Games that are just criminal!

Other Games
1

No, not “criminally underrated” ones. :wink:

We read the gaming press, and as such we generally endeavour only to buy games that we enjoy (consoles aren’t exactly a traditionally masochistic hobby, anyway) and are reccomended, so as to ensure that we’ve made a decent investment. However, inevitably we do on occasion find ourselves just permitting the joypad to clunk to the floor and reflect for a moment on the eternal question: Why did I squander forty pounds sterling on this unmitigated bunkum?

We may have disagreed with the reviews. We may have never heard of the game, but thought that the blurb on the back sounded interesting. We may have been forced to play a “Christmas Present” to please our Aunt who meant well but naturally isn’t aware of these sorts of things. We may have grown weary of Edge’s priggish nitpicking and bought the game they slated anyway, just to spite them.

So let’s be honest with ourselves - what in your gaming library is distinguished from the others only in having an inch-thick layer of dust settling on it?

I’ll start off with a ‘classic’ to get the ball rolling:

TITLE: Shadow of the Beast II
DEVELOPER: Psygnosis
FORMAT: Amiga 500+

Whilst I am and shall always be a vigorous proponent of the Leadbetter Axiom - “Graphics maketh not a game” - I concede that a polished and buffed graphical flair is definitely of value in enhancing a game.

But the Leadbetter Axiom continues to hold true - astounding graphical capabilities, ludicrously advanced physics engines, &c. &c. are so much chaff and stubble if the game they are affixed to is completely univolving and utterly lifeless. Shadow of the Beast II is a prime illustration of this perennial gaming law.

Oh, Shadow of the Beast II… this game was, it must be said, the archetypal example of style over substance.

The game was split over two sleekly white disks, the first one of which was exclusively dedicated to an elaborately-realised, dark and macabre F.M.V. (on a floppy disk!) sequence. This is what awarded the game such massive accolades and plaudits when it was first released.

The second disk, however, was an altogether different tale. How could such a promising opening degenerate into such a vapid, vacuous, limpid, lifeless, enervated, doleful and utterly, unforgivably, irrevocably dull testament to unbridled mediocrity that was the basic platformer on Disk II? It looked pretty, certainly - but it was a hollow, unstructured, random, impenetrable, tragic mess from the very instant your Amiga ceased loading. I can’t progress into a thorough analysis of the game’s failings because it was a rare occasion indeed that I could endure any more than a few minutes before being compelled to abandon the soul-draining torment that was this title.

2

Resident Evil… I did play it for a little bit though, just for the lines that were so stupid they were funny. Here are a few, “You could have become a Jill sandwich!” “I think you, the master of unlocking, should take it.” “STOP!..DON’T OPEN THAT DOOR!” (they made the playstation load during the cutscenes so the game would pause at really awkward times) “Is this blood?..Is this Chris’ blood?” (note, he’s saying this hunched over the puddle staring at it) “I’ll stay here, I need to examine this a bit more.” (talking about the blood with nothing really to do but look at it and touch it). So yea, those were some great lines. They mostly came from Barry though lol.

3

OOH! i forgot about Morrowind. That was a crappy game. Why is it so popular? The entire continent was vastly underpopulated, the gameplay just overall sucked, nothing really compelled me to play it, there was no story (or at least one someone coherently interperet), and even when I had no bounty, people just out in the wild would kill me for no reason! I got it because of the great reviews and all my friends though it was fun. It was a game that I had no problem selling.

4

Morrowind?? Really?? I liked that game, it was almost like a MMORPG for me that I didn’t have to pay a monthly fee for.

As for just bad games:

Rise of the Robots (Mentioned quite a few times on these forums actually)
Sniper: Path of Vengeance
Drake of the 99 Dragons
Timestalkers
War Gods

5

I think that was one of the main reasons why it didn’t appeal to some of us. Morrowind lacked the social aspect of a MMORPG, and yet it didn’t have the direction of a single player RPG. It felt like a series of MMORPG quests that you could only play on your own, and yet it didn’t feel very story focused like KOTOR did. The game was also too repetitive; most of the NPCs would say the same thing rather than being individual characters. The game’s huge open world was both it’s greatest strength and it’s greatest weakness IMO. It certainly had it’s charms, but not enough to keep me playing through it until the end.

