about this game here.  This entry I made explains why Rise of the Robots make Justice League Task Force and Shaq Fu look like Street Fighter II by comparison.

So let's hear the worst games you played.  Maybe some other games won't feel so bad after all.
I just hope my friends never see this topic.

[LenaAndreia]

 Horrid games? Let's see... I definitely played some trashy stuff on Atari, though I was too young to recall titles.

 NES: I can't think of any at present. I had a tenancy to hit gold with my NES games. I do remember that any game based on a movie or cartoon had this real good chance of sucking though.

 SNES:

 Aladdin: I beat the game in about 2 hours my first play through. Even at age 8 I knew that was a bad thing, so I threw the final boss fight in an effort to make it look like it was harder to my mom (so she wouldn't think she'd wasted her money). The worst part of this travesty is that I could have gotten Lufia instead.

 Secret of Evermore: I emulated this one, so it might have just been the rom, but that game is BUGGY! I'd enter rooms and scenes from earlier parts of the game would replay (once this caused a game freeze because it called for a boss I'd already killed).

 Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Also guilty of being too easy. It's the RPG I beat in 5 hours. I should have known--my Aunt warned me about it. But I was so convinced it was FF3...

 Paladin's Quest: Buggy and ugly. I didn't get far into it before I ended up returning it. It has the distinction of being one of the only two games I've ever returned because of some sort of graphical disgust. I swear, it looked like someone took Earthbound, screwed all the colors up, and applied some of the ugliest sprites I've ever seen.

 N64:

 Quest64: A HORRID excuse for a RPG. I can't believe they even called it that. And when you're a mage and your staff does more damage than your fire, it's a bad thing.

  That's all I can really think of right now. ^^

[Kogahazan]

Yeah, I've played more bad games than I care to admit. I tend to play those games that no one really likes, but still find some enjoyment in them, however even I have my dignity. I'm not really one to hate any game, but this one game happens to be the one.

Golf (NES)
Oh gawd... Oh gawd! That's all I can say. Golf is definitely more fun to play in real life than this. How did Baseball for NES turn out to be a better simulation than this? Thank you Animal Crossing for introducing me to this and letting me throw it away just as easily as I found it.

[raigan]

I'm going to catch a lot of crap for this post, I know it.

NES: Festers Quest. It was basically a shmup game that tried to cash in on the Adam's Family popularity at the time.
Dragon Warrior: zzzzz. Also I had already played Final Fantasy and was like "I have to TELL my guy that I want to use the stairs? What gives? Why ELSE would I stand on the stairs?" For me it was one of those games that I was told to play because it was "awesome".

SNES: Ultima VI and VII. Not nearly as good as their PC counterparts. Clearly cheap ports. Jurassic Park -- it wasn't fun and the controls were sloppy. Indiana Jones Trilogy - see Jurassic Park. Actraiser 2: not nearly as good as Actraiser.

C64: Damn near every game on it with few exceptions. This was when anyone could make a game and sell it in software stores.

Virtual Boy: Mario Tennis. Ugh. Beyond the migraines the system caused, it just wasn't fun.

N64: Quest 64 for the reasons LenaAndreia mentioned.

PSX: (This is the one that I'm going to catch hell for) Final Fantasy VIII. This is the ONLY PSX game I tried to take back. The plot made absolutely no sense whatsoever. To me it felt like one of those games you played in camp where someone starts a story and someone else has to continue it where you left off -- eventually cycling through everyone. And everyone wants to carry the story into their own direction leading precisely... nowhere.

PS2: Suikoden 3. Beautiful intro music - impossibly boring game. (Might catch crap for this too)Final Fantasy X-2: cheap cash-in on FFX's popularity and Charlies Angels. Way over hyped.

[LenaAndreia]

 LOL--you took back FFVIII. I borrowed it from a friend and to this day it's the only one I don't own aside from X-2, XI, and XII.

 The only PSX game I ever took back was Vagrant Story. Played it for about two hours before I was like "OK, eff this." LOL

 Traded it for Parasite Eve... Definitely worth it.

[Cless Aileron]

On regards to Quest 64, let's not forget that you don't buy items and you have to find them all over the place and it just makes it feel like I can't use it because I'll end up being low on stock.  Oh yeah, you can only save at an inn and go a long way over to the boss.  Yeah, I ended up renting that game before and it did have problems.  Then again, one of the only good Nintendo 64 RPG is Paper Mario.

Now I feel the need to give two other games a ripping:

*E.T. (Atari 2600)
I think it's safe to say that everyone has heard of this game due for its notorious reputation.  The developers were given only a few weeks to make the game and it shows.  So many pitfalls that aren't so clear that they are pitfalls (let's not forget, pitfalls may be on the edge of a screen).  The fire button was made to do so many things that it's confusing.  People have said that games like this and the Atari 2600 port of Pac Man contribute to the Video Game Crash in the 80s and after seeing E.T, I'm certainly not going to try to argue otherwise.  Let's not forget, Atari did destroy a bunch of unsold copies of the game and buried them in a New Mexico landfill.

