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

[daverage]

I had forgotten about lords of midnight. God I hated that game! No real gameplay, pap controls ug.
C64 Streetfighter 1 was just plain awful, mind you so were all the versions.
The controls were unresponsive, the graphics were just plain painful and the sound still hurt my teeth.

[DanDare]

Gary Lineker's Super Skills wasn't particularly bad (it had decent graphics and was well programmed), but it was utterly, hopelessly pointless, and on that basis alone, I'm happy for it to be in the list.

You could say a lot of games have decent graphics and are well programmed, but it doesn't mean they're not awful.

[CrookedMouth]

54- EarthWorld on 2600, this was part of the SwordQuest series.

I read a favorable review in a trusted mag. I drooled over the Ads. I saved my money. I bought it and got it home.I eagerly slammed the cartridge home.Wait Wtf is this? Is this a game or a torture device?
People go on about ET and Pacman destroying the Video Game industry.At least they had some form of playability. Well I saved up $34 bucks for this "game". I believe this was the last new game I bought. Everything after was used that I could preplay.
Truly one of the all time lows in gaming history. They offered some prize if you beat the whole series. Well, I dare anyone here to attempt to play it for 30mins straight.

In this screen you can go up or down when you touch the door, your treated with an identical room but with a different color ,thats right what high adventure! Somehow you do find rooms but the challenge is simple dodging mini games that get harder and harder.I blocked out the rest.

[DrBlue]

53 - Tunguska - PS1

Spotted this in Game when it first came out for £9.99. Didn't buy it right away, went home and read a review of the PC version on-line which gave it good marks. So, cheap game, good reviews, I must be on to a winner!

Loading up the game presents you with a lovely FMV sequence of the main characer being led to the electric chair, the switch being flipped and our "hero" eing transported to a mysterious land. So far so good.

Then the game begins. You control a character who moves against some lovely pre-rendered backdrops. But that is where the goodness ends.

You walk for a bit, you pick somthing up, you have no idea what it is or what it's for, you get attacked, you press a button, you wait for the console to react (which it doesn't do quickly enough). The "fighting" mainly consists of some poorly animated punches and kicks. You can repeat the same move over and over to defeat said bad-guy.

Apart from the fighting there isn't that much else to do apart from figuring out what you're meant to be doing, where you are and why you bought the game.

Truly, truly dire. (Although this game isn't to be confused with 'Secret Files: Tunguska' which is a different game).

[Celebaglar]

We must have an adventure in there, so my vote goes to...

52 - Token of Ghall (C64)

The shortest, most terse location descriptions imaginable, without doubt the worst graphics ever added to a text adventure, sudden death without any warning whatsoever... I have no idea what the puzzles were like as I couldn't bear to play it long enough to find out.

Its only saving grace is that it made me appreciate all other adventures that much more, as they were all better than this.



P.S. Can't believe people nominated Lords of Midnight in this thread. What on earth are you smoking? I can understand folks voting for it in a "Game lots of people liked but I just hated" category, but here?!?

[woody.cool]

We must have an adventure in there, so my vote goes to...

52 - Token of Ghall (C64)

The shortest, most terse location descriptions imaginable, without doubt the worst graphics ever added to a text adventure, sudden death without any warning whatsoever... I have no idea what the puzzles were like as I couldn't bear to play it long enough to find out.

Its only saving grace is that it made me appreciate all other adventures that much more, as they were all better than this.



P.S. Can't believe people nominated Lords of Midnight in this thread. What on earth are you smoking? I can understand folks voting for it in a "Game lots of people liked but I just hated" category, but here?!?

OMG It looks like a C16 game written in BASIC by Commodore

[merman]

Don't dismiss something because it's written in BASIC. Spent many hours playing a little game called "Weather War II" (converted from the PET to the C64) and a card game (Milles Bournes) also written in BASIC.

[Celebaglar]

Don't dismiss something because it's written in BASIC. Spent many hours playing a little game called "Weather War II" (converted from the PET to the C64) and a card game (Milles Bournes) also written in BASIC.

Of course. The language doesn't reflect on the quality of the game (though it can affect the quality of presentation). OTOH, Token of Ghall is just bad.

[GarryG]

Also don't forget "Bored of the Rings" and "The Boggit" were made with "The Quill" adventure writing package.

It's the quality not the language used that makes a game good.

Most new commercial games are written in C now, not assembly!

[daverage]

I agree. It's becoming the "100 retro games you didn't like so much, thought were a little overrated or got confused with a different game of the same name".

Fair point, but I stand by SreetFighter1 on c64. If I could go back I would set fire to every copy ever made of that!

[blakespot]

Gauntlet on the Apple IIgs. The port was horrible. It was particularly disappointing because I had an Atari 520ST and its amazing version of the game, and then sold the ST - for some mysterious reason - to get an Apple IIgs. I had high expectations of the game because the GS supports the same number of colors onscreen as the ST, but from a 4096-color palette (the ST's palette was 512 colors at the time).


( ST version )


( IIgs version )

The IIgs had much less CPU horsepower, which is why it looks so bad, I assume - but one might think that it could've looked a LITTLE better than that. What a disappointment it was.



blakespot

[Bub&Bob]

Gauntlet on the Apple IIgs. The port was horrible. It was particularly disappointing because I had an Atari 520ST and its amazing version of the game, and then sold the ST - for some mysterious reason - to get an Apple IIgs. I had high expectations of the game because the GS supports the same number of colors onscreen as the ST, but from a 4096-color palette (the ST's palette was 512 colors at the time).


( ST version )


( IIgs version )

The IIgs had much less CPU horsepower, which is why it looks so bad, I assume - but one might think that it could've looked a LITTLE better than that. What a disappointment it was.



blakespot

The ST version looks sh*t

[blakespot]

The ST version looks sh*t

No, no - granted it's not the arcade version - but it is AMAZINGLY close. Looks better than Gauntlet II, as well, for the ST. It was amazing to see, back in the day. I need to find it for my new ST.



blakespot

[CrookedMouth]

Just thought this might help. Quote from the first post.

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.

[Bub&Bob]

The ST version looks sh*t

No, no - granted it's not the arcade version - but it is AMAZINGLY close. Looks better than Gauntlet II, as well, for the ST. It was amazing to see, back in the day. I need to find it for my new ST.



blakespot

Was being sarcastic as your pic was that damn Moby Games thing and not a screenshot.