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Games Entertainment

Games People Shouldn't Play 213

Posted by timothy from the dumpsters-aren't-really-that-dirty dept.
MBCook writes: "I've been a video game player for years, and I must say that the average game seems to be getting worse. Exihbit 1: Games People Shouldn't Play, an article on MSNBC. This article shows what the author thinks are the worst games on the current crop of systems. You've got to agree with calling a game bad if "...the only way to get in [the minigames] is by buying hats... How do you buy the hats? Why, by picking up garbage." If that doesn't make you want to play a game, what would? I agree with the author when he says: '... who knows what kind of disease your children might get from overexposure to these games.'"
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Games People Shouldn't Play More

Games People Shouldn't Play

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  • Too much of that 'extreme sports' crap out there. If we wanted to go out and break things looking like damn idiots, we would. Kids these days... Well, at least we can keep ourselves from worrying if there might be something quality on the consoles we might miss because we all use comps...
    • I will agree there are some BAD games out there... yet strange only ONE from gamecube... heh heh heh... I dunno personally ALL the next gen systems are worthy in my book.... I currently only have a GC and I like it.

      If I had the money I would buy an x-box and a ps2... but right now I am a po' cheap bastid so I have a GC... and it don't just got kids games. oh and /. mods... this isn't meant to be flamebait. just my 2 credits.
      Oh yeah there are also bad games on the PC... Dungoen Seige for one... completly over hyped... Kinda like an advanced version of Soulbringer ::shudders::,

  • Scientific Evaluation (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sinjun ( 176671 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:06AM (#3265293)
    You SAY they are bad games, but what are their start to crate [oldmanmurray.com] scores?

  • Doling out masses of crap (Score:4, Insightful)

    by goneaway ( 224677 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:08AM (#3265297) Homepage
    has been standard on the console for way too many years even as far back as the Atari 2600. Games were rushed out to take advantage of movie tie-ins on a pretty regular basis. Think of the E.T cartridge for 2600. I've heard about a small landfill being created with the leftover copies of this game. That's why we read game reviews.

    • Re:Doling out masses of crap (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hrieke ( 126185 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:14AM (#3265311) Homepage
      Execpt that 90% of the reviews are bought and paid for by the game companies, the other 10% are just raving fan muttering about how great this version is.
      Objectivity is not something that I have ever seen in the game press.
      • >Objectivity is not something that I have ever seen in the game press.

        Electronic Gaming Monthly. Since when I was a kid (and its issues were 400 pages long), EGM was and still is the only respectable news source when it comes to gaming. That and Acts of Gord [actsofgord.com] are really the only things worth reading for video games.
      • Where does the late PCXL fall into this 90/10 rule?

  • Waaaiiitt a minute... (Score:3, Funny)

    by don_carnage ( 145494 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:08AM (#3265298) Homepage
    Is it April Fools Day or something? /. is sending us to MSNBC??!! The horror!! ;^)

  • Too true (Score:3, Funny)

    by dr_dank ( 472072 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:12AM (#3265307) Homepage Journal
    who knows what kind of disease your children might get from overexposure to these games

    You're not kidding, I'm still in therapy over Daikatana.

    • Re:Too true (Score:2, Informative)

      by dnaumov ( 453672 )
      DKT was not all that bad, have you actually installed the v.1.2 patch and gotten past the 1st episode (which indeed sucked ass) ? The 2nd and 3rd episodes (ancient Greece and darkage Norway) very very fun. No robotic frogs/flies and with v1.2 you could save your games without those dumb red crystals.

  • Pretty Skies! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by little_fluffy_clouds ( 441841 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:13AM (#3265309)

    From the article: Blood Wake, Microsoft's attempt to spread the popular car kombat genre to boats, has some of the best-looking skies ever to appear in a game.

    Just like the pretty sky background in XP was the best reason to upgrade from 2K, we all need an Xbox now... actually physically going outside is so 90's!

