Your Top Ten (Worst) Games Ever!!

Shapey Fiend

If ending your story with a stupid cliffhanger, then making people wait years for the next segment (instead of providing an enjoyable self contained plot) is a revolution in storytelling then a monkey can write Shakespeare. Episodic storytelling works in a TV show because you wait a week between episodes. I'm pretty ambivalent about games as a storytelling medium anyway. Books, films, comics, TV, theatre and even music are all ideally suited to story-telling. I'm not too fussed about video games doing it. Or certainly not when the game falls flat on it's face in most other departments.

My main reason for disliking it however is the weapons are unsatisfying, the enemy AI isn't half as much fun to fight as the original, the pacing is slow, level design is average, it had no multiplayer (HLDM1 multiplayer is one of my all time favorites) for years and when it did come out it was horrible.

CiDeRmAn

Shapey Fiend wrote: »

Why would I have had unrealistic expectations about Dark Castle? The box art looked cool. Back in those days you didn't know what a game was like till you stuck it in the machine so I expected it to be as good as anything else.

Sure, they only started publishing game reviews since 2003, before that no one knew and we could only go by box art, it's all true!
I may be fibbing, just a little

Shapey Fiend wrote: »

Playing Shenmue again for more than 5 minutes is my idea of torture so I'm perfectly justified in putting it in my worst games ever list. Sorry if anybody else finds that overly provocative.

He is right, it can be legitimately be included in his worst games list ever, but is it really one of the ten games you hated the most in your life? Seriously?
I mean, were you not disappointed rather than feeling hatred?
How long have you felt this way about Shenmue?
Tell me, in you own words, what you think of when you think about your mother?
relax, its a Bladerunner reference

Shapey Fiend

Finding game reviews of specific games was kind of hard before the internet was around. I would have done a bit of research before buying a game, but I swapped games and rented them more than buying them back in those days. The person I swapped Dark Castle with did warn me it was particularly horrible mind you. 9 year olds can be kind of gullable so it's not completely unimaginable that I'd have unrealistic expectations about something at that age.

I can't really remember much about Blade Runner so that's gone over my head.

CiDeRmAn

Shapey Fiend wrote: »

If ending your story with a stupid cliffhanger, then making people wait years for the next segment (instead of providing an enjoyable self contained plot) is a revolution in storytelling then a monkey can write Shakespeare. Episodic storytelling works in a TV show because you wait a week between episodes. I'm pretty ambivalent about games as a storytelling medium anyway. Books, films, comics, TV, theatre and even music are all ideally suited to story-telling. I'm not too fussed about video games doing it. Or certainly not when the game falls flat on it's face in most other departments.

Erm, stupid cliffhanger?
I thought the destruction of the tower in HL2 was a good ending there, if you wanted to continue into HL2ep1 then you could, otherwise you had a perectly self contained story there.
Also Half Life itself, the one you liked if memory serves, also had an ambiguous ending, if you wanted to be a hero, you died, if you went along with the grey mans plans, you became his puppet and that led on to HL2.
And it's other departments? The voice acting was second to none, and the facial animation was the standard for some time after.
The city was an excellent backdrop to the story, being both domestic and alien, familiar yet subverted into oppression.
Ok, the episodes were initially supposed to appear quicker, but I'm happy with the craft they are putting into each episode rather than lashing them out, in quick succession, losing the qualities that Valve are famous for.

Shapey Fiend wrote: »

My main reason for disliking it however is the weapons are unsatisfying, the enemy AI isn't half as much fun to fight as the original, the pacing is slow, level design is average, it had no multiplayer (HLDM1 multiplayer is one of my all time favorites) for years and when it did come out it was horrible.

Hmm, so the other argument is crap weapons?
The game series established a whole new weapon, the gravity gun, no one else had done anything like it, and it was well implemented into levels, did you not get to Ravenholm? The most amazing level in an FPS yet, a true creation of the level designers art, gravity gun + circular saw blade + zombie creatures from another world = fun fun fun
The rest of the guns are pretty good, automatic weapons everywhere, the combines weapons for some real stopping power, taking down a strider is one of the most satisfying moments.

And don't let Bladerunner go over you head, go watch it, expand your mind, no need to visit japanese sailors bars or anything, just cool flying cars and replicants, nice!

Shapey Fiend

What even happened in the end of HL2? I can't really remember at this stage. There's an explosion, everything freezes and you don't know who's alive or dead. That's a pretty naff cliffhanger if you ask me.

The guns are awful compared to the first game. That's why the multiplayer is dreadful. The gravity gun is fun in concept but the execution is all wrong. The "skill" of the gravity gun is not being able to see what you're aiming at. It's random, like the critical hits in TF2. Random damage dealing is not fun in the long term. Combines secondary weapon bouncing all over the place.. more randomness. Yay!

