The 30 Dumbest Video Game Titles In History

An anonymous reader writes "Not every game involves taking an axe to the head of a criminal; some classics from the 80's involved massacring camels from aircraft, or in the case of "How to Be a Complete Bastard" for the C64, something altogether different(unless you're a camel). CNet has collected the 30 most ridiculous game names and concepts from the last 25 years. Quite frankly, how some of these — including "Touch Dic" from Korea — ever made it onto store shelves is beyond me."

Dumb or ridiculous?

They are different - nothing wrong with ridiculous names.

Re:Dumb or ridiculous?

I think you are right. Childish juvenile responses to a few words.

I'm going to Game Stop tomorrow and ask them if they will give me Touch Dic.

Re:Dumb or ridiculous?

I'm going to Game Stop tomorrow and ask them if they will give me Touch Dic.

in the internet age, only one thing comes to mind when you come across a title like "Barbie's Horse Adventures."

I'm a horrible person.

Re:Dumb or ridiculous?

in the internet age, only one thing comes to mind when you come across a title like "Barbie's Horse Adventures."

But... horses can not use a keyboard can they?

Re:

Well if your going for ridiculous: Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles of Putrid Debris. If you take the first letter of each word and add an ID in front of it some of you might recognize it for something else too...

Just the mandatory top worst list

Ah, heh, it's just the mandatory "Top X Worst Y" kind of list, that became popular in the last half a decade or so. You know, so they can show they're hip, smack-talking, unbiased and irreverent like that, and aren't afraid to say it when a game sucked 20 years ago. (Although your mileage may vary a lot if it's a game from this year and from a major publisher.) It's the videogame reviewer version of building up street cred.

On the bright side, at least these guys don't talk too much smack. I've seen too many other such list which sound like the stereotypical pimple-faced 15 year old trying to sound like a wigger gangsta. They get brownie points for not doing that.

On the less bright side, it's as stupid and grasping at straws as any other such list. If you get past the first page, it becoes a lot more hit and miss, and more miss than hit. I'm kinda at a loss to see what's wrong with some of those names. Or why they are worse than a couple thousand other games from that era.

E.g., "Gun Club" may not be the most exciting name or concept, but it's neither stupid nor ridiculous. Plus, it doesn't sound any worse than any other shooting gallery kind of game, so no idea why they singled that one out.

E.g., "Chemist Tycoon" may get extra penalty points for being yet another attempt to cash in on the "tycoon" title. (Personally I'm still waiting for someone to come up with Battlefield Tycoon, and cash in on both;) But honestly it doesn't sound any worse than, say, Shopping Centre Tycoon, Restaurant Tycoon (if I recall its title right) or the two dozen other Tycoon games.

I mean, if you think running a chemist's shop is stupid, picture a buggy simulation of running a restaurant, plus a heavy-handed attempt at a story: that you're fighting to save the world from someone who cornered the market by having cheap prices and good quality. No, seriously, it's not even my interpretation of it, you have the "quest giver" (so to speak) tell you exactly that. So you're fighting to make the world safe again for overpriced and poor quality restaurant owners again, I guess.

E.g., "How To Be A Complete Bastard" may be morally questionable (but then they don't have a problem with GTA too?), but it sounds like it describes the game's content perfectly. And they endorse it as an old game to check out, so it can't have been that dumb a game idea either. As a sidenote, they're also wrong that no similar game has been made ever since. Check out Neighbours From Hell [boese-nachbarn.com] from Jowood.

E.g., "Barbie Horse Adventures" doesn't sound all that exciting for an adult, but, here's the important part, it's a game for little girls. It's not supposed to be Return To Castle Rammstein... err... Wolfenstein. Now I'll give them some slack there, because truly most games for little kids are an abomination, and those for little girls doubly so. But still, I'm curious, is there any reason to single out Barbie Horse Adventures there? I can think of a dozen titles along similarly silly premises for kids, and those didn't seem to make the list. Some even, yes, about riding a pony or caring for a pony. Was Barbie Horse Adventures that much dumber than those? I'm genuinely curious. Or is it something about Barbie that makes that concept dumber than usual?