*Shaq Fu (SNES/Genesis)
So many awful fighting games I end up seeing.  The only positive thing about this game is...it's not Rise of the Robots.  Even then, it is still horrible.  The hit detection is awful and the plot is pretty ridiculous.  Oh yeah, even the star himself, Shaquille O' Neal, sucks as a fighter in the game.  I'm beginning to wish I could go back in time and tell Shaq, "Just stick to playing basketball.  Please!"  Oh yeah, the game is so horrible there's even a website dedicated to getting every copy of the game and sending it to hell by destroying them.  Yeah, pretty bad game.  Well I say, "Destroy both Shaq Fu and Rise of the Robots."

[Goshi]

- Quest 64/Holy Magic Centuary (N64)
I'll make myself the fourth to mention this one. Anyway I grabbed it since it was one of the few RPGs for the N64. Oh god, its terrible.

The spell system has very bad balancing. Your staff is much stronger than half of the spells and the only useful spells only go under Water and Earth. Fire and Winds spells are virutally useless. You can only get one of each healing item as well which means if you don't like Water spells you're pretty screwed in terms of recovery.

The dungeons are long and linear and a chore to go through. The Blue Cave for example is extremely long and linear and takes way too long. I mean really long it takes like 2 hours to go through the damn thing. The difficluty is badly balanced too. The first boss is the hardest enemy in the entire game. No joke. And when you look at the bosses after him they're really weak and very easy to kill.

There are some good things though like exploring the towns and some of the music but thats about it. Awful stuff.

- Tenchu Dark Secret (NDS)
So you're these two ninjas and you hve to play a badly done Metal Gear clone and do all these missions which sound different but are all essentially the same thing. The AI is insanely stupid as well making the game really easy and the graphics are drab and not too good. Traps are virtually useless since enemies often die in one hit from anything anyway. Awful.

- Maple Story (PC)
Oh yes I'm going to go and mention a MMO watch out.

Seriously though the gameplay is terrible, it tries to mix platformer elements into and RPG. It works pretty badly though since you'll get knocked off a lot of the time and sometimes there's a whole army of enemies marching around on a single platform to the town making it a chore to pass. Also hit detection is terrible and it takes a month to level up. Whats worse though is that you lose EXP when you die which happen quite often since you'll probably get trampled by a group of enemies.

Whats worse is that the community is awful too. Most people will either steal your kills, beg you for stuff or hack the game and make it an even bigger pain to play. Do something they don't like and they'll flame you like no tommorrow which is ery annoying. And you can't stop them either since the GMs do nothing unless there's an event so you can expect hackers go around crazy having their fun.

I only played this since my sister forcing me too. I'm glad I finally managed to get away with not playing it and being able to delete that vile thing from my computer.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

Secret of Evermore: I emulated this one, so it might have just been the rom, but that game is BUGGY! I'd enter rooms and scenes from earlier parts of the game would replay (once this caused a game freeze because it called for a boss I'd already killed).

 Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Also guilty of being too easy. It's the RPG I beat in 5 hours. I should have known--my Aunt warned me about it. But I was so convinced it was FF3...

the SoE issue is definitely an issue caused by bugs when using savestates.

as for FFMQ... 5 hours? i could swear it was way longer than that... maybe 7-10.

[Phren]

as for me,

The old 8-16 bit generations had their share of flops, but I was good at knowing what to buy and it served me well enough. And I give everything at least a chance, so there are very few games that have ever earned the distinction of being games I *hate*.

PSX:
Vagrant Story - The warehouse employee's RPG. Ugh let me down so badly. It was so pretty, but it was 75% moving boxes and 24% trying out how to kill whatever you were fighting without maxing risk and having it freaking *sneeze* and blow you to bits.

Alundra 2: What it has to do with Alundra, I'll never know. the puzzles were INSANELY hard to both figure out and, thanks to control I don't have civil words to describe, also execute. This STILL hasn't topped driving for the total number of swears I've uttered in my life. I felt I was playing for sheer spite to beat it, though that stopped the INSTANT I had something to trade games in towards.

Others: Time Crisis, RPG Maker


Gamecube - FF: Crystal Chronicles. What was this? There was little plot, and really wasn't much fun to play. I mean it wasn't TERRIBLE to play, but it was pretty close. I suppose it would have been more fun with multiple players, but since I have the misfortune to be a lone gamer, it was a waste of both time and money.

PS2 - (dot)Hack series. They turned up the hype machine pretty high for this, but it came out to me pretty boring and by the end of the second volume, I pretty much bought the last two on sale just to finish the series so I could say I didn't waste my money on the first two. Horrible, HORRIBLE battle system, dungeon system and only a peppering of dialogue here and there. I literally couldn't play it at night because I would invariably fall asleep.

