OMGJeremy

Fifty of the Worst Games We’ve Ever Played Pt.1 Backstage Batman Assault

We here at the OMGJ offices have played a lot of video games. A LOT of video games. Many have been good, but just as many have been absolutely terrible. Starting this week, we’ll be counting down fifty of the worst games we have ever played. With me, Billy, and Jeremy P on the job, I’m sure we’ll have more than enough to fill things out. This is by no means supposed to be a definitive list, or even organized in any sort of order. These are just the worst of the worst that we laid ass to at some point in our lives. So without further ado, let the shitty game parade begin!

Alone in the Dark (360) – Billy

The first game that came to my mind when talk of this list popped up. I suffered all the way through this game, and can tell you it has no redeemable qualities whatsoever. Broken controls, broken camera, driving stages in which your car can’t run over a sheet of paper without flipping, and an inventory system that is more inconvenient than sitting on a cactus. The only positive I can come up with is that the fire in the game looks fairly realistic. Though if I have a hankering to see realistic fire , I’d rather do so by pouring lighter fluid on my crotch and setting it ablaze than by seeing it in this game again.

WCW Backstage Assault (PSX) – Billy

The newest WWF games were starting to provide backstage areas to fight in, so WCW did what it had to do to get ahead… they completely removed the ring and made a game where you can ONLY fight backstage. Not only was this game missing a ring, but it was missing a decent roster (mostly because all the decent wrestlers had already left), graphics that allowed you to be able to tell one wrestler from the other, and fun. The last game made by WCW before they went out of business. Big surprise there.

Rise of the Robots (SNES) – Jeremy

One of the most hyped fighting games of its day, ROTR was featured on game magazine covers as far as the eye could see. Many of which were claiming it was to be the next great fighting game of its generation. The reason for this? Everything was rendered in cg, featuring some of the more advanced home graphics of the time. It’s too bad they apparently never played it though, as it ended up being one of the most unplayable fighting games ever made. Beyond the neat robot designs and slick graphics, ROTR could barely be played, thanks to stilted controls that made even the most basic of actions seem like you were stretching the game’s engine to its limits of functionality. The best thing that can be said about ROTR, is that it at least made all the gaming publications dial their hype machines back into the realm of reality for a while.

Superman 64 (N64) – Jeremy

There’s good reason why Superman 64 is mentioned in just about anything featuring bad games: it is really, really bad. You could easily argue that a lot of older games have fallen victim to the “Well everyone else says it’s bad, so it MUST be bad” syndrome that many games are unfairly saddled with. Superman 64 however, is the real deal. It’s as bad as a game can get. Awful graphics? Yep. Barely playable? Yep. Game breaking glitches and crashes? Oh yeah. You simply cannot give Superman 64 a valid argument for being better than it’s been made out to be through the years. It’s the real deal, and truly belongs alongside any sort of reference to what a bad game is.

White Men Can’t Jump (Jaguar) – Jeremy

A case could probably be made that 90% of the Jaguar’s library should be on this list, but we figured we would show mercy to Atari’s ill-fated system, and only list a few of its most embarrassing failures. It’s genuinely hard to believe that real live people got to sit down and make this game, then package and sell it on store shelves. And only after playing White Men Can’t Jump do you realize that, surely, laws had to have been broken to do so. Everything from the dark, dingy graphics, to the stroke-inducing stutter that passed as movement looked more like what would happen if a game became sentient and tried to actively harm you for attempting to play it. The lone bright spot is the amazingly random text the game would put at the top as a sort of running commentary. Dozens of new phrases are just waiting to become a new part of your daily vocabulary. Just don’t ever play it.

Bad Boys: Miami Takedown (PS2) – Billy

I’ve always loved the Bad Boys films. They were action-packed and the chemistry between Martin Lawrence and Will Smith was great and provided a lot of humor. The most action you will get out of this game is when you forcibly remove it from your console and proceed to destroy it by whatever means you see fit. The graphics were dated even when the game was released, the controls are horrible, but somehow these are not the greatest offenses. The makers of the game tried to recreate all the wisecracks and back and forths Lawrence and Smith perfected in the film, but they apparently didn’t think it was necessary to bring the actors themselves in for the game. Instead you get what sounds like two local comedians doing their best impersonations, all while reading off a script so hip that I assume it was written up by a bunch of 40-something soccer-moms who insist they know what is “cool” amongst the kids nowadays.

Time Killers (Genesis) – Jeremy

The sad truth is that this list could probably be filled with terrible fighting games. But we’re going to have to loosen our belts just a little, and go through the worst of the worst to make room for other deserving game genres as well. Time Killers on the Genesis is just that: the worst of the worst. Few fighting games have ever come close to genuinely pushing the genre backwards, but Time Killers is so atrocious that it almost does just that. The arcade version was bad, but the Genesis version is so bad that it has become a thing of legend. The graphics alone appear to have been drawn in MS Paint, and that’s not an exaggeration at all. Just watch the video if you need any more proof of why fighting game enthusiasts cringe at even its mention nowadays.

Bubsy 3D (PSX) – Jeremy

Bubsy 3D is an unfortunate consequence for its time. Back then, everyone wanted to make a 3D platformer. But only Nintendo knew how to do it, and do it well enough to make a game that was actually fun to play. What we were left with were countless me-too platformers that had terrible cameras, awful controls, and a general broken feel to it. Bubsy 3D was exactly that, and then some. While it may not be quite as bad as its legacy has made it out to be, it’s still one of the worst ever made. And single-handedly put Bubsy six feet underground, never to be heard from again. To its plus, it did feature a unique style to its world, thanks to using flat-shaded polygons for everything but the characters. The problem being that it’s almost impossible to do anything fun in it, thanks to horribly twitchy controls, and a camera that was far more of an adversary than any of the actual enemies.

Need For Speed 2 (PSX) – Jeremy

The original Need For Speed was a landmark racing game when it was released on the 3DO. No other racing game was like it, and it was probably one of the first sim-like road racers ever made for consoles. Everyone was hoping the sequel would up the ante with more of everything that made the first so awesome. What we got though, was a generic racing game that seemed to only want to bury the series forever. Somehow managing to look worse than the original 3DO game, Need For Speed 2 was so pixelated at times that it was all but impossible to tell what or where you were racing. Not to mention the frame rate that dipped into the single digits if any other cars wandered on screen. This would cause most any single race to quickly devolve into a pixelated slide show of epic unplayable proportions. Not even a code to race as a T-Rex could save this pile (Yes, such a code existed). Thankfully the series rebounded with Hot Pursuit, making us all quickly forget this mess of a racer.

Batman Forever (SNES) – Jeremy

What should have been a port of the quite okay arcade game of the same name, became Acclaim’s own personal Frankenstein project that more or less fell apart on the operating table. Combining a brawler with Mortal Kombat-like controls is never a good idea, and Batman Forever showed us all why it should never be attempted. Even after you get used to jumping with up on the d-pad, you’ll still have to contend with the slow-as-molasses gameplay, overly dark graphics, and levels that required more luck than skill to navigate through. Special mention should also be made of the monolithic foreground objects that scroll by, blocking a good 20% of the screen at any one time. It’s like the game is trying to prevent you from playing it. I can’t honestly say I disagree with it.

Check back next week for ten more turdy games!