Windows What was the game you have played that most disappointed?

Never speak of Ninja Master by Firebird on C64 again, it had been locked away in the vault of my mind and now it has reared its ugly head again after 25 year or so.

Oh yes it was that bad, think of the multi event sports games you had back in the day like Summer / Winter / World / California Games, all decent multi eventers from U.S Gold & Epyx.

Firebird decided to do this with a Ninja game, take out the multi load so that you have little space to cram everything in, then give slow unresponsive controls, chunky blocky HUGE sprite and finally throw a level of toughness that would make Chuck Norris quiver. Not forgetting each event actually got even harder than the first, it was an exercise in frustration and patience.

This is actually one of the games that went missing from my collection in the years my mother had my C64 in the loft, the question is do I replace it to just to restore a missing piece of my childhood and have it sit there never to be loaded or do I just try and forget about it again.

This is one of those stinkers that many retro gamers now will remember from their childhoods (alongside the 30 Games compilation), parents buying it because Ninjas were the in thing back then and it was cheap.

Stack this and Gremlins C64 version of Way of the Tiger and you have a steaming pile of Ninja poop!

 

King Arthur: The role playing wargame.

Bought on steam for about £1.74.

SPECTACULARLY bad. Fundamentally broken, from menu's to UI, and of course the game itself. In fairness, it had us in fits of laughter for about 30 minutes solid, so I suppose I got my moneys worth.

 

Haha, so I'm not the only one. Yes, it really was phenominally bad wasn't it? Concept: half a day, design: half a day, coding: half a day. Stick a (virtually inanimate) ninja as the main character, SORTED!

 

Yeah, it has to be in with the worst of the C64 turkeys

Another thing with it, even though it is multi event type game you get lives and have to get through it. Not like the Epyx Games series I mentioned previously where even if you score 0 on each event you move onto the next regardless.

For everyone else wondering just what we are talking about take a look at these screenshots :

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=n...6MsK0hAflj4CIAg&ved=0CGkQsAQ&biw=1440&bih=816

Top left 3 are from the C64, first level and you have to knock throwing stars ot of the air, only movement is arms and legs with around 2 frames of animation

 

If we're going retro - The Human Race on C64. This game was impossible, you'd have more luck balancing toothpicks vertically end to end. If you thought some of the rooms in Jet Set Willy were a bit tricky, this is like that, multiplied by stress and tedium.

Phantoms of the Asteroid was played once, that was enough.

There was a game on the Wii - called something like Medieval Moves or something. Unplayable due to off kilter collision detection and weird response times.

I must be lucky in that I can't recall a truly terrible game on PC. I think there's only been buggy games that have left me disappointed - PoP Warrior Within let me get so far but then because of a savegame bug I was stuck in evil (wraith?) mode and that was it, game over really.

With that in mind, I'd say FF VII as I'd got to one of the last Sephiroth battles and thought I'd continue with it the next night. The savegame cart had other ideas though.

 

Never played ninja master but always remember playing Last Ninja and Last Ninja 2 but I would probably say worst game was probably Dragons lair, it was impossible ZZap 64 gave it 90% back in the day. Around the time Liverpool last won the league and Wolves last won the 3rd division. I broght about 10 issues of INPUT if anyone remembers it. Them days were kind of hazy in my metal days and banks's bitter was about 89p a pint.

 

Dragons Lair 1&2 were a test in patience, best way to describe it is a continuous QT event without the prompts. To much trial and error on it, once you knew what input each screen required though you could get through it without losing a life - same as arcade game. I do have both games in twin jewel cases for C64 and at the time they were quite revolutionary, while you played a level it actually loaded the next one in the background ready, this loading system was next used in Virgin Interactive conversion of The Ninja Warriors.

The Last Ninja Trilogy on C64 was just amazing, especially the second game. System 3 really pushed the bar up with what they could do on the C64.


Human Race and Phantom of the Asteroids were ok, thing with Phantom is that it has a huge map to navigate and was quite tough, if you could work out what you were doing is was actually pretty good for a budget only title from Mastertronic.