Grandia X-treme - I loved Grandia and G2. Some of the most emotional stories I've ever played (they haven;t aged well, sadly they can;t live up to my memories of them) Well Grandia X-treme (spelling 'extreme' like that should have tipped me off) has almost NO story, it was more supposed to be a treat for those who liked the battle system (not me) with an assortment of "improvements" - which included an attacking character and a withdrawing character meeting  and running a parallel circle around the battlefield to get around each other, among other atrocities. Which brings me to...

Grandia 3 - Okay, when I said emotional, I meant *I* was supposed to find it emotional, not THEM. Now we have people crying and tearing up and hugging over nothing. I don;t even remember any of their names so, going by role, it was crap like this: Mom falls for bum gambler guy because he lost his ship and gets it back - gets all teary when main character calls her 'mom' instead of her name. then we have the little beast-boy.
Beast kid: Hey! I Don't like you!
Main guy: But I like airplanes and flying!
Beast kid: OH! I like flying too! I'll bite your arm!
Main guy: OMG you bit my arm!
Beast kid: Yes it's a weird custom because I'm a beast kid! We're freinds forever now! : D
Main guy: OMG we sure are! : D
- I freaking kid you not. it went down just about exactly like that. Not to mention you can;t mute the audio and the guy breaks out his "manly voice" from time to time to sound dramatic. -_-

There are more, but those are the ones that stand out. I was going to comment on the games that were mentioned and why I don;t hate them as much myself, but this post is long enough.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

Vagrant Story - The warehouse employee's RPG. Ugh let me down so badly. It was so pretty, but it was 75% moving boxes and 24% trying out how to kill whatever you were fighting without maxing risk and having it freaking *sneeze* and blow you to bits.

lol! sadly, very true. but if you had godly reflexes, you could be utterly invincible, because no attack would be able to kill you, regardless of high risk or whatnot. the procedure is: strip off all armor, use break artes until you run out of HP, wait for the enemy to attack you, use either the physical absorb or magical absorb to recover 20% of the enemy attack, use more break artes, repeat until boss dies.

[Goshi]

PS2 - (dot)Hack series. They turned up the hype machine pretty high for this, but it came out to me pretty boring and by the end of the second volume, I pretty much bought the last two on sale just to finish the series so I could say I didn't waste my money on the first two. Horrible, HORRIBLE battle system, dungeon system and only a peppering of dialogue here and there. I literally couldn't play it at night because I would invariably fall asleep.

Ah, I knew I missed something. Yeah they're pretty bad and the bad English voices don't help even one but either. Its too bad there's almost no dialog though considering how interesting the plot of its prequel .//hack SIGN was.

Gamecube - FF: Crystal Chronicles. What was this? There was little plot, and really wasn't much fun to play. I mean it wasn't TERRIBLE to play, but it was pretty close. I suppose it would have been more fun with multiple players, but since I have the misfortune to be a lone gamer, it was a waste of both time and money.

Its only a tiny bit better in multiplayer but still overall pretty bad since your movement is very limited. This isn't so bad in normal stages but when in a boss fight this can be very frustrating.

[Catriona]

I too, must mention Quest 64 as a horrible game. I lost interest after trying to get past the first boss. The item limit and lack of currency was also a turn-off for me.

Another game I vaguely remember was Villgust for SNES. The plot is bland, not to mention cheesy, and I found the entire presentation of it monotonous. I played it for the sake of playing SNES RPGs back in the day when I felt compelled to try every possible SNES RPG made, but it was terrible.

On the other hand, I am still quite fond of Paladin's Quest, even if most of the sentiment is based on nostalgia. I agree that the graphics are definitely a low point, but it was so many years ago, before the era of 64 bit, that it wasn't a problem for me having little to compare it to, and the story still perked my interest.

[LenaAndreia]

 Wooow, I forgot about Grandia 3. LOL I went back and played Grandia 1 after getting board with G3 just to make sure that I still liked the series. G1 was just as nice as I remember it. G3 was the first in the series that I got board with halfway through.

 I avoided Xtreme because I read in a magazine it was to be a dungeon crawler. I did curse its name for months, though.

[raigan]

IMO, Xtreme wasn't that bad. You DO spend most of the game in various dungeons. I did find it very enjoyable though. But then again, I like the dotHack games until the fourth installment where it became Virus Core Hunter Pro! Except it's the gimpy shareware version that kills you for trying to get the virus cores you need to proceed. I was VASTLY annoyed by the second half of Tales of Legendia. No new dungeons, a walk back through EVERY old dungeon, and no voices. I was cheesed.

The only other game I missed was Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. It was hyped to be a great full length, full featured Harvest Moon! And who knows, maybe it is -- but the frame rate in game is so poor I had to stop playing it. It may be the only game I own that made me get up and check to see if my Gamecube was malfunctioning or on fire.

[LenaAndreia]

 Weird, I didn't have any framerate issues with Harvest Moon:AWL.

[NirvashStarwind]

NES: Wheres Waldo
SNES: Wheres Waldo


Lookup some video reviews of NES games by IRate Gamer
they have alot of funny stuff on there.thats sadly true.