Rose-tinted glasses - you chose the 100 worst retro games

[CraigGrannell]

Over on the RG forum's 100 great retro games - as chosen by YOU! thread, some have been hankering for something similar for this year. Seeing as I don't want to just do the same thing again, I thought it'd be interesting to do a rose-tinted glasses thread, highlighting the very worst of retro.

Therefore, everyone should choose just one game from one format (i.e. you get one choice only) to include in a \"bottom 100, but not in order, readers!\" list (the numbers are just there to figure out how many spaces are left), taking care not to duplicate those that have gone before, and also saying why the game is in the list.

A couple of things to bear in mind: 1) the list should stick to games that were commercially released; 2) the games shouldn't just be stuff you didn't like all that much, but ones that are so staggeringly bad that they make you think sticking forks in your eyeballs would be preferable to playing them.

---
THE STORY SO FAR:
100. Bionic Granny - C64
99. Bridge-It - Amstrad
98. After Burner - Amiga
97. Hard Drivin' - C64
96. Imhotep - C64
95. Airwolf - Speccy
94. Outrun - Amiga
93. D!ck Tracy - C64
92. Death or Glory - C64
91. Predator - [any format]
90. Double Dragon - C64
89. Vendetta - Speccy
88. Count Duckula 2 - Amstrad CPC
87. Alfred Hitchcock - 3DO
86. Ghostbusters 2 - C64
85. Starburst - C16/+4
84. Transmuter - Amstrad CPC
83. Fat Worm Blows a Sparky - Speccy
82. Rise Of The Robots - Amiga/CD32
81. Pac-Man - Atari 2600
80. Molecule Man - Speccy
79. Highlander - Spectrum
78: Chase HQ - C64
77. Gazza's Superstar Soccer - Amstrad CPC
76. WAR - Spectrum
75. Ace of Aces - Master System
74. Renegade III - The Final Chapter - Spectrum
73. Football manager World cup edition - Amstrad
72. Custer's Revenge - Atari 2600
71. Roy of the Rovers - C64
70. Match Day - C64
69. Street Fighter II - Amiga
68. Battle Arena Toshinden - PSX
67. World Cup Carnival - C64
66. Knight Rider - C64
65. Dragon's Lair - Arcade
64. Golden Eye - N64
63. Ecco the Dolphin - MegaDrive
62. Friday the 13th - Spectrum
61. Transformers (Ocean) - Spectrum
60. Super Gran - CPC
59. Joe Blade 2 - Spectrum
58. Jailbreak - Spectrum
57. Thunderblade - [8-bit]

So, I'll kick this off with:

100. Bionic Granny [C64]
If ever there was a release to prove that games weren't always better in the old days, this is it. This early Darling Brothers effort has no redeeming features whatsoever, aside from, perhaps, being able to throw the box at fighting cats, in order to scare them away. The gameplay, such that it is, is mind-numbingly tedious (move left and right to hit one of a never-ending stream of children running from a school), the graphics are dire (overhead views of roads and schools; profile views of trees and people; nothing to scale; colours seemingly chosen by a colour-blind monkey), and the sound is worse than the junk churned out by Radio 1. You might argue that Robobolt was worse, or that Granny's Garden was inferior, but you'd be wrong, because this is my thread. So there.



Link: My review on Lemon, elaborating on some of the game's 'finer' points.

[GetDexter]

99. Bridge-It - [Amstrad] released by Amsoft. 1984

Incredibly bad graphics (are those supposed to be men ?) combined with an awful dirge of a tune resulted in a game where you controlled four bridges and had to time their closing so that your 'men' could safely travel across.
It was supplied as part of the free 12 pack of games with my Amstrad (though was also commercially available so passes Craig's criteria for inclusion) and I literally played it once and then dashed into the Cheap MDF rubbish to stick some forks into my eyes.

[forestville]

98 After Burner for the Amiga this was a very poor conversion it had that nasty border around the gameplay area, it was just a load of trash compared to the arcade version

[The Penultimate Ninja]

97. Hard Drivin' C64.

The arcade version came in this big deluxe cabinet, and the 3D polygon graphics were still a bit of a novelty.