The machine guns are limp and innaccurate. The cross bow arrows travel too slowly. There's no gauss gun (the most fun weapon on HL1 because it gave you all sort of movement options), ditto rocket jumping. The shotgun is good granted, but that's about it. HL1 for me is still 10 times the game HL2 is, even if the last third is a bit lackluster compared to the first two thirds. As I said the multiplayer is one of the best DM games of all time as well, while HL2's is one of the worst. If anything, you have to give me that. It's a fairly commonly held belief not something controversial.

CiDeRmAn

Well, you don't like it, fair enough, can't agree with you though, you may have got that impression already!
To be honest, Half Life 2 is one of the least divisive games around, few people found it as terrible as you did.
It's not like it's Halo and people have solid issues with the reuse of whole chunks of levels, or Metal Gear Solid with the idiosyncratic controls, Half Life 2 makes you work to justify disliking it!

Lets all unite behind hating Streets of Rage and move on?

Paparazzo

EnterNow wrote: »

Following on from a recent contrversial thread, it made sense to rattle off a list of your top ten hum dinger worst games. Here goes mine, in no particular oder:

1 - Pig Skin Footbrawl (MD)
2 - Skitchin' (MD)
3 - Kevin Keegans Player Manager (SNES)
4 - Time Gal (MCD)
5 - Jonah Lomu Rugby (MD)
6 - Rise Of The Robots (Various, SNES prob worst)
7 - F117 Nighthawk (MD, shudder)
8 - Make My Video (MCD)
9 - Eternal Champions (MD)
10 - Sonic Spinball (MD)

Really this thread should be about games you have expericed/owned/rented...not quotes from a google list. This is actually harder than naming your favoutites, because these games are just so forgettable. Give it a shot, name the game that made you want to vomit all over your console & gargle with battery acid :pac:

Hold on here, I had Jonah Lomu Rugby (SNES) and it's still the best rugby game ever made!

CiDeRmAn

I liked Sonic Spinball too!
What is wrong with you people?
Are you just naming merely not bad games as "The Worst" just to create tension?
Because if you are, It's Working!

I didn't like Knight Lore by the way, nor any of the Sabre Man games on the Spectrum.
Quazatron on the other hand kicked Paradroids butt up and down the road!
Uridium on the Spectrum was an amazing feat, but it didn't hold a candle to the real deal on the C64
All Ultimate Play The Game titles on the C64 were utter pants, it's a judgement call and I'm making it.

I also liked Technican Ted more than Jet Set Willy (only joking!).
I did prefer Manic Miner to Jet Set Willy, although I still get Joy Joy feelings thinking about the copy of Jet Set Willy 2 I got one year for Christmas, hmmmm, Christmas!

StarWars on the C64, sh1te
StarWars on the Spectrum, genius

Raid Over Moscow, muck too.
Rush'n Attack (or Green Beret) was brilliant on the C64 though, much better than the Speccy edition.

But, Elite, C64 wins again, but then the Speccy had Tau Ceti.....

So many games, all packed into a little window between 85 and 88, good times, plenty of "worst games ever" though.
Chequered Flag on the Speccy, the one where a poster called Kerbdog fell off the chair in our kitchen turning a corner with too much enthusiasm! But it was awful!
Horace Goes Skiing, naff!
Biorhythms, nasty.
Spy Hunter on the Speccy, played it lots because I knew no better, til I played the C64 version and felt shame.

Myrddin

So Sonic Spinball is now ranked higher than Half Life 2.... O....k

Shapey Fiend

I love actual pinball so I've always found the videogame simulation of it a bit pointless. It's such a tactile activity you lose a lot in the translation.

Of course now that you can hardly find a properly maintained table in the entire country I'm beginning to see more of a point in it.

Myrddin

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Who said that?

My mistake

Note to self - re-read recent posts from the day before, before slating users :P

briany

FireballPitcher wrote: »

Some of my most hated games include:

Far Cry 2 (PS3), the enemy checkpoint respawns just brutalised the game for me.

Last Action Hero (SNES) NEVER got past the first level, just impossible.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (PS3) When the sh!t hit the fan for me in the series.

WCW Mayhem (N64) My lord, one of the worst games of all time.

Far Cry 2 may top the current poll for best looking, worst playing game of all time. It's mind boggling that the developers put that much time into the visuals and the game world and then gave it the most boring, repetitive, tedious gameplay. Ubisoft must have been aiming to capture the lucrative section of the market who don't mind killing the same three guys over and over , blowing up the same tanker over and over and being chased down rivers by the same three guys over and over. Shows what can happen when you take the original developer (Crytek) and their vision out of the equation.

Steve X2

briany wrote: »

Far Cry 2 may top the current poll for best looking, worst playing game of all time. It's mind boggling that the developers put that much time into the visuals and the game world and then gave it the most boring, repetitive, tedious gameplay. Ubisoft must have been aiming to capture the lucrative section of the market who don't mind killing the same three guys over and over , blowing up the same tanker over and over and being chased down rivers by the same three guys over and over. Shows what can happen when you take the original developer (Crytek) and their vision out of the equation.

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