Friday Poll #017 - Worst Game Group A

[TGLS]

Welcome to the SFDebris Worst Game Poll. This summer we will be working through a series of polls to determine the worst game ever. The rules are as follows:
1) We will be working through five groups of games, grouped in chronological order. The "winners" of these polls will advance to the finals.
2) After the first round, the five groups will be shuffled together, to form new groups, and the "winners" of these polls will round out the finals.
3) During the finals, the poll will be to determine the best game of the remaining. After eliminating 9 other games, the Worst Game Ever will be selected.
4) During the first four polls I will take suggestions for the fifth group of games. If I don't get enough suggestions I'll fill out that group myself.

[clearspira]

AVGNs review of Action 52 is hands down my favourite review he has ever done - and by far the worst game on this list. It retailed for $199 which is the equivalent of $378 today. Yep, for more than the cost of a brand new PS4, you got yourself a collection of nearly identical games, not all of which worked.

Hotel Mario is an incredibly underrated game and I will die on this hill. Its mistake was putting the word ''Mario'' in its title.

[clearspira]

As for game suggestions, my gut instinct is to go with Shenmue.

Tank controls. Bad voice acting. Bad dialogue. Cluttered UI. No wait function despite compulsory periods of waiting for certain shops to open. A sandbox with exactly two areas to explore. Surprisingly little to do in said sandbox unless you like collecting gumball toys and playing arcade games. Compulsory hours of forklift racing. A main protagonist who is a lifeless board of wood. A cliffhanger ending so amazing it still isn't resolved by the end of the third game.

[Deledrius]

The fact that ET "lost" to Pac-Man shows me that the people voting in this poll have never played either game.

[clearspira]

The fact that ET "lost" to Pac-Man shows me that the people voting in this poll have never played either game.

I never liked Pac Man. Mainly because I was terrible at it.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The fact that ET "lost" to Pac-Man shows me that the people voting in this poll have never played either game.

I never liked Pac Man. Mainly because I was terrible at it.

Only arcade game I really remember being good enough to beat as a kid was the Simpsons.

Pac Man is cool but it's like trying to ice skate.

3d Tetris for N64 was amusing.

[TGLS]

The thing is that while Pac-Man (in the arcade, on the NES, etc.) is a good game, Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 is such a crap implementation that between it and ET (both of which were produced in excess of the number of sold 2600 units, I believe), that the industry was nearly killed in the process.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I've honestly never played any of these games on the worst of lists.

[McAvoy]

Going with ET. Because that is the only one I remember playing. I may have played Shaq-Fu but don't remember.

[Deledrius]

The thing is that while Pac-Man (in the arcade, on the NES, etc.) is a good game, Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 is such a crap implementation that between it and ET (both of which were produced in excess of the number of sold 2600 units, I believe), that the industry was nearly killed in the process.

That's the thing, and I wonder if that was missed. The Atari 2600 port was not Pac-Man, despite the name. There are good reasons why the port turned out so poorly, but there is simply no contest. The ET game featured some good music (it even had the movie theme), characters that resembled the source material, and a plot. That all puts it ahead of the Pac-Man "port", regardless of the buggy gameplay. We had many Atari 2600 games, and ET was not the worst on the platform by far. It's simply infamous.