You know, it seems that now days all we ever do is talk about the new
games coming out, and the games we love... But what about the ones you
just couldn't stand? What about the games that ticked you off so much
you never wanted to go back to playing them? Now before I go any
farther, don't worry, I'm not going to start reviewing the games I hate
(if you want to see some funny reviews of some bad games, you should
just go watch the Angry Video Game Nerd lol). Even so, everyone has
their own bad memories with gaming growing up (or even today), and I
figured this would be a perfect chance to talk about them, as well as
share some of my own.
So anyway, lets get started!
Now when I was one and a half years old I actually got my first video game system (an NES which my cousin gave to me), and about 20 or so games for it. Since the system was handed down to me I really didn't have much of an option on which games I got with it, but it really didn't matter to me. I was just a happy almost two year old, and I was playing a video game!
Although I did play just about every game I had, it wasn't until I got older when I started to really understand how everything worked. That's also when I started to notice how bad some of the games were...
Top Gun:
The first game I ever really had a problem with was none other than Top Gun. Now I'm not saying this is a bad game, I actually thought it was really cool back in the day, and I LOVED the joystick, but there was one problem with it. After you finish the level and you're flying back to the base, the dreaded notice popped up. Back then I couldn't really read yet, but I knew one thing... The game was telling me to land...
Here we are 20 years after the first time I played this game, and I STILL can't land that stupid plane, and that is a problem. Sure it lets you continue onto the next level, but the refueling part is just the same, and if you fail that you lose! Because of that I've never seen past the second level, and I'm pretty sure I never will. Boom.....
Castlevania:
Once again this wasn't really a game I hated, but it was one I couldn't really enjoy playing back then. It was the only NES game I had that my parents didn't want me to play, my uncle even kept telling them how demonic it was, but in the end, I really didn't care what they said. It was a game, they didn't take it away from me, and it was there. In short, I played it.
The thing about Castlevania is that in the original when you got hit, YOU FLEW BACKWARDS! I would normally get to the second or so level, but I would always be falling off of cliffs, and missing jumps. The game was just a pain to play, and it was one I ended up giving up on. Now days I don't have the problems I did back then, but as a kid, that game was a nightmare. It didn't scare me because it was castlevania, it scared me because of how hard it was...
Spider-Man:
Now jump ahead a few years, past all of the other NES games which I rented and ended up blocking out of my mind (where's waldo you ask? Answer: I still have no idea. Pretty sure he's next to the orange thing inbetween the other two orange things, in the orange room, with the green car.... ), and finally we get to the Super Nintendo with Spider-Man.
Now I rented other Spider-Man and X-Men games on the NES which were pretty bad, but the only one I really owned was the SNES game. Really this wasn't a bad game either, but it was just SOO cheap. I would spend hours trying to beat the levels, only to get killed off at level 3. Enemies were cheap, your limited number of stunnades, and web really limited what you could do, and it was sometimes hard to figure out where to go. It was just so easy to get killed, the controls were stiff, it was easy to get LOST in the linear levels simply because the game wouldn't let you pass until you did something else, and I could never even figure out what the heck was going on.
I had some fun playing the game, I mean it WAS the only Spider-Man game out there which was really playable, but it was one of them games I didn't stand a chance at. I STILL don't stand a chance at it actually...
Robocop VS Terminator:
Robocop VS Terminator... It was my uncles game, I always played it over at my grandparent's house, and I couldn't really stand it. Now while the Sega Genesis version was much more like contra (faster moving, a lot of cool guns, and people exploding into piles of blood as bullets rip them apart), the SNES version was nothing like that. It was slow, clunky, enemies just kind of explode/vanish, enemies are cheap, the guns aren't that great, and well, it is basically plays like a stiff robot. Not really sure how else I can explain it...
The game wasn't bad enough that it made me hate robocop, but its one of them games I just gave up playing.
Road Runner:
Now the Road Runner cartoons were always my favorite Looney Tunes cartoons, but the Road Runner SNES game was another big let down. I had fun playing it, and I still kind of like it simply because it reminds me of my childhood, but the fact is... It's just one of them average stiff platforming games. You get to run fast for a little bit, then you launch into the air, then you stiffly control yourself as you fall down, and then you jump on slow moving platforms.
