What is the Worst Game you Ever Bought?

[Greg2600]

Asaki, if you thought Mayhem was bad, WCW Backstage Assualt was WORSE! A wrestling game with no ring! And I bought it! However, the worse game was actually WCW Nitro on the Playstation, which I again stupidly bought despite from friend who worked at EB telling me not to.

 

As for Family Feud on SNES, we loved that game, was a lot of fun when we were kids.

 

The worst game purchase for me has always stuck out to be that of Airwolf on the NES. I loved the TV show, and the graphics on the back of the box looked so good. I got it as a birthday present after asking for it, and it was putrid. Putrid. 2nd place goes to Baseball Stars II on NES, which was similar to the first one but they removed the ability to create and name your own players, which made the game useless to me. I was SO pissed.

[Hydro Thunder]

Not to alter the command, but the only ones that come to mind aren't the absolute _worst_ but the most disappointing.

And that honor goes to Lord of the Rings: Conquest for 360. I was so excited to have the (supposed) developer of Star Wars Battlefront II doing a LOTR version...

But it was garbage (apparently EA gutted the team as they tend to do before development got anywhere). I waited and waited, and paid full price on release day. And it was a buggy, poorly conceived, completely unfun pos.

 

Second mention would go to Comic Jumper for XBLA. The demo was one of the funniest, engaging demos I'd ever played. And the game was just a complete mess. I kept re-trying it because I couldn't believe that after playing the demo that the full game was such a crapbag.

[+Gemintronic]

As a kid I "won" enough at the horse races that my parents let me buy a video game. Picked Athena for the NES. Worst mistake ever. Very punishing and unforgiving.

[Manoau2002]

I can't remember the name but its for the xbox 360. You jump through time fighting different battles throughout history. I got excited when I heard about this game and pre-ordered it. (the only other game i've ever pre-ordered was red dead redemption) Anyway I quickly found out that the game has horrible controls and glitches making it unplayable. Its sad to see that in a world of multimillion dollar projects this ever was released. The potential was there for a great game but it just didn't happen.

[Asaki]

Urban Champion for the NES comes to mind...

When it came out? Or later?

 

It certainly hasn't aged very well, but I can see how it evolved from Game & Watch Boxing, and might have been a little more interesting back when it came out.

 

I still play it every once in a while, I got the 3DS remake for free.

 

 

Asaki, if you thought Mayhem was bad, WCW Backstage Assualt was WORSE!

Oh, I bet. I said "no way" to EA wrestling games after Mayhem.

 

Didn't really care for the 3D Activision ones, either, but I never owned any of them. The Asmik Ace/AKI/THQ ones are great.

[BassGuitari]

The only new game that I can remember actually regretting purchasing was WWF Attitude for Game Boy Color. The guy at Funco Land actually warned me off of it, but I gave it a crack anyway. I forget what I paid for it, but I remember it was relatively expensive, as GBC games went. It turned out to be a real stinker. And since I lived an hour and a half from that -or any- Funco Land (I was 12 and on a day trip with my parents when I got it), I couldn't really return it. Lesson learned: when even the guy whose job is to sell you something tells you not to buy it, listen to him.

Otherwise, there are tons of bad games that I've bought for collecting purposes.

[The Usotsuki]

PS1 version of that wasn't bad.

[+GoldenWheels]

Count me in with the State of Emergency votes.

 

Honorable mention to Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu on the NES, which is NOT actually a bad game but I got it INSTEAD of something AAA (I may have turned down Castlevania 3) and had serious buyer's remorse as a kid.

[BassGuitari]

I thought State Of Emergency was pretty fun for a while...

(We're talking about the GTAIII a-la-Loony Toons thing on PS2, right?)

[+GoldenWheels]

I thought State Of Emergency was pretty fun for a while...

 

(We're talking about the GTAIII a-la-Loony Toons thing on PS2, right?)

Yeah, where the whole selling point was having like a mob of characters on-screen.

 

After seeing what they did with GTA 3 I just thought SOE would be awesome--another game changer. I think it was a matter of heightened expectations hurting it to some degree. But it really was mostly a tech demo when it came down to it IMO.

[HammR25]

Atari 7800 Touchdown Football

[Jess Ragan]

Oh yeah, here's one for the list... Tama: Mysterious Ball in Giddy Labyrinth is an unholy stinker on the Saturn and Playstation. Imagine one of those frustrating wooden labyrinth toys, rendered in single colored polygons straight out of a Dire Straights video, and with a frame rate that would have been questionable on the Sega Genesis. Each stage is laboriously slow, with obstacles that are guaranteed to bore you to tears. It's like a parallel universe version of Marble Madness, where Marble Madness sucked. I bought it for a few bucks on eBay, and it didn't take long for me to figure out why it was so cheap. I suspect the price was part of a plan by the Japanese government to get every copy of Tama out of the country.

[7800Lover]

Donkey Kong Jr. for the Atari 2600.

 

At least, Donkey Kong was playable. What did they do with the DK Jr. port? They took out levels AND there was no fruit to drop on your enemies!

[+FujiSkunk]

Kotaku has grabbed the baton: What's the Worst Game You Ever Bought?

[BassGuitari]

Kotaku has grabbed the baton: What's the Worst Game You Ever Bought?

This reminded me of a few:

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Commodore 64): there's just nothing right about this game. Graphics are decent, I suppose. I didn't buy it because I thought it'd be great or anything (I just got it a couple of years ago for my collection), but I'd hoped it'd at least be playable. Noop.

 

Bubsy 3D (PlayStation): this one gets dogged on a lot, and deservedly so, but my brother and I actually had a little fun with this one. The untextured early '90s style 3D had some kind of charm.

