What is the worse atari game ever made?

[Miss 2600]

In the past, my vote would be for Final Approach but, after playing it for the High Scores Club this past week and finally figuring it out, it's not that bad.

[accousticguitar]

titles like Star Ship, Human Cannonball, Miniature Golf, Flag Capture, Slot Racers, Codebreaker, and Home Run come to mind.

I have to disagree with you on Miniature Golf. That's a fun game. I even hacked it to upgrade the graphics (with a lot of help from Nukey Shay). It's in my signature.

[tz101]

Most anything by Data Age, but Sssssnake is the worst.

[AtariLeaf]

titles like Star Ship, Human Cannonball, Miniature Golf, Flag Capture, Slot Racers, Codebreaker, and Home Run come to mind.

I have to disagree with you on Miniature Golf. That's a fun game. I even hacked it to upgrade the graphics (with a lot of help from Nukey Shay). It's in my signature.

 

Yea I agree, I LOVE Miniature Golf. Its probably in my top 25 favorite 2600 games. I'd play that over and over again. In fact the homebrew version with new courses is on my wishlist.

[tcv]

Spider-Man is the worst game, in my opinion. E.T. is better, and Pac-Man is in between.

 

I liked Spider Man. It was pretty challenging for the time, at least IMO.

[raskar42]

i have fond memorys playing spider man as a small small child.

 

i didn't know then that it sucked

[toiletunes]

Was the Swordquest series a commercial flop? If not then they get my vote.

 

Otherwise, Gorf has been bugging me lately- it's like a compilation of classic games (space invaders etc) but done very badly.

[Chuck D. Head]

Funny, I like most of the games already mentioned, more or less.

 

As always I'd have to vote for the Mythicon "games". Maybe Sorcerer I guess.

I think some of the graphics are slightly more interesting on Sorcerer. I say Firefly. I never played the third one, was it also the same damn game? I could have forgiven spending $10 and getting one of these, but I got both at the same time, which was just sad......

[+thegoldenband]

I do sorta like many of the Data Age games -- I genuinely like Bugs, and have a weird fondness for Airlock -- but Sssnake is garbage.

 

At least Karate is trying to be a decent game, and pushes the hardware to do something it's not supposed to do (large characters, even if they look like freaky anorexic Gumby ballerinas). Sssnake just feels like a raised middle finger to the buyer, openly contemptuous and exulting in its own worthlessness. It's the perfect poster child for the crash of '83.

Edited December 23, 2010 by thegoldenband

[PitfallHarry2600]

Pac kong! It sucks balls!

[+Random Terrain]

Yeah, I kind of liked climbing to the top of the buildings in Spider-Man and swinging like Pitfall Harry, but with more control. And if you fall, you can shoot your web and stop yourself from falling. Since Just Cause 2 didn't exist back then, Spider-Man was the best game of that type at the time.

[OldAtarian]

I just got Wall Ball recently and that certainly does not lack in crapitude. It may be rare, but as a game it really does suck. Breakout from a 3d perspective seems like a good idea, but it's almost impossible to hit the damn ball when it comes back to you.

 

Oh, and Spike's Peak. How the hell do you avoid that damn bird thing that sends you back to start?

Edited December 23, 2010 by OldAtarian

[high voltage]

I love Pac-Man but then I never visited arcades, so I never knew the original. ET was also a good game, I just thoght it is too difficult for me.

Spike's Peak is also a total ace game. As for the eagle getting you, make sure you're in the cave before he arrives.

[godzillajoe]

Based on expectations, price, advertising, resources etc. the Swordquest series has to be the winner. I mean there was a huge advertising campaign and $25,000 prizes for games that play like ass and are pointless once the contest is over.

 

I'd be more pissed dropping $35 on Airworld vs. $5 for Sssnake

 

Also, a lot of the recent "L@@k! I haz made Atari gamez!" homebrews are awful esp. when put to cart and boxed and sold for $40 as a "limited edition"

 

N.E.R.D.S. anyone?

[eegad]

Aside from the usual suspects (ET, Pacman, or other games considered comercial flops) what game do you personaly think is the worse game ever made?