6

Victim to the poor-games-for-presents syndrome.

Ariel the Little Mermaid (MD) - Bought as a joint present for myself and my sister. The idea was that it would appeal to my sister because it was Little Mermaid, it would appeal to me because it was a game.

Game was too short, easy and boring. Even my sister was uninterested and preferred Sonic anyhow.

Bart Simpson vs. the Space Mutants (MD) - Bought as a birthday present on the vasis I am a Simpsons fan. Poor graphics, go awful level design and worst of all, non-repsonive controls.

Home Alone (MD) - Saw the movie at the cinemas and wanted this. It started out okay, zipping around on the sled was fair enough, setting traps in houses made you feel like you were doing similar acts in the movie. The weapon building was initially fun but ultimately lacking depth.
But the main problem was that this game HURT YOU. Yes, it caused physical pain, causing blisters everytime you were hang up on the wall.

The above list demonstrates why gamers are skeptical of licensed games, it produced so many naff games in the past.
So did I learn in the 16 bit period? Nope.

Battle Arena Toshiden URA (Sat) - It was at the time Saturn titles were getting a little thin on the shelves, and I guess I had to drop my standards if I wanted something new. I regret dropping them this far. Blocky characters, slow moving characters and the simple fact that Virtua Fighter 2 crapped all over it led me to rid of this ASAP.

Mansion of Hidden Souls (Sat) - Boring, quite simply. The impression I got from the little progress I made that the conversations have to be held in linear order. What’s the point?

Robotica (Sat) - I found some fun in it but the drawback, I feel, was one of its touted features. The randomly generated levels resulted in 20+ levels of find the key. Dull. The two designed levels showed a lot more promise, having objective based gameplay (simple stuff of destroy the generators but gave more purpose than find the key).

7

TITLE: Maken X
DEVELOPER: Atlus
FORMAT: Dreamcast

Fortunately, I found this game on the cheap Retro shelf in Gamestation and, as a consequence, it was only eight pounds I squandered instead of the full R.R.P. There are small mercies in this world.

This game at first seemed to have an interesting premise - despite being an FPS, the only weapons available were close-combat ones, and you were equipped with a sentient sword that possessed character’s minds to take on different forms, and drank the souls of dead enemies in order to become stronger.

But then you were afflicted by the humdrum and predictable level design, the ponderous and lifeless dialogue, the bastardisation of world landmarks, the stultifyingly formulaic combat, the unimaginative enemy design, the. Dread. Full. Y. Slow. And. Plod. Ding. Pace, and the cut’n’paste bargain-bucket plot.

The Official Dreamcast Magazine included a box in its reviews, titled “In one hour…” - how much was achieved in that time limit. When I looked up Maken X in ODM after filing the title away at the very bottom of my games rack, the box said “Completed second level. Lost will to live.” I soldiered on to Level 7 before I gave in, but that was through my persistence rather than any merit on the game’s part.

An utter waste of time and energy.

8

Power Rangers MD: Game too short game way too easy to beat a limited selection of moves not enough team effort poor graphix and sound, too similar in execution to the vastly superior Mazin Saga and overall just a terrible terrible lazy cash in.

9

[quote=“PanzerPants”]
Bart Simpson vs. the Space Mutants (MD) - Bought as a birthday present on the vasis I am a Simpsons fan. Poor graphics, go awful level design and worst of all, non-repsonive controls.[/quote]

Gonna have to disagree with you there. I thought Simpsons vs SM was a decent game. Not 90%+, more 81%. The first level was disproportionately hard compared to the remaining ones.