 

Aliens: Colonial Marines (PC): I followed the development of this game for years, even before it was put on hiatus for another AvP game. I watched the demos religiously, and consumed every trivial update and scrap of news Google would give me. Never in my entire life had I been so excited about a new game. I bought it the day it came out and played for a few days before I could finally admit to myself that the game was a colossal let-down. I haven't played it since.

 

Mario Is Missing! (NES): it was a gift, and I don't actually remember hating it. I remember being impressed with the graphics because they looked like Super Mario World. It's not a game I go back to, though.

 

 

[+Ripdubski]

Wii - the whole damn thing.

[Nerf Herder73]

"Classic British Motor Racing" for Wii. An uncontrollable mess and the only new game that I've ever returned.

[TheGameCollector]

I really wanted to collect all RPGs, but when I bought the three Ultima games for NES I couldn't really get into any of them at all. And the price I had to pay on ebay for V really made me wonder what I was doing. Maybe someday I'll learn to like them but they are very, very low on my RPG playing priority list. I'm just glad I sold them for a Powerpak.

[+madman]

As a kid I "won" enough at the horse races that my parents let me buy a video game. Picked Athena for the NES. Worst mistake ever. Very punishing and unforgiving.

When I was a youngster I remember my dad coming home from the video store with T&C Surf Design, this was just when renting NES games became a thing. They had maybe 20 games total, when we returned T&C I rented Athena. Back then I didn't realize games sucked.

[BladeJunker]

I bought this way after it was new anymore for $10 and I still felt ripped off and that was The Getaway on PS2. People talk about disappointment in GTA4 and I have to laugh since The Getaway was so, so, so much worse than some high expectations dashed. I came at it with no expectations and found slow on foot movement, cars that moved like boats and broke instantly, a so called "realistic" lean against wall healing system, shitty blinker based navigation for a city with the most confusing street layout, long load times, and confusing poorly executed missions. Nothing worse than a game you can't even get through with diligence lol.

[Asaki]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Commodore 64): there's just nothing right about this game. Graphics are decent, I suppose. I didn't buy it because I thought it'd be great or anything (I just got it a couple of years ago for my collection), but I'd hoped it'd at least be playable. Noop.

I was just reading about that game the other day, apparently there's a pit in the C64 version that's impossible to get past without cheating (unless that was the PC version).

 

Aliens: Colonial Marines (PC)

A very sad story =( I don't know if you know it already, but (let me try to sum this up) the developers had outsourced certain parts of the game (like the multiplayer went to one dev), and by the time they had realized just how bad the game was, and how much more work they'd have to put into it, Fox told them that if they delayed release any further, they would be sued for breach of contract. So they could do nothing except release the unfinished product that they had.

...when I bought the three Ultima games for NES I couldn't really get into any of them at all.

Yeah, I never liked the Fami/NES ports of Ultima(s), either. The music was kind of catchy, but the rest of the game just kind of freaks me out for some reason.

...when we returned T&C I rented Athena. Back then I didn't realize games sucked.

I remember when I was little, my dad bought Back to the Future for NES and then returned it the next day...I never even got to play it.

 

I think I understand why he returned it =) Not aware of any other games that got returned.

[BassGuitari]

I was just reading about that game the other day, apparently there's a pit in the C64 version that's impossible to get past without cheating (unless that was the PC version).

 

A very sad story =( I don't know if you know it already, but (let me try to sum this up) the developers had outsourced certain parts of the game (like the multiplayer went to one dev), and by the time they had realized just how bad the game was, and how much more work they'd have to put into it, Fox told them that if they delayed release any further, they would be sued for breach of contract. So they could do nothing except release the unfinished product that they had.

The TMNT pit was in the DOS version, but it might be in the C64 version as well. Apparently there are people who can beat the game, though, so maybe not. I'm lucky if I can get past the first level, myself. I don't know what they were thinking using a one-button joystick for attacking AND jumping instead of the keyboard.

 

Yeah, I've read about what happened with Colonial Marines. I guess Gearbox did the multiplayer, but Timegate did the campaign. Or something like that. And honestly, I could forgive the dated graphics (indeed, I did at the time) and occasional glitches if the game wasn't merely Call Of Duty a la Aliens. It wasn't scary, the enemies are dumb as shit, the characters have the personalities of cardboard cutouts (and they're invincible!), way too much time is tied up in gunfights with commandos, the game in general is entirely too easy, and the story is preposterous. I was willing to go along at first, but I've concluded that was just the Aliens fanboy in me. There's no nuclear fallout or radiation at Hadley's Hope? All these massive complex secret labs and structures were constructed and wiped out in the few weeks between Aliens and Alien 3? Hicks is alive, and the body cremated on Fury 161 was just some guy? C'mon. And the fact that you could carry about 15 weapons and none of them are the Smart Gun or Flamethrower is a double dose of dumb.

 

I guess the best I can say about it is that it's at least a better work of fan fiction than Alien Resurrection, and that the guy who did the music nailed it. The music is great.

 

It was the only game I ever bought Day 1. Ever. It is the last I will buy from Gearbox, though.

[SoulBlazer]

 

It was the only game I ever bought Day 1. Ever. It is the last I will buy from Gearbox, though.

I've enjoyed some Gearbox games. And I've heard very good thing about the Borderland games.

[turret]

Honestly pac man comes to mind for atari 2600 but then i think about the fact that atari 2600 couldnt do what the arcade could and its compleatly playable at least uunlike e.t where ive litteraly started the game and couldnt move at all the worst game i bought was: Tom Clancy's end war for ps3 if you didn't have a microphone you could do any thing and the game never said that looking at the box and i liked the ds version so why not buy it it sucks

[turret]

Wii - the whole damn thing.

Couldnt agree more only got it cause my gamecube died