The Video Game Critic

I'm reviewing Xenophobe for the Atari 2600, which inexplicably offers split-screen yet the two players CANNOT play at the same time. The box is so misleading - egregiously so.

https://atariage.com/box_page.php?Softw ... TypeID=BOX

Can you think of any other games that made claims and failed to live up to them?

Probably the biggest example of a misleading game is Big Rigs for the PC. I have never personally played it but the AVGN did a whole episode on the game (as well as a million other people). The game was marketed as a racing game, yet in the first few versions of the game your opponent never moved, and even on the final releases, the opposing racer would move but stopped right before the finish line to let you win. If you enjoy the AVGN you probably would like the episode as it is probably one of his best.

I can remember a bit of a storm with the Spectrum version of Out Run. The screenshots on the back had been doctored to show the AI trucks that you race past at a similar size to the arcade machine.
When you actually played the games the trucks were about the same size as the cars. It caused quite a kerfuffle back in the day.

Here is one from the TI-99

This is what the package says blackjack looks like:

Well, that's not too bad for 1979 or so. Colorful border, the four suits, looks like a table.

Instead the actual game looks like

Yuck. It shows what reasonably could be a screenshot, but its not. In an age when games had wild painted covers, at least you knew the game did not look like those covers...this one is like bait and switch.