Games so bad you have to shut it off

General and high profile video game topics.
User avatar
Stalvern
Posts: 1946
Joined: June 18th, 2016, 7:15 pm

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby Stalvern » October 8th, 2018, 12:55 am

lynchie137 wrote:I have to ask. Why were there two different versions of this game?

There are actually three, if you can believe it. When the movie came out in 1989, there were two unrelated computer games based on it, both published by LucasFilm. One was a very good point-and-click adventure game developed in the States by what would soon be LucasArts, and the other was a horrible platform game developed in England by Tiertex, a company responsible for some of the most incompetent arcade ports ever released. The game published by Taito for the NES in 1991 was also developed in England, but it was handled by Software Creations (which put out the infamous NES Silver Surfer game the previous year, although they would soon release Plok! for the SNES). The Ubisoft Last Crusade game from 1993 is actually a port of the Tiertex computer game, four years old at that point.

My best guess for why this happened is that LucasFilm knew that their own game was an odd fit for an Indiana Jones tie-in and licensed a more traditional action game to meet people's expectations. When the Tiertex game turned out to be garbage, they let Software Creations take another crack at it for the NES market. (This would explain why that game wasn't released until 1991.) As for why Ubisoft decided to release the Tiertex game on the NES when the system already had a Last Crusade game, why they decided to do it in 1993 of all years, and how they managed to do such an amazingly lousy job of it... don't ask me!

mbd36
Posts: 549
Joined: April 18th, 2015, 10:32 am

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby mbd36 » October 8th, 2018, 1:42 pm

lynchie137 wrote:I played Baseball and Soccer for weekly contests on NintendoAge. Baseball is beyond awful, with no reason for anyone to play it now except for nostalgia. Soccer is just boring. But I don't care for sports games to begin with.

I also can't stand black box Golf or any golf video games for that matter.

Really? I don't mind NES Golf. Sure, it's no classic. And I must admit I'm pretty terrible at it. But for some reason or another I do have a pretty good time playing through it when I sit down with it.

Two golf games I can't stand, however, are Atari Golf and Miniature Golf for the 2600. Both are so utterly reprehensible and unplayable that I have a hard time playing both of them for even five minutes at a time. Just pure, pure rubbish, those two.


For me, golf makes for an incredibly boring video game. It doesn't help that I've never golfed in real life and don't know much about the sport other than that it involves hitting a ball into a hole with a club. It's just a matter of personal preference. I'm sure that NES Golf is fine for those who actually enjoy golf games.
Last edited by mbd36 on October 8th, 2018, 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

GameOfThrones
Posts: 369
Joined: August 30th, 2017, 10:24 am

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby GameOfThrones » October 8th, 2018, 7:04 pm

Here is my first Spectrum game. The blurb on the outside box made it sound so amazing. I bought it and this is what I got.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJUizBCNkUM

User avatar
scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby scotland » October 8th, 2018, 7:27 pm

That is a truly awful ZX Spectrum experience

It makes me feel better (a little better) about my Odyssey 2 experience

ootw.JPG
ootw.JPG (92.41 KiB) Viewed 2033 times


As a kid, getting a new game was very infrequent. There were no rentals, and no trade-ins. This cartridge was one of my rare purchases, and its awful. Twice the awful with two awful games.

Dave reviewed it in 2001, but even reviewing it in the height of the holiday season he gave it an F and called it a turkey.

The Out of this World box art is lovely, and "Lunar Lander" is a staple of early computers. This game has only 1 direction - up/down. You don't even need the joystick, just a button. And its a digital button, where even an R/C slot car race has better controls. You go down, you press the button, you land. You press the button, and you go up. No obstacles at all.

The second game, Helicopter Rescue, is what is in need of a rescue. On the plus side, you can actually use the joystick - to go left and right. You can't go up and down, because...helicopter? You press the button to raise or lower the basket to rescue hardware blockhead people.

When the instruction manual is the best part of the game, you have wasted your money.

GameOfThrones
Posts: 369
Joined: August 30th, 2017, 10:24 am

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby GameOfThrones » October 9th, 2018, 10:22 am

Scotland, I really feel that that comes a close second. It reminds me a bit of starship and the old arcade mechanic of play for 2 minutes a game. I had a look at them via the Critics review and was amazed the colourful graphics belie the facts that their is no discernible game play involved in either game. A two player lunar lander sounds like such a cop out. Plus an early example of the choplifter vibe which could have been amazing let down by the fact you only can pick up one person at a time. A truly set of lamentable games.

lynchie137
Posts: 539
Joined: November 15th, 2016, 6:46 pm

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby lynchie137 » October 11th, 2018, 3:02 pm

Major League Baseball for the NES. Yes, it's another turkey that was put out by LJN. By the time I can navigate my way through the beyond hostile user interface, my patience has already been pushed to the limit. And when I start trying to play the darn thing, the poor physics, awful control and lousy graphics just automatically cause me to turn it off without even getting through a single inning or two. Just a horrible, horrible waste of an MLB license

lynchie137
Posts: 539
Joined: November 15th, 2016, 6:46 pm

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby lynchie137 » October 11th, 2018, 4:03 pm

Surprised to see that nobody has mentioned the Swordquest series of games yet.

Voor
Posts: 1553
Joined: April 14th, 2015, 8:08 pm

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby Voor » October 11th, 2018, 6:44 pm

lynchie137 wrote:Surprised to see that nobody has mentioned the Swordquest series of games yet.


I don’t think those are really games. Just a means to play that crazy contest. That’s one of my favorite moments in video game history

User avatar
Stalvern
Posts: 1946
Joined: June 18th, 2016, 7:15 pm

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby Stalvern » October 11th, 2018, 8:53 pm

I love that Helicopter Rescue! (jeez, pipe down) has "sync-sound action". I normally don't expect sound effects to synchronize with the action, so it's cool to see a game with that feature. :lol:

User avatar
scotland
Posts: 2561
Joined: April 7th, 2015, 7:33 pm

Re: Games so bad you have to shut it off

Postby scotland » October 11th, 2018, 9:10 pm

Stalvern wrote:I love that Helicopter Rescue! (jeez, pipe down) has "sync-sound action". I normally don't expect sound effects to synchronize with the action, so it's cool to see a game with that feature. :lol:


*Full* Sync-sound action, with 'digital' scoring! My, no expense spared. By 'one or more players', Helicopter Rescue means you take turns. By that definition, solitaire can be one or more players as well. The Doomsday Hotel - if this was trying to evoke the Towering Inferno, the only thing that got burned was me.


Return to “Video Games General”