Your picks for the WORST arcade games of all time!

[Cynicaster]

I'll give you Venture, but Wizard of Wor? Cripes... does it at least hurt being that wrong? You've got to suck at gaming pretty hard to find Wizard of Wor unplayable. It's a great looking, sounding, and playing little game. Very rightfully considered a classic. Managing to nail the Wizard in two-player mode when he's teleporting around the maze blasting away at you is still an amazing rush.

Hey, I don't hold any Twin Galaxies records, but I did finish in first place for the AtariAge MAME HSC, season #4.

 

The vast majority of my last 5 years of gaming has been spent scouring the MAME game list for games both well-known and obscure--hundreds and hundreds of different games--and Wizard of Wor has stuck with me as dreadful. Whatever, there's no accounting for taste I guess.

[NE146]

Oh.. have to dig back into my early brain... because if they sucked to me when I was 12.. then they probably did suck.

 

Cosmic Guerrilla - Man that game was unfun to play. Annoying too.

Astro Invader - For much of the same reasons as Cosmic Guerrilla. You just always had a feeling of impending doom.

Make Trax / Crush Roller - The fish got too smart, too fast. Sometimes you can miss painting a very tiny portion of the maze and wonder why the heck the stage wasn't finished

 

 

 

[Crimefighter]

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Edited October 29, 2015 by Crimefighter

[Crimefighter]

You know what's surprisingly crappy? Vanguard. I had fond memories of the game but buying it during a PSN sale forced me to realize that it was just downright terrible. Lackluster graphics. Brain-dead enemy patterns. An omni-directional firing mechanic that doesn't really amount to anything because the enemies are so dumb. An invincibility power-up that lets you drill through levels with your ship, and appears almost immediately after the last one runs out. Synthesized speech that makes you want to smack the developers. The game's got a lot of innovative features (continues, 4-way firing, a boss of sorts) but they just don't gel together. Konami's Scramble and Super Cobra (although frustrating) are a million times better.

You'd be right if you were talking about Vanguard TWO, not ONE. I own Vanguard. The game was made in 1981, and did age well. The game is plenty hard with dumb enemies cause when they shoot they don't seem so dumb, and I can only get 200-250K compared to a master who can get over a million.

[Jess Ragan]

Oh.. have to dig back into my early brain... because if they sucked to me when I was 12.. then they probably did suck.

 

Cosmic Guerrilla - Man that game was unfun to play. Annoying too.

Astro Invader - For much of the same reasons as Cosmic Guerrilla. You just always had a feeling of impending doom.

Make Trax / Crush Roller - The fish got too smart, too fast. Sometimes you can miss painting a very tiny portion of the maze and wonder why the heck the stage wasn't finished

 

 

 

 

Astro Invader... or as I like to call it, Attack of the Alien Vending Machine. Watch as horrible creatures from another world (and cans of soda, and Andy Capp's fries) drop from an enormous contraption that somehow stays afloat over the Earth's surface. Can we survive the onslaught? And will they ever restock the Snickers bars?

[some_canuck]

BATMAN (Atari Games, 1990)

this kindof surprises me. sure, it's just a beat-em-up with a couple car driving scenes, but it could have been a lot worse...

 

Double Dragon 3.

 

Parts 1 and 2 are epic, so I don't know how they could have screwed up 3 so badly. I dare you to try it out in MAME. It doesn't even animate properly and was released around the same time as other epic beat-em-ups such as Final Fight. A the time Double Dragon was still a respected franchise, so it boggles the mind that Technos would allow this to happen to their IP.

...like DD3 the rosetta stone. (edit: actually, i think knights of the round is a crappy beat-em-up, despite being fairly similar to final fight)

 

Later into the 80s, Robocop comes to mind. Terrible!

oh man, I love robocop games, except robocop vs terminator, and any of the c64 robocop games (except for the music, i can't say no to jeroen tel)

 

Another major Konami misfire was JAIL BREAK. Way too damn hard; the game would have been tons better with double joysticks (one to move, one to fire).

i don't mind playing binding of isaac now, but i think if i had to play a game that way in the 80s i'd say "fudge it". the rotary dial on ikari warriors also comes to mind.

Edited October 30, 2015 by some_canuck

[+FujiSkunk]

oh man, I love robocop games, except robocop vs terminator, and any of the c64 robocop games (except for the music, i can't say no to jeroen tel)

Oh come on, how can you not like being completely helpless as you walk down stairs with all the bad guys shooting at you from the floor below?

[Syzygy1]

Rolling Thunder 2 and Blasteroids.

[heberts811]

I remember our local arcade having Jack the Giant Killer and sending it back after a week.

 

Gary