A game I found criminal was “Robo Pit” on the Saturn. SSM didn’t even review it. It was a below average game with blocky graphics and terrible slowdown in places. It was O.K, I guess, but the distractions ultimately outweighed the enjoyment factor.

10

I’m gonna have to agree with the Drake of the 99 Dragons. Unplayable.

Oh, and DOA:XBV. 5 minutes in and I was trying to slit my wrists with the Duke controller.

Edit: Well, to be fair, I didn’t actually pay for either of these. I just want those moments of my life back :smiley:

11

[quote=“Robert Frazer”]TITLE: Maken X
DEVELOPER: Atlus
FORMAT: Dreamcast

Fortunately, I found this game on the cheap Retro shelf in Gamestation and, as a consequence, it was only eight pounds I squandered instead of the full R.R.P. There are small mercies in this world.

This game at first seemed to have an interesting premise - despite being an FPS, the only weapons available were close-combat ones, and you were equipped with a sentient sword that possessed character’s minds to take on different forms, and drank the souls of dead enemies in order to become stronger.

But then you were afflicted by the humdrum and predictable level design, the ponderous and lifeless dialogue, the bastardisation of world landmarks, the stultifyingly formulaic combat, the unimaginative enemy design, the. Dread. Full. Y. Slow. And. Plod. Ding. Pace, and the cut’n’paste bargain-bucket plot.

The Official Dreamcast Magazine included a box in its reviews, titled “In one hour…” - how much was achieved in that time limit. When I looked up Maken X in ODM after filing the title away at the very bottom of my games rack, the box said “Completed second level. Lost will to live.” I soldiered on to Level 7 before I gave in, but that was through my persistence rather than any merit on the game’s part.

An utter waste of time and energy.[/quote]

I love that game, and still think its class.

For me the worst game I’ve bought the in a while was Mercenaries . Load of rubbish and still can’t see why it got such reviews

12

I almost forgot Taz-mania on the SNES. Not a criminal game, just a concept that did NOT work as well as it could have.

13

[quote=“Arcie”]

[quote=“PanzerPants”]
Bart Simpson vs. the Space Mutants (MD) - Bought as a birthday present on the vasis I am a Simpsons fan. Poor graphics, go awful level design and worst of all, non-repsonive controls.[/quote]

Gonna have to disagree with you there. I thought Simpsons vs SM was a decent game. Not 90%+, more 81%. The first level was disproportionately hard compared to the remaining ones.

A game I found criminal was “Robo Pit” on the Saturn. SSM didn’t even review it. It was a below average game with blocky graphics and terrible slowdown in places. It was O.K, I guess, but the distractions ultimately outweighed the enjoyment factor.[/quote]

Granted the first level was a steep learning curve, but its probably the best level also. And my comment regarding he terrible controls still stands, the later levels required regular use of the long jump, executed by pressing A+C simulataneously. Problem was it never worked consistently and basically a lot of death was to be had at the hands of poor controls.
The first level showed promise with being able to buy items and use them somewhat creatively and the skateboarding section was a nice break up in the action. The following levels failed to show any kind of promise that the first level did, which made trying to beat the game all the more difficult.

Ad for Robo Pit, it remember it getting decent (not great) reviews for it release on Playstation, take from that what you will :stuck_out_tongue:

14

Game Title: Blue Stinger
Console: Dreamcast
Can’t say who the developers were since I don’t have it anymore.

I just… really disliked this game. I didn’t hate it to the point I could smash the TV in, but it was badly made IMHO. Bad voice acting, mediocre and unoriginal storyline, your typical backtrack-to-get-further game… It just didn’t interest me enough to play through it all, and the whole concept seemed like it was taken right out of a bad thriller movie to me.

