GameCola’s Top 50 Worst Games Ever Made (Part 1)

42. Ghostbusters (NES)

Things I want to do in a Ghostbusters game:

1) Bust ghosts
2) Be Peter Venkman

Am I really asking for that much? Sadly, the NES Ghostbusters game decided it would be more fun to drive the gas-murdering Ecto-1 through New York, capture a ghost or two in such an unceremonious, tacked-on fashion that I have a hard time calling it “busting” as much as “lightly reprimanding”, then drive to the gas station, then drive back to HQ to empty the trap, then drive out to capture ghosts again; and if you don’t get the ghosts you have to drive back to HQ to empty your trap anyway, and then drive back to the ghosts again. A solid 90% of this horrifyingly ugly game is spent idly driving the Ecto-1 around the city. You’d have more fun collecting spores, molds, and fungus.

—Christian Porter

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41. Jaws (NES)

Licensed games have always had a tendency toward suckage. In this one, you’re sent to seek and destroy Jaws—the big-ass shark from that Spielberg movie…Jaws. In order to do so, you have to sail around some islands in order to get to another port. What port? The other one…there’s just two: the one you came from, and the one you are going to.

Eventually, your ship will “hit something”, and you’ll be scuba-diving underwater, where your objective is to just kill. Kill every living being you find down there! You won’t find a wide variety of aquatic species in this game, but (apparently) you have to kill an extinction-level number of stingrays and jellyfishes if you want to hunt down Jaws. Can anyone please tell me who the real bad guy in this game is?

—Daniel Castro

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40. Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust

Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust fails so spectacularly in every way that it’s best not thought of as a game, but as a potential coaster. It’s hard to find a worse experience on the 360, and there are no aspects of the game that cause it to warrant a purchase. In fact, there are no aspects that warrant it even being a coaster, because a coaster is probably more fun to play with. You don’t even play as the titular Larry; instead, you are forced to partake in awful platforming and dull fetch quests as his slacker nephew.

The game advertises itself as a sandbox game, and I guess this is technically true, because if you went to an actual sandbox, removed the shovels and pails and siphoned out the sand—it still technically qualifies as a sandbox, even if nobody wants to play in it. Box Office Bust is a sandbox game where you can do whatever you want between the actual story missions, as long as what you want to do is walk around or stare at the sky. The camera has worse control than most drunk drivers; trying to adjust it slightly is a luxury this game does not afford you with, and even the most minute of changes to the camera leaves it staggering all over the place like it’s trying to walk off a hangover. Not only does this indicate poor programming, it also reinforces my early point that Larry is entirely dislikable, since even the game’s camera is trying its best to kill him.

There is just nothing in this game that is unique, nothing that is done well, nothing that anybody who played any part in its development can be proud of. I’d recommend passing on this game in favor of just about anything else. In fact, I’d recommend destroying any copies you see, as nobody should be subjected to this.

—Nikola Suprak

On the Other Hand…

Bust this game out for a good laugh. I guess that with Box Office Bust, I can see the charm of the whole thing. What they’ve managed to create is a fun little sandbox—a whole movie lot with a great deal to do and collect. I caught myself playing for hours looking for all the little statues you can find. A great, funny atmosphere resulting in a mediocre game I couldn’t imagine anyone hating.

—Matt Jonas

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39. Prizefighter (Sega CD)

Prizefighter is an FMV boxing game for the Sega CD that puts you in the ring to fight your way into the annals of boxing history. Unfortunately, boxing—a sport that requires finesse and finely-honed reflexes—doesn’t really translate well into the realm of FMV games, which require you to press certain buttons at certain times in order to trigger the next bit of footage. Because of this, my experience with the game was mostly me throwing punches and watching them effortlessly sail past the head of my opponent, without inflicting so much as a flinch.

If you ever want to play this game, do yourself a favor and don’t buy it. Instead, turn your TV on to any channel, poke yourself in the eyes until everything looks just awful, raise your fists in front of you, and throw punches from your couch. It’s exactly the same as playing this game, except that the picture isn’t crammed into a box the size of a postage stamp.

—Christian Porter

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38. Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (CD-i)

So, what happens if a Nintendo license somehow lands right in another company’s lap? If it’s Phillips back in 1993, they’d launch their own home console (the CD-i) and release a series of uninspired, worthless, shitty, and outright horrible games based on the Legend of Zelda franchise.

There’s nothing worth defending in this mess. The scenarios are truly awkward, the enemies are cheap and frustrating to kill, and every item in this game is crap, but necessary for you to continue. The worst parts are the God-awful animated cutscenes you’re forced to watch throughout the game; view too many of them, and they’ll start tearing your soul apart. You’ve been warned.

—Daniel Castro

On the Other Hand…

“After you have scrubbed all the floors in Hyrule, then we will talk about mercy!” Incredible voice acting, high-definition graphics at 1080p, and hundreds of hours of gameplay culminate to create one of the most enjoyable experiences on the Atari Jaguar. Rent or buy this game immediately and go on Xbox Live to share the adventure with friends.

—Matt Jonas

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37. Spawn: The Eternal (PS1)

There is only one word to describe the critically-panned Spawn: The Eternal for PlayStation, which comes to us courtesy of Todd McFarlane Productions: “Bigfoot”. Your character, Spawn, moves like Bigfoot, he fights like a lethargic version of Bigfoot, and he basically LOOKS like a dirty Bigfoot. And that doesn’t even begin to describe the rest of the graphics, which resemble the excrement of a Bigfoot after a hearty meal of woodland creatures and/or a Hungry Man dinner. Controlling your Bigfoot is a golden task unto itself; just turning around is a chore. Encountering an enemy switches you to a side-view, where the game temporarily approximates a one-on-one fighter, but even this wasn’t fleshed out too well, as Spawn has very few moves at his disposal and is too large and clunky to be of much service. This game cost me $2.99; I hate it when game stores overcharge.

—Jeff Day

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36. Mortal Kombat Advance (GBA)

Mortal Kombat Advance is probably the most slapdash, slipshod, who-gives-a-fuck port of a game that has ever been made in all of human history. The goal was to port Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 from the arcade to the fewer-buttoned, but still capable, Game Boy Advance. The controls issue was “solved” by assigning such complex and uncomfortable button combos that many of the moves were rendered functionally impossible to use; they “enhanced” the difficulty such that you’d have better luck teaching Stephen Hawking to do the Electric Slide than winning the first fight on normal difficulty. The game should never be played for any reason other than as a cautionary tale to future developers who would consider programming a game with such apathy and ineptitude in the future.

—Christian Porter

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35. Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (Xbox 360)

I expected more from Onechanbara, but what I expected wasn’t too much. I expected a story (of any kind would do), I expected gameplay (again, any would have sufficed), and I expected perversion. Well, I got that.

From bouncing titties to zombies with white blood (I don’t even need to explain why that is screwed up), we have a game that just clearly shouldn’t have been made. Buying this game reserves you a space in that special level of hell reserved for absolute cunts.

—Matt Jonas