    • Well yeah, at least in Blood Wake, the sky is clear and unpolluted even after throwing plenty of missiles on other boats, the sky remains amazing. Now try that in a real life situation :)
    • The funny thing is, I've seen a review that said this game was one of the worst games ever.

      It came down to horrible control and even worse it only lasts about 5 minutes until it's old.

      Well worth the price.

  • We're in video game doom right now... (Score:4, Informative)

    by qurob ( 543434 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:15AM (#3265313) Homepage
    We just had a HUGE year

    We've got 3 systems out right now

    No really good games....

    Smells like 1983-1984 [emuunlim.com]
    • Gran Turismo 3

      and ...er...

      Grant Turismo 3?

      OK. You got me. I've been waiting for an original game for A LONG DAMN TIME. What have we got?

      Rez.

      Ico.

      Both new and interesting games in their own rights, but not the bold sweeping inovation that has been missing from video games in recent years. Games to day are either A) Shooters, B) RTS varients, C) Sims varients, or D) combination of the above.

      Yawn.

      • Grand Theft Auto 3

        Halo

        • Grand theft auto 3 = shooter + sims(and a lttle "xtreeme bad action!!!" to sell the game). Halo= shooter. Good execution on both titles, but nothing revolutionary.

          • Re:What about. (Score:4, Interesting)

            by dswensen ( 252552 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @11:55AM (#3265692) Homepage
            I think innovation and revolution is highly overrated in games. I waited anxiously for Black & White for over a year, because it was going to be hugely revolutionary with its massive world and gesture-based controls and so forth. I played it for one day and took it back to the store, because while it was Innovative and Revolutionary, I didn't find it to be much fun.

            Grand Theft Auto III, on the other hand, is the most fun I've ever had with a video game. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, but I couldn't care less. It's a lot of fun, and that's what I play games for.

            Ultimately, there's only so much revolution you're ever going to see in video games. You're always going to be using the mouse and / or keyboard or controller to control a guy / spaceship / car / abstract cursor to blow things up / build civilizations / complete goals. That's just the way the medium is, I think.
      • Yer looking at the wrong games then. Sega consistenly puts out round after round of innovative games, and Nintendo's pushed out one or two really mindblowing tricks (true, most of them are re-makes of their N64 titles, but still).

        For sort-of fighting games, the Dreamcast ownz. Powerstone II handles more like a mix of Super Smash brothers with Mario 64 then a fighting game, and has four player freeplay. Virtual On Oratio Tangram is a really really unusual approach to head-to-head mecha combat.

        Sonic Adventure II has some really interesting new gameplay concepts, and a nice set of multiplayer gametypes.

        On the PSII, try Armored Core. It might look like a typical behind-view shooter, but it sure doesn't feel like one - the best mech design system I've ever seen on a video game, and it handles like a dream (the rocket flight system in that puts other jetpack games to shame).

        Of course, this is from my personal "single player is masturbation" perspective. I guess those Metal Gear and Final Fantasy games might have something to them, but if I wanted to play on my own, I'd only be using one hand and I don't have to pay for that joystick.
    • Halo, Project Gotham and you can't deny the charm of Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee.

      Halo - Graphics, Music, Gameplay, Depth

      PGR - Tons of tracks, great music, great graphics, tons of features

      Oddworld - love it or hate it, the game has character and if you beat the darn thing you think of munch as a friend!

      Virtua Fighter 4 is out, i still play My DC for there is nothing comparing to Soul Calibur.

      I tell you what though, halo is awesome. Crank up the sound, get a decent component input tv, turn off the lights and be prepaired to be glued to your tv and pissed off when you feel the pinch of the enemy coming after you with nothing to do but run :)

      seriously, the AI is great. When your team is ambushed and yelling to fall back and you have to roll with them because there are 4 enemy drop ships coming in and there is no ammo left you can't do anything but run and feel your heart racing. Get behind a rock, sniper our some enemies and keep on running hehe.

      great game, and it DOES require skill as long as you don't choose "Easy".
    • Well, from a PC standpoint, there's the newly-released Jedi Knight II:Outcast.
      I'm no Star Wars fanboy, but this game just plain rules.