15

Tech Romancer was a pretty damn awful dreamcast game that I had the misfortune of playing… that said, I also got Bangai-o that day, which was an awsome game (Hmm, there’s one for the “criminally underrated” topic :anjou_love:), and togther they cost me less than ?5 so I can’t really complain…

Oooh, also, The Prirates of the Caribean game was… well actually it wasn’t all that bad (It played sort of like a rip-off of Sid Meier’s Pirates!), but it annoyed me by principle. You see, it was actually the sequel to a PC game called “Sea Dogs”, but when the Pirate of the Caribean movie was a success, they bought the license to it and simply changed the name… Anyway, luckily I don’t know this because I bought the game myself, I try to stay a LONG way away from licensed game.

16

TITLE: House of the Dead III
DEVELOPER: Sega (WOW Entertainment)
SYSTEM: X-Box

Now, you all know how devoted to Sega, the glorious and most majestic True Way Of Gaming, I am. Yet even the mightiest, most renowned and most laudable of titans will lay a step wrong every so often - and, I regret to say, the latest edition in the shoot-'em-up franchise House of the Dead is one such misadventure.

Now, the game itself is in no means a bad one. Indeed, there’s much to reccomend it. The voice-actors now actually sound human, instead of the living plywood they used in the second game. The graphics are certainly high-calibre, displaying the gruesome, grotesque necrosis-ravaged flesh of biological automata and the dank, rancid and decrepit facility in which you battle them in lovingly exhaustive detail. There are a number of enjoyable touches, such as seeing your weapon on-screen and watching you pump in new cartridges in to reload, or having to save your team-mate from attacks in the back instead of just encountering random civilians. The gameplay is irrefutably relentless - exactly how a shoot-'em-up should be - hurling wave after wave of gibbering monstrosities at you in a relentless, torrential deluge of filth, grime and sordidity. The pace is exhilerating and the carnage you wreak is magnificently, superbly gory and viscereal.

A shame it only lasts twenty minutes.

When the credits rolled after I thwarted the nefarious schemes of The Wheel Of Fate, I was left sitting before the television and asking: “…is that it?” I know that House of the Dead III is an arcade game, and so one designed for short blasts of play rather than extended captivation, but even by arcade standards it was spare. Where was the maze of multiple routes that helped make the previous games so distinctive and gave them such great replay value? Where was the Challenge section? The Special Item games? Once you’d run through the game once there was absolutely no reason for you to go back a second time.

House of the Dead III, as a pure arcade game, is superlative. As a home conversion, though, it’s an exemplar of what “wasted potential” means.

17

Yet, that’s exactly what some fans are asking for (see the “Sega Sucks” thread).

It’s a lose-lose situation for Sega. Make ports, piss people off. Don’t make ports, piss people off.

18

Abadd - on reflection perhaps I was being somewhat too hasty with the “exemplar of what ‘wasted potential’ means”. I don’t dislike the title - indeed, it was probably a mistake to put it in this thread which is only supposed to be for the truly dire games we’ve all suffered - but I just felt more could have been done with it. As I said in my review itself, the game House of the Dead III is very good, and I don’t want to criticise Sega for it (except for the lack of multiple routes, although mirrored levels did compensate for that to a degree). However, when its spartan presentation was compared to all of the lovely bells and whistles that were included on the conversion of the second game, I couldn’t help but feel a little short-changed.

19

[quote=“Abadd”]Yet, that’s exactly what some fans are asking for (see the “Sega Sucks” thread).

It’s a lose-lose situation for Sega. Make ports, piss people off. Don’t make ports, piss people off.[/quote]

Heh. I’m not bothered by a lack of arcade-to-home conversions since they started to lose their charm/selling power in comparison to more comprehensive games developed exclusively for home consoles years ago.

HOTD 3 didn’t sell too bad on the Xbox for a quick port with no additional features. It should have been ported to the Dreamcast where it probably would have fared much better. However, since Sega didn’t want to be associated with distributing fake guns for gun games in a country where real guns are freely available (bad move), there was no real incentive to bring it to the DC (the same holds true for The Lost World), especially later in its dying days.

Talk about craziness.

20

I so wanted the Ocean Hunter and the Lost World on a home console. Lost World had alternative routes, Ocean Hunter just plain ROCKED. I pulled crowds playing that game.