It's cool that the game tries to follow some of the old Road Runner cartoon's stories, but it was just an average platforming game... I mean heck, they even put random hazards in your path! You would be speeding down a hill, hit an object that basically kills you before you can even see it, and then you're forced to jump across the slow moving platforms... It's just, average, and cheap. (I did like taunting and eating bird seed though lol)
Toy Story 2:
Now lets skip ahead to the GB/GBC, and talk about Toy Story 2. Now really, I was SOOO excited to get this game back in the day (pretty sure I either got it as an Easter Present or Christmas Present), but the thing is, it sucked... You play as Buzz, which I really liked, but the game didn't add up at all. Rex tried to kill you, everything you touched hurt you, it was hard to figure out what platforms you could even stand on, and there were a few parts that REQUIRED you to be standing in the right spot as you hit the jump button so you could trigger some kind of special action.
The game was very stiff, you had a very limited number of lives, your friends killed you, the levels were straight forward and boring, it was hard to see where you could jump and where you couldn't, and to top THAT off, it was on the GBC! You know, the GBC, where you had to sit by a window or under a lamp to even see? The game was hard enough to see as is, they didn't need to make it even more confusing...
At least the N64 version was great!
Spongebob: Legend of The Lost Spatula:
Actually this one wasn't a bad game either, just not that great. It wasn't the big Spongebob adventure I was expecting, but it wasn't bad. It was a pretty basic platformer with some nice Spongebobish features added in. My real complaint was that it got kind of boring, and it was just a basic platformer. It was a bit of a let down, but I still enjoyed playing it as much as I could.
Quest 64:
A game long forgotten, but I remember renting it, and I remember not liking it. When I was younger the main reason I didn't like it is because I died as soon as I left the town, but now days I don't like it for other reasons. Gameplay was actually VERY basic, the battles are boring, the story is basically nothing at all, and it was very straight forward. This was one of them games you would spend 50 bucks on, and then regret later...
Rugrats Scavenger Hunt:
You couldn't play as Dill! What the heck!? Really though, I was expecting a lot more out of this game. It was Mario Party, which I really liked, but without the mini games... Which is the main reason I liked it. Yeah I had fun playing it since I was a fan of the show, but it wasn't what I expected. Man I remember going to walmart, getting it off the shelf, then looking at the instruction book on the long ride home. Couldn't wait to play it... Then I did...
The game was a good idea, and I had fun playing it with my dad, but it wasn't a game everyone I knew would come over to play. It would just sit there, and everyone would go right for Mario Party 1.
Megaman Battle Network 4:
Now I can go on and on about NES, SNES, and N64 games, but I figured I'd be better to just hit the main ones that disappointed me and move on... With Battle Network 4 being the next big one on the list.
As you know by now, I'm a HUGE Megaman fan. I own every game released, I own Japanese versions (Such as Rockman Zero 1-4, Rockman DASH 1 + 2, Rockman X, Rockman.EXE 4.5, and even many of the other Rockman.EXE games), but that doesn't change how I feel about BN4.
I waited for Battle Network 4 for a year +, and then when the game finally came out, I actually SEARCHED EVERYWHERE for the darn thing. Finally found it at Walmart, and spent an hour or so looking at the back of the box as my mom and dad went shopping. I couldn't wait to finally play the game, and I loved how the artwork of some of the soul changes reminded me of Megaman Legends. Well, finally my parents finished shopping, I then got in the car, I opened up the game, pulled it out of the box, took the game out of my GBA, and then stuck Battle Network 4 in.
First thing I noticed was the brand new opening theme. Now I LOVED the original BN theme so much that I actually wanted to learn how to play the piano JUST to play it. It was one of my favorite game openings, and BN4 removed it. Well, it was really a minor issue, so I just moved on and started up the game... Only to find then that the art style was changed. Yeah now days I do like the smaller sprites, but it wasn't a change I was expecting, and it wasn't one I really liked too much. Once again I then decided to press on with the game and just enjoy it. THEN I SAW ACDC TOWN!
