There Are No Games So Bad They're Funny 225
Clive Thompson examines an artifact unique to the medium of videogames: the hatred of 'B' games. Unlike in television, movies, or even books, there doesn't seem to be room in gaming for appreciation of offerings so bad they're good. "Gamers never sit around and fondly recall games that were so ludicrous they circled back and arrived at greatness. There is no game analog to, say, Sid and Marty Kroft children's show, or Plan Nine From Outer Space. When a game is bad, it's just ... bad. I think this tells us a lot about the nature of play. B games don't exist because a game isn't something you watch; it's something you do. It's impossible to distance yourself from the badness. It's not like chuckling while watching an actor screw things up; it's like being forced to screw up yourself. Or think of it this way: A bad game is like being stuck in traffic. You've got goals, you've got places you're trying to get to, but the system won't let you. So you just sit there grinding your teeth. Lousy art can sometimes cause joy; lousy games can only cause stress."
Flawed premise (Score:4, Interesting)
Ironically enough, this story gets posted just days after I ordered the dreamcast "classic" Illbleed, for the express purpose of having some friends over and mocking it roundly as I force them to play the first level or so. (I have some very fond memories of when it was inflicted on me, so I figure it's time to pass it on.)
Another good example is "detective" from the interactive fiction scene, which was actually bad enough that someone made an MST3K version of it, where as you play, Tom Servo, Crow, etc, mock it along with you. (Ahh, the joys of a text based interface.)
There are definitely game equivalents to Manos: The Hands of Fate. I submit that the author just hasn't looked hard enough.
Re:Wrong... (Score:1, Interesting)
The vast majority of fun from "so bad it's good" comes from the humor of the attempt.
Broken game mechanics can often be the most fun of all, as long as they (or other issues) don't completely block you from playing.
For instance, take the bouncing tanks in WW2 Online, which could only be described as horribly broken, but that didn't stop it from being hilarious when you actually got the game to work (crashes are not fun). Had they left the flying tank bugs in when they were patching the rest of the game, it would have been a terrible ww2 game, but it would have been worth more than a few laughs. Compare that to falling through the floor in early Elder Scrolls games, which basically ended your game, and was therefore not fun at all.
the Angry Video Game Nerd would disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
WarioWare? (Score:2, Interesting)
carmageddon 64? (Score:2, Interesting)
There definitely *ARE* "B games"... (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider:
Katamari Damashii was a low-budget, barely translated, non-marketed, import that Nameco dumped straight into the $20 bargain bin when they released it to the US. They probably figured that since there was so very little work to do to localize it for the US (No voice acting... just translate some text.), that if even a handful of copies sold to the extreme Japan-o-nerds for $20, they'd make a few extra free bucks. The release of Katamari Damashii very much followed the pattern of a B movie... in the olden days it would be the first movie shown on the drive-in before the frature attraction, and now it'd go direct to DVD without ever seeing a theatre screen.
Katamari was a "B game" in pretty much every sense except being bad... It turned out to be so uniquely, spectacularly, and unexpectedly great that people forget, now, that in the US it was intended only as a second-string and second-rate release.
cya,
john
Re:Wrong... (Score:3, Interesting)
No really, I'm serious.
How about people who prefer the early incarnations of a game franchise, even though the newer ones are better? Part of it is comfort, but part of it is enjoying the suckage.
I think what the article misses is that with 'camp' movies (like RHPS or Army of Darkness), everyone is in on the joke. It's not supposed to be good, and the audience enjoys that -- and a cult following is born.
One game that attempted this recently was Bards Tale III. It's telling that it did not succeed due to gameplay issues. I believe, though, that as the videogame industry continues maturing (and its market continues maturing) popular camp and cult icons-of-suckage will come into being.
Re:Deep Scan (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to play Skyfox all the time, just to play the space invaders game inside.
They need to do this more often. Little arcades in WoW to go to when you are bored there.
Re:Deep Scan (Score:3, Interesting)
First, not long after release of the original WoW game, there was a lot of calling for 'mini-games' in the game. Stuff like chess and checkers. It came to a point they even made an April fool's joke of it saying they where going to allow you to play Warcraft 3 in WoW (1/2 the joke was people wanting to play a game, inside 'their game' while the other 1/2 of the joke was all the criticism by people saying the game is crap because it's just Warcraft 3 or looked too much like Warcraft 3 (a rip on the visual/graphical style of the game).
Second, I was one of those who wanted in-game games to pass the time. =P Though, if I remember right, City of Heroes had a card game or something? Anyway, I actually got a few friends together in WoW, sat at an Inn, and we played some 'dice' games using the /random function. Everyone actually said they had a good time and it was a bit of a nice change of pace.
Third, Paper Mario (Wii) has games within a game. PS3 will pretty much be a MMO for playing games within a game. hehe, So, I guess it's getting more popular.
Cheers,
Fozzy
Re:Wrong... (Score:5, Interesting)
Cult following = The Rocky Horror Picture Show....it was so bad but has a huge following BECAUSE it was bad.
Well this is actually a little more complex than that.
I would argue that there is plenty of "mocking" in the popularity of RHPS. That doesn't make it any less fun to watch it, or have any less of a cult following. In fact, you could reasonably argue that a show like Mystery Science Theater 3000 grew directly out of the audience participation in RHPS.
RHPS was also intended as a b-movie. It wasn't made with the thought that they were making a quality film. They wanted people to make fun of it, and hoped to generate a cult following through that. The producers were disappointed when it didn't happen originally - then the audience participation part kicked in a few years post-release, which reportedly took everybody involved by surprise.
There are other movies like that, intended to generate a cult following by purposely copying traits found in unintentional b-movies. The Evil Dead series is another example. The original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. Heathers. The list goes on. It's almost a genre unto itself, these purposeful b-movies. I think people end up enjoying these on several different levels (some people on more or fewer levels than others), whether they realize it or not.
As for games, I think there are several that fit into that same category - games that don't really adhere to modern standards for what we consider a "quality" game, and that ape conventions from the past or from campy sources with the intent of generating a cult following. Enjoyment comes as much from the camp value of these games as the gameplay mechanic. I'm thinking of a game like Viewtiful Joe in this category. Or Katamari Damacy. I'm not saying these aren't good games (they are), but they are definitely intended to be laughed "at" rather than "with" to a certain degree. I mean nobody who watches the first cut-scene with the "King of All Cosmos" would ever take the game seriously. It's not just about humor, either; it's about ridiculousness.
I also think there *are* some unintentional b-grade games that are popular and are taken at face value. The Resident Evil series is a perfect example of that. It's total camp horror, and a big gore-fest, but people love it.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I disagree with the original article. There are b-grade games that are fun to play, both of the intentional and unintentional variety.
Re:Super Noah's Arc 3d (Score:3, Interesting)