E.g., Ship Simulator, well, it might not sound that exciting as a concept, but it's also not the worst. Perhaps more importantly, it's not there just because some devs were too retarded to come up with a better game concept. It's actually a training program that only incidentally also got sold as a video game.

But if we're going to include that and Bus Driver, how about Der Planner 3. It's also a training program, only this time for business. And not only it got published as a game, but also got saddled with some of the most uninspired things in history, to make it more game-like. Like it got a sorta Sims-like "at home" mode, except it missed all the points that Sims fans liked in The Sims. Plus a wife which could do nothing except bitch. I took a _year_ off work in that game and she was still stuck in a loop that I spend more time working than with her, and that maybe I should marry the transport company instead. I mean, WTF? Who thought that _that_ concept would be fun in a game?

Or how about Shuttle: the Space Flight Simulator [wikipedia.org]? It was just about as exciting as driving a bus, with the added fun that you had to flip switches when you were told to. And the shuttle exploded if you flipped the wrong one.

Or if we're at picking on old game names, I can remember random games like "Two Gun Turtle", "Go To Hell" (no, literally), or the supremely undescriptive "Son Of Blagger" (because it was the sequel to Blagger, see), or the equally undescriptive "Twister, Mother of Charlotte", or "Advanced Lawnmower Simulator" (which actually got a sequel, "Advanced Lawnmower Simulator II"!), or the much hyped but thankfully never released "Attack of the Mutant Zombie Flesh Eating Chickens from Mars", all from the ZX Spectrum era. Or the more recent, but equally ridiculous sounding, "Typing Of The Dead". Any particular reason why "Attack Of The Mutant Camels" is any dumber than "Attack of the Mutant Zombie Flesh Eating Chickens from Mars"?

Re:

Regarding "Chemist Tycoon": I think that title is much more odd as an American, where we don't refer to our pharmacists as "chemists". When I hear the word "chemist", I picture a chemical engineer, or some kind of research scientist mixing test tubes in a

Re:Just the mandatory top worst list

Personally I'm still waiting for someone to come up with Battlefield Tycoon, and cash in on both

Man, Battlefield Tycoon... It'll be awesome! You'll be put in the chair of the CEO of EA Games, and forced to come up with new excuses for releasing the same formula over and over. Then you'll have to do some clever marketing, so that the public will keep on buying your overpriced rehashed goodies, while at the same time keeping eye on your profit, and pushing your staff in 24/7 crunch time.

It'll be so awesome, they'll have to make a sequel, Battlefield Tycoon 2. Twice the options in the marketing department, three times the excuses, and a killer crunch time mode.

After a couple of sequels, we'll try and be original again. We'll release Battlefield Tycoon Tycoon. You get to sit in the chair of the CEO of EA games, forced to come up with new excuses for releasing the same formula over and over ...

That sounded better in my head...

Reminded me of perfect game for /. crowd...

...which I have yet to find again. (for C64)

Basically it was a variant of Q*bert ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q*bert [wikipedia.org] ) where Q*bert was replaced by representation of...penis and enemies by...yep, vaginas.

Why "perfect game for /. crowd" you ask? Well, Q*bert-inspired gameplay wasn't modified much, so when penis touched/entered vagina (with a suggestive sound, as far as SID capabilities went) you actually...lost a life.

PS. Frustrating that I can't seem to find it even using the title - Spermen (but I might remember that wrong)

Re:Reminded me of perfect game for /. crowd...

http://www.gamebase64.com/game.php?id=7193&d=18&h=0 [gamebase64.com]

Looks to me like a hack of the actual C-64 Q-Bert.

Re:Reminded me of perfect game for /. crowd...

Only on /. would a link to a game about penises avoiding vaginas be modded "+5, Informative"

You are doing it WRONG! (Unless you a gay.)

Irritating Stick

I was a little surprised not to see that one up there.