Yep they completely redid ACDC Town, removed the school, and made all the maps generally smaller. Really ACDC Town was my favorite area in BN1-3, and I loved how I already knew my way around it as I started up each new game, but now, it was half the size, and most of the main characters LOST THEIR HOUSES! Dex now lived in a generic house, Yai's awesome mansion was moved to the school's old location, the chip shop looked different, and the rest of the town was just flat out redesigned. That really ticked me off, but I decided to keep playing anyway. Wasn't going to let it stop me.
Then I actually got into the game. The Dark Chip (or Demon Chip as it was called) showed up, and because I'm a Christian (and because I was still basically a kid), that really bothered me. I didn't like the idea of there being a demon in Battle Network, and I really didn't like the idea of downloading it into Megaman... Still I finally got over it and pressed on.
Three or less hours later the game was over, and I was just looking at the credits in shock. The game takes less than five hours to complete, and you had to play through it a second time to see the other stories and get the final soul changes. Yep, I had to REPLAY the game I didn't care for just to see the rest of it, and get the Proto Soul (which was the main reason I wanted Blue Moon).
After that what did I do? Only play the game through about 15 more times because I had nothing else to play. I did it all, saw all of the stories over and over again, got annoyed by the crisis music which never stopped playing until you started a new game plus, and flat out couldn't wait till BN5 would come out so I could stop playing it. Sure I did net battle my friend from time to time with BN4, but we mostly would go back and play BN3 more, so even the multiplayer aspect of the game was pointless...
I know many may disagree with me on this, but BN4 really shouldn't have been a standard game. It was one of them games that should have been made as a side game (along side Chip Challenge and 4.5, which both had more content than BN4 might I add), and BN5 should have been the real 4. Sure there was some important story points, but even them were very small.
That's it:
Well, I think I'll stop there. I only wanted to cover the games that were most disappointing for me when I was younger, so I'm going to leave other GBA games and the GCN games out of it. Really though, if you want to know a GCN game that really was disappointing for me, check out my Bionicle review. Just click the forum tab at the top of the page, click on the review forum, and click on the review list. Shouldn't be too hard to find.
Really there are many other games which were very disappointing, but the thing is, I hardly remember them. I rented SOOO many bad NES games, and A LOT of bad SNES games that I rather just completely forget them. There were also quite a few N64 games I really didn't care for, and even today a lot of games are disappointing. Really, half of my Wii Library was just that... Maybe I'll talk about them one day, but for now, I'm just going to leave it at this.
So, how about you guys?
So anyway, lets get started!
Now when I was one and a half years old I actually got my first video game system (an NES which my cousin gave to me), and about 20 or so games for it. Since the system was handed down to me I really didn't have much of an option on which games I got with it, but it really didn't matter to me. I was just a happy almost two year old, and I was playing a video game!
Although I did play just about every game I had, it wasn't until I got older when I started to really understand how everything worked. That's also when I started to notice how bad some of the games were...
Top Gun:
The first game I ever really had a problem with was none other than Top Gun. Now I'm not saying this is a bad game, I actually thought it was really cool back in the day, and I LOVED the joystick, but there was one problem with it. After you finish the level and you're flying back to the base, the dreaded notice popped up. Back then I couldn't really read yet, but I knew one thing... The game was telling me to land...
Here we are 20 years after the first time I played this game, and I STILL can't land that stupid plane, and that is a problem. Sure it lets you continue onto the next level, but the refueling part is just the same, and if you fail that you lose! Because of that I've never seen past the second level, and I'm pretty sure I never will. Boom.....
Castlevania:
Once again this wasn't really a game I hated, but it was one I couldn't really enjoy playing back then. It was the only NES game I had that my parents didn't want me to play, my uncle even kept telling them how demonic it was, but in the end, I really didn't care what they said. It was a game, they didn't take it away from me, and it was there. In short, I played it.
The thing about Castlevania is that in the original when you got hit, YOU FLEW BACKWARDS! I would normally get to the second or so level, but I would always be falling off of cliffs, and missing jumps. The game was just a pain to play, and it was one I ended up giving up on. Now days I don't have the problems I did back then, but as a kid, that game was a nightmare. It didn't scare me because it was castlevania, it scared me because of how hard it was...