 

i'd personally vote for skeet shoot, out of the games i've played....but there probably still at least a hundred 2600 games that i haven't tried yet.

[BassGuitari]

Well, opportunists like Apollo and Froggo deliberately set out to make a quick buck selling crap, so picking one of their games would almost be too easy.

 

An Atari marketing exec (in)famously said that he "could put s*** in a box and sell a million units," and I think their output reflects that: titles like Star Ship, Human Cannonball, Miniature Golf, Flag Capture, Slot Racers, Codebreaker, and Home Run come to mind. I have issues with some of Activision's and Imagic's 2600 games, too, but there's a reason why they ate Atari's lunch in the video game market in the early 80s.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt Atari was selling a million units of anything at the time these games were released, except maybe the combined totals of Pong games sold. The sales of games by the millions probably didn't happen until Space Invaders.

 

(And why is it too easy to pick on Froggo and Apollo for putting out crap to make a quick buck, but it's okay to pick on Atari for supposedly doing the same thing? )

 

Regardless....

 

Star Ship: love it.

Human Cannonball: not bad, fun in small doses.

Miniature Golf: love it.

Flag Capture: fun with two players.

Slot Racers: okay, this one I can't get into so much, but I can see why other people might like it a little.

Codebreaker: I can take it or leave it. Kinda have to be in the mood for it.

Home Run: love it.

[BassGuitari]

i still think raft rider is a huge turd.

 

we got a floater!!!

 

Never played it. I'll probably love it.

[Rom Hunter]

If I had to pick one from that era, I'd say Home Run deserves the "honor" the most: it was a terrible implementation of baseball, and it actually gave the competition a boost by making the 2600 look laughable in those famous George Plimpton ads for the Intellivision. Mattel's Super Challenge Baseball was a far superior effort, and at only 4K in size, it was within the technological range of what Atari could have done at the time.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but in the same year Mattel released Major League Baseball (and Super Challenge Baseball for the 2600), Atari came out with the superior Realsports Baseball.

 

Plimpton compared Mattel's Baseball with an Atari game that was made five years earlier, which is misleading to say the least.

 

The first video on this page puts the whole "Intellivision Baseball Is Superior" nonsense into perspective:

http://www.atarimania.com/list_videos_atari_soft-_6916-_2.html

 

IMO the worst VCS game is Inca Gold (AKA Pac Kong):

http://www.atarimania.com/game-inca-gold_s7212.html

 

Truly unplayable is Bi! Bi!:

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-bi-bi_12329.html

 

Your diver gets stuck at the beginning of the second level.

 

There's no way you can end this game.

 

The original Skindiver is already a game from hell, but the bugged Bi! Bi! is even worse.

 

Edited December 23, 2010 by Rom Hunter

[Kripto]

I vote for Karate as that any game you can't even tell if you're influencing, sucks pretty badly.

[Godzilla]

that 'save the whales' game is pretty darn near unplayable imho, as is that fish proto from the same batch as pleadies, imho.

Edited December 28, 2010 by Godzilla

[Scootiecat]

Burger Time is horrific IMO. You can't tell what is what. I would much prefer ET and Pac Man over it, and I don't like those 2 either.

[Rom Hunter]

Burger Time is horrific IMO.

I agree, but I read somewhere that it was quite an achievement programming wise.

 

Perhaps Thomas can tell us more about it.

 

[Scootiecat]

Burger Time is horrific IMO.

I agree, but I read somewhere that it was quite an achievement programming wise.

 

Perhaps Thomas can tell us more about it.

 

 

I wonder how it can be an achievement in terms of programming when it is such a terrible game?

[+Random Terrain]

I wonder how it can be an achievement in terms of programming when it is such a terrible game?

Don't know about that game, but some game designers don't care if a game is terrible. They just want to impress other game designers with some technical achievement or the beauty of their code.

[toiletunes]

The legend of Burgertime (as I remember it)

INTV or MNetwork or whoever was running a big commercial campaign boasting how their games didn't 'flicker' right about the time Burgertime was being programmed, so the programmer wound up doing some funky things with missile objects. That's partly why the graphics are what they are- Mr. Egg, Mr. Cheese, and Mr. Breadstick are missile sprites or something.