Then again, it was kind of a pointless list to begin with.

This is my personal winner:

http://caesar.logiqx.com/php/emulator_game.php?id=mame&game=mjegolf [logiqx.com] Mahjong Erotica Golf.

WHAT?!

BULLSHIT! ZOMBIES ATE MY NEIGHBORS IS A GREAT GAME!

Seriously. I like that game. It has nice music too.
The article refers to its levels as being all essentially the same, but that's not really true. There aren't bosses at the end of levels either. I wonder if they actually played the game.

Re:WHAT?!

BULLSHIT! ZOMBIES ATE MY NEIGHBORS IS A GREAT GAME!

Seriously. I like that game. It has nice music too.
The article refers to its levels as being all essentially the same, but that's not really true. There aren't bosses at the end of levels either. I wonder if they actually played the game.

The article is also completely oblivious of how it's a spoof of cheesy horror movies of the 80's and 90's. Which is absolutely groundbreaking. Any game taken at face value without any sort of cultural circumstance is going to look ridiculous.

I personally think whoever wrote the article just went through a list of games, picked out those who looked silly, and then badmouthed them without ever really playing them, thinking they could get away with it because nobody plays them anymore.

Re:WHAT?!

It's a list of dumb titles.

The article admits that the game is a classic. Read the blurb:

Premise: A horror shooter, in which you battle through over 50 levels of zombies, destroying them with an imaginative variety of weapons. Think Resident Evil meets Half Life 2.

This has to be one of the greats. Dozens of levels, all essentially the same, big bosses at the ends of stages, gallons of shooting and piles of mutants. The tongue-in-cheek title may have killed its chances of success, but it reflected the innocence with which the game approached mindless violence. Published by Konami, this genuine cult classic was the precursor of the amazing Silent Hill games.

Re:

The whole Barbie series is really a collection of well-thought out masterpieces.

Cheats

They should make a list of dumb cheats, think it'd be even more amusing than the title names...

I think it was fifteen years ago I last played New Zealand Story, but I'll never forget the cheat.
Since it's a little vulgar I'll just link [gamewinners.com] the cheat code.

How to be a complete bastard

The game title might sound odd but its based off a book [wikipedia.org] of the same name.

A couple of titles....

... that should have been included, IMO:

- Brad Zoom in "Better Dead than Alien"
- Attack Of The Mutant Zombie Flesh Eating Chickens From Mars (starring Zippo the Dog)

Especially the second (a Spectrum game) is worth mentioning.

Minter Madness

There was only one title from (gaming genius) Jeff Minter: Attack of the Mutant Camels. Personally I think Megagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time or Sheep in Space would have been better examples of his unconventional naming style. As some have already pointed out some of the game names that made the list make perfect sense when taken in context.

CNet syndicates /b/ ?

The author's language (and choice of titles, and sense of humor in most of the entries) is full of fail.

I nominate this article for the

'30 worst articles ever posted to Slashdot' list.

Time Race / Leisure Suit Larry

I had this knock-off game for the Atari 2600 called Time Race. IIRC it was a side-scrolling space shooter, like scramble but with a few more colours. Neither the concept of time or racing had anything to do with it ... actually that's so dumb as not to be even remotely funny.

As time went by I got a C64, but never did find myself "keeping up" and going to the Amiga. I always thought that Leisure Suit Larry was a great name for a game, but never got to play it.

Who could forget "Desert Bus"?

Penn and Teller once had a game produced, "Desert Bus" [desertbus.org], in response to complaints that video games were too violent.

The player gets to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph. The game cannot be paused. The bus contains no passengers. The road is empty. Nothing happens. If the player makes it to Las Vegas, they score one point. Then a supervisor characters shows up and says "You want to pull a double shift?" The player can then drive back to Tucson. On the return trip, it slowly gets dark. That's it.

If you run off the road, the bus stalls, and eventually a tow truck shows up and tows the bus back to the starting point. In real time.

Somebody got six points once. This is believed to be the record.