Spider-Man:
Now jump ahead a few years, past all of the other NES games which I rented and ended up blocking out of my mind (where's waldo you ask? Answer: I still have no idea. Pretty sure he's next to the orange thing inbetween the other two orange things, in the orange room, with the green car.... ), and finally we get to the Super Nintendo with Spider-Man.
Now I rented other Spider-Man and X-Men games on the NES which were pretty bad, but the only one I really owned was the SNES game. Really this wasn't a bad game either, but it was just SOO cheap. I would spend hours trying to beat the levels, only to get killed off at level 3. Enemies were cheap, your limited number of stunnades, and web really limited what you could do, and it was sometimes hard to figure out where to go. It was just so easy to get killed, the controls were stiff, it was easy to get LOST in the linear levels simply because the game wouldn't let you pass until you did something else, and I could never even figure out what the heck was going on.
I had some fun playing the game, I mean it WAS the only Spider-Man game out there which was really playable, but it was one of them games I didn't stand a chance at. I STILL don't stand a chance at it actually...
Robocop VS Terminator:
Robocop VS Terminator... It was my uncles game, I always played it over at my grandparent's house, and I couldn't really stand it. Now while the Sega Genesis version was much more like contra (faster moving, a lot of cool guns, and people exploding into piles of blood as bullets rip them apart), the SNES version was nothing like that. It was slow, clunky, enemies just kind of explode/vanish, enemies are cheap, the guns aren't that great, and well, it is basically plays like a stiff robot. Not really sure how else I can explain it...
The game wasn't bad enough that it made me hate robocop, but its one of them games I just gave up playing.
Road Runner:
Now the Road Runner cartoons were always my favorite Looney Tunes cartoons, but the Road Runner SNES game was another big let down. I had fun playing it, and I still kind of like it simply because it reminds me of my childhood, but the fact is... It's just one of them average stiff platforming games. You get to run fast for a little bit, then you launch into the air, then you stiffly control yourself as you fall down, and then you jump on slow moving platforms.
It's cool that the game tries to follow some of the old Road Runner cartoon's stories, but it was just an average platforming game... I mean heck, they even put random hazards in your path! You would be speeding down a hill, hit an object that basically kills you before you can even see it, and then you're forced to jump across the slow moving platforms... It's just, average, and cheap. (I did like taunting and eating bird seed though lol)
Toy Story 2:
Now lets skip ahead to the GB/GBC, and talk about Toy Story 2. Now really, I was SOOO excited to get this game back in the day (pretty sure I either got it as an Easter Present or Christmas Present), but the thing is, it sucked... You play as Buzz, which I really liked, but the game didn't add up at all. Rex tried to kill you, everything you touched hurt you, it was hard to figure out what platforms you could even stand on, and there were a few parts that REQUIRED you to be standing in the right spot as you hit the jump button so you could trigger some kind of special action.
The game was very stiff, you had a very limited number of lives, your friends killed you, the levels were straight forward and boring, it was hard to see where you could jump and where you couldn't, and to top THAT off, it was on the GBC! You know, the GBC, where you had to sit by a window or under a lamp to even see? The game was hard enough to see as is, they didn't need to make it even more confusing...
At least the N64 version was great!
Spongebob: Legend of The Lost Spatula:
Actually this one wasn't a bad game either, just not that great. It wasn't the big Spongebob adventure I was expecting, but it wasn't bad. It was a pretty basic platformer with some nice Spongebobish features added in. My real complaint was that it got kind of boring, and it was just a basic platformer. It was a bit of a let down, but I still enjoyed playing it as much as I could.
Quest 64:
A game long forgotten, but I remember renting it, and I remember not liking it. When I was younger the main reason I didn't like it is because I died as soon as I left the town, but now days I don't like it for other reasons. Gameplay was actually VERY basic, the battles are boring, the story is basically nothing at all, and it was very straight forward. This was one of them games you would spend 50 bucks on, and then regret later...
Rugrats Scavenger Hunt:
You couldn't play as Dill! What the heck!? Really though, I was expecting a lot more out of this game. It was Mario Party, which I really liked, but without the mini games... Which is the main reason I liked it. Yeah I had fun playing it since I was a fan of the show, but it wasn't what I expected. Man I remember going to walmart, getting it off the shelf, then looking at the instruction book on the long ride home. Couldn't wait to play it... Then I did...