There wasn't much to the game once you took away the cab and the graphics, so what the hell were they doing converting it to 8-bit computers?



The C64 was just way underpowered to recreate the game. Even with awful monochrome graphics and tiny play area it ran like a slideshow, it was impossible to play.

[markopoloman]

96 - Imhotep on the C64



Back in the day, whenever an Ultimate game was released, there was an instant urge to pick up the game at John Menzies and rush home and enjoy a cracking new release!

But what on Earth were they thinking when they released this utter tripe! Well - yes, they were thinking that some mug (or loads of mugs) like me would spend our hard earned pocket money on the name ULTIMATE!!!!!!

This game is utter utter dogshite of the very highest order - so bad in fact, I would rather play Rise of the Robots for 24 hours

Shocking - sling it in a ditch with ET - the game

[SirClive]

Be interesting to see if any games are on both the best and worst lists.

[CraigGrannell]

The C64 was equal first in the other thread, and it's already in the lead in this one, although that's not such a great recommendation!

As for games being in the best and worst lists, I very much hope not. I'd personally like this to be a list of games that can very much be justified as really awful, rather than people using it as barbed attacks on \"the other side\".

[SirClive]

me too, though I still expect someone idiot to say FIFA.

[paranoid marvin]

95. Airwolf on Speccy - great graphics,but can you imagine another game where 99% of the people who played could get no further than the 2nd screen? Trying do destroy a wall which is constantly rebuilding itself,is not my idea of fun - and bizarrely it ended up with a Crash Smash!

[SirClive]

It was rock hard on all formats. Wasn't the Speccy version actually the best because you had energy rather than lives?

[paranoid marvin]

It was rock hard on all formats. Wasn't the Speccy version actually the best because you had energy rather than lives?

I only ever played it on Speccy,don't know about other versions
but you definately had 'lives'


Actually you could get past the second screen with some practice - it was the third screen - guess what,another regenerating wall - that was the real bastard. And THEN ,after many hours of practice , and with a bit of good luck you managed to get to the next screen with perhaps one or two lives left,the radar thing killed you nearly every time - then back to the beginning .

I always used to trust Crash with their reviews ,but a few - Airwolf,Fat Worm , Zoids to name a few , made you wonder whether there were other incentives for the reviewers. Considering how little time reviewers would have had playing the game, I very much doubt many got as far into the game as some of the screenshots in the review suggest

[SirClive]

I had Airwolf on he C16, it was that hard I probably played it twice.
Pitty because there is a very good game in there.

[pottyboy]

94 - Outrun - Commodore Amiga

The arcade version is one of the finest driving games around, so why the hell is the Amiga version so much worse than something that is utterly appauling? The Amiga had the power to replicate the coin-op, but the creators decided to be the world's laziest people, so they ported it directly from the Atari ST which was already a bad version in the first place! It suffered from an appauling frame rate that gave no sense of speed, and the graphics were utter censored. C'mon guys, even the C64 had better graphics than this!



There is only one good thing about this version, and that is the wonderful loading screen. Looking at that was more entertaining than playing the game itself!

[Browncat]

93 censored Tracy Commodore 64

Note: The game is so bad RG has censored it!
A truly bad game, censored's coat is the same colour as the walls in places, it takes ten minutes to load levels yet they are only a few screens long and the whole thing looks like it was written in basic. I would like to go back and play this again but I can't face it, also I have a mint copy of the game (thanks Commodore Format for giving censored the cover of your magazine). I won't sell it though, its a stunning example of a bad game.

[Smurph]

92. Death or Glory C64



Oh. My. God.

This sounded so cool when I heard about it: You take a ship to massive Dreadnaught spaceships and bulldoze the fuckers into submission. What actually happens is, your ship jerks across the ship and each button press takes away a perfectly square section of it, until its gone. No excitement, no challenge, no fun. Whatsoever. Awful game.