The Human Race was just plain frystrating, first level where you are the monkey having to collect / eat the bananas, it would have been so much easier if you just walked over them to collect. No, they didn't do it that way, your character stopped still while eating said fruit and it was usually placed in line with an enemy so required split second timing from the moment you touched it. Personally I found it tedious even though it looked ok, I did put an unlimited lives cheat into it and managed to finish it eventually, can't say I really enjoyed it though. Mind you this game seems divided, some people love it and others hate it, seems to be no middle ground, for 2 quid though being another Mastertronic budget title they did put decent work into it.

 

I just want to say I'm so glad no one's said Shaq Fu, because that is actually a real decent game.

Cobra Command on Mega CD I remember hating and it was awful. I'd have to think of all the games that were SO slow-paced and boring too, like Evil Genius.

 

You think Halo and Goldeneye are the worst games you've ever played? I think you might need to play some more games.

 

Goldeneye hasn't aged well at all, and Halo 1 got boring quickly for me. But then I probably wouldn't like Quake either.

 

Neither of those things bring it even close to 'worst game you have ever played' though do they.

 

Nuke Dukem Forever is the worst game I have ever played. Then it would be COD MW3 can't believe I spent money on that. Thats it really don't really buy rubbish games. I learn't my lesson with pre-ordering duke nukem (never again).

A game I was underwhelmed by would be borderlands.

 

Completely depends on how many bag games they've played

 

The Witcher

 

What are you on? The Witcher is an incredible example of an RPG?

 

Cat Lady

 

It is, but if you don't like that kind of knowledge-intensive, preparation-required RPG then I can imagine it would be very easy to hate. For example, the Zero Punctuation review.

I quit the first time through, and came back to it a year later, at which point I actually did enjoy it. Now I'm halfway through TW2 and really can't be bothered to finish it.

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As for my worst game ever... I guess it would have to be something genuinely unplayable, i.e. I give up because it crashes so much or because of game-ruining bugs. I mean, it's one thing to make a game with a poor storyline, or poor voice acting, but if you make something that I can't even play...

Into that bracket I would place Saints Row 2 and Dark Void on the PC. I actually enjoyed Saints Row 2 on the PS3 - it was a good game, but the port was beyond woeful.

As for a game that functioned, but was just dreadful as an experience... that's a bit tougher. With such a huge library of games on Steam I tend to uninstall games I dislike before I have a proper chance to go through them. I think I would have to go for Medal of Honour: Airborne, although I'm sure there's something I've forgotten. Its main mechanic really wasn't that impressive by the end of it - I mean, you could land anywhere on the map, but it was still a completely linear shooter. Everything it did was ripped off of CoD, as you would expect, and then half-way through the game it suddenly throws gas-masked equipped, mini-gun wielding SS Super-Soldiers who are virtually impervious to gunfire. It's one thing to make a game and start to bend the truth, and it's another to make a historical game and do that. It's even worse when most of it is trying to be realistic, and then suddenly you put in something completely ridiculous. With regard to story it sucked, and it was even worse with regard to gameplay. It was like trying to put a traditional boss-fight in the middle of a WWII battlefield. Sod off MoH.

 

+1 to Dark Void; that game was atrocious. It not only basically copied Gears of War's gameplay, it was riddled with bugs that made it just so frustrating to play. It was easy to finish but it stood out so little you'd probably forget about it if it wasn't for the horrible bugs.

 

To echo Parge's sentiments, there are hundreds of games that I have gripes about - BF3's QTE key mashing, sh1tty control implementation for Mirrors edge on the PC, the boat-like driving sensation of the (3d) GTA franchise, Doom 3 losing the plot when you reach Hell and Far Cry for going to hell in a handbasket about halfway through - I could go on. These niggles do not automatically make them bad games, it just makes them slightly annoying.

I love the graphical style of Mirrors edge, BF3 was a pretty decent shooter when it wasn't forcing me to wear out the switch under the E key, Far Cry's sniping still makes me smile with satisfaction, but yeah GTA IV was aimless tripe

Saints Row 2 gets my vote, just for being completely devoid of entertainment or any merit at all. I am stunned that number two didn't kill the franchise (although it put me off).

I honestly cannot think of a game I've despised more than that, just for it's fun-sucking blandness.

 

Grief, I'd forgotten about that! It really is atrocious.

I've tried on three separate occasions to start playing, and never got beyond the first ten minutes.