The game was a good idea, and I had fun playing it with my dad, but it wasn't a game everyone I knew would come over to play. It would just sit there, and everyone would go right for Mario Party 1.
Megaman Battle Network 4:
Now I can go on and on about NES, SNES, and N64 games, but I figured I'd be better to just hit the main ones that disappointed me and move on... With Battle Network 4 being the next big one on the list.
As you know by now, I'm a HUGE Megaman fan. I own every game released, I own Japanese versions (Such as Rockman Zero 1-4, Rockman DASH 1 + 2, Rockman X, Rockman.EXE 4.5, and even many of the other Rockman.EXE games), but that doesn't change how I feel about BN4.
I waited for Battle Network 4 for a year +, and then when the game finally came out, I actually SEARCHED EVERYWHERE for the darn thing. Finally found it at Walmart, and spent an hour or so looking at the back of the box as my mom and dad went shopping. I couldn't wait to finally play the game, and I loved how the artwork of some of the soul changes reminded me of Megaman Legends. Well, finally my parents finished shopping, I then got in the car, I opened up the game, pulled it out of the box, took the game out of my GBA, and then stuck Battle Network 4 in.
First thing I noticed was the brand new opening theme. Now I LOVED the original BN theme so much that I actually wanted to learn how to play the piano JUST to play it. It was one of my favorite game openings, and BN4 removed it. Well, it was really a minor issue, so I just moved on and started up the game... Only to find then that the art style was changed. Yeah now days I do like the smaller sprites, but it wasn't a change I was expecting, and it wasn't one I really liked too much. Once again I then decided to press on with the game and just enjoy it. THEN I SAW ACDC TOWN!
Yep they completely redid ACDC Town, removed the school, and made all the maps generally smaller. Really ACDC Town was my favorite area in BN1-3, and I loved how I already knew my way around it as I started up each new game, but now, it was half the size, and most of the main characters LOST THEIR HOUSES! Dex now lived in a generic house, Yai's awesome mansion was moved to the school's old location, the chip shop looked different, and the rest of the town was just flat out redesigned. That really ticked me off, but I decided to keep playing anyway. Wasn't going to let it stop me.
Then I actually got into the game. The Dark Chip (or Demon Chip as it was called) showed up, and because I'm a Christian (and because I was still basically a kid), that really bothered me. I didn't like the idea of there being a demon in Battle Network, and I really didn't like the idea of downloading it into Megaman... Still I finally got over it and pressed on.
Three or less hours later the game was over, and I was just looking at the credits in shock. The game takes less than five hours to complete, and you had to play through it a second time to see the other stories and get the final soul changes. Yep, I had to REPLAY the game I didn't care for just to see the rest of it, and get the Proto Soul (which was the main reason I wanted Blue Moon).
After that what did I do? Only play the game through about 15 more times because I had nothing else to play. I did it all, saw all of the stories over and over again, got annoyed by the crisis music which never stopped playing until you started a new game plus, and flat out couldn't wait till BN5 would come out so I could stop playing it. Sure I did net battle my friend from time to time with BN4, but we mostly would go back and play BN3 more, so even the multiplayer aspect of the game was pointless...
I know many may disagree with me on this, but BN4 really shouldn't have been a standard game. It was one of them games that should have been made as a side game (along side Chip Challenge and 4.5, which both had more content than BN4 might I add), and BN5 should have been the real 4. Sure there was some important story points, but even them were very small.
That's it:
Well, I think I'll stop there. I only wanted to cover the games that were most disappointing for me when I was younger, so I'm going to leave other GBA games and the GCN games out of it. Really though, if you want to know a GCN game that really was disappointing for me, check out my Bionicle review. Just click the forum tab at the top of the page, click on the review forum, and click on the review list. Shouldn't be too hard to find.
Really there are many other games which were very disappointing, but the thing is, I hardly remember them. I rented SOOO many bad NES games, and A LOT of bad SNES games that I rather just completely forget them. There were also quite a few N64 games I really didn't care for, and even today a lot of games are disappointing. Really, half of my Wii Library was just that... Maybe I'll talk about them one day, but for now, I'm just going to leave it at this.
So, how about you guys?
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