    • Everyone is talking about how great these systems are, but let's be honest...

      I just don't have $300 and then get Halo..
      (And then another $300 when your Xbox breaks in 91 days... LOL)

      Another $300 and then get GTA3...

      And then for over another $200 for a Gamecube to let it sit warmed up and plugged in fot the next Zelda and Mario game.

      Everyone is screaming about the one great game, and not screaming about the price to buy the dang systems.

  • Looks like an ad (Score:1, Insightful)

    by rednaxel ( 532554 )
    Its plain Xbox advertising disguised as article. Xbox is too new and hav too few titles to even be cited in an article like this, but it manages to get not only cited, but shown as good! "The best sky/water/island ever...".

    • Re:Looks like an ad (Score:3, Informative)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )
      Uhhh...you seriously believe listing Xbox games on a list of "GAMES YOU SHOULDN'T PLAY" is an ADVERTISEMENT? I mean, geeze, I like MS-bashing as much as the next guy, but that makes very little sense.
      • This reads exactly as an ad. You just have to read into the implications. First off, just compare how the reviewer examines X-box titles in comparasin to Playstation titles. In x-box titles, he lists poor game design choices such as the game being simply a button masher, or the game having too real of physics. Now look at the Playstion games - horrible graphics - horrible frame rate - etc. This author is implicity stating - wow - these are horrible x box titles even though they having amazing graphics, incredible real time physics, and so on. Of course, if these titles are horrible with their amazing graphics, imagine what the good titles are like. That's the implicit statment. The playstation reviews attack the platform as being inferior. Frame rate problems, poor graphics - damn, can't get much better. Of course, they drop in the MSNBC is owned by Microsoft to make you think, "Oh, these guys are owned by Microsoft so they will make sure to make a biased article" when in fact they do exactly opposite. This is an adverstisement. Trust me. And this practice doesn't simply occur in game reviews, check CNN or especially Fox news to see this overtly in action. Unbiased news is a myth.

  • remember (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:15AM (#3265318) Homepage Journal
    Do you remember the NES game Cowboy Neal and the search for the Missing Karma? I got to level 45 before I realized I wasn't affecting the game through the controller.
  • ya and 100 out of 100 squaresoft employees agree that "Secret of Mana" is game of the year.
  • I've found that just about any game based on a long running cartoon is absolute crap. from krusty's super funhouse, to bugs bunny's CRRrraAAzzY maze. Each title is unimpressive, not thought out, and generally consists of a very basic idea repeated 9 billion times. The opposite is true as well... any good games often are made into really crap cartoons... Pacmac Adventures, super bomber man returns. eeehshfj
    • NOT TRUE! Anyone who has played The Simpsons arcade game knows that it is one of the best party games ever! Also, there is a Simpsons game for the Game Boy that was pretty fun too!

  • Funny read (Score:4, Interesting)

    by higuy48 ( 568572 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:19AM (#3265327) Homepage Journal
    I've played one or two of those games, and I can attest to their awfulness. Still, nothing holds a candle to Skydive! for the PC. I (Capital I)couldn't make a game worse than Skydive! if I tried! Some games are just born to be bad.

    P.S. This is the second time that this has happened, but I submitted this too! This gives me an idea for Slashdot. When our submissions are accepted or rejected, we don't know which editor accepted or rejected them. Maybe we could be told that on our homepages (or somewhere else). It would be like this: ...(rejected by CmdrTaco) ...(accepted by timothy) or whatever it looks like because I haven't had a submission accepted yet. Oh well, I'll keep trying!
    • Maybe it was Skydiver. That was easily one of the best games for the 2600. You push the button to jump, you push down to pop your parachute, then you steer hoping that the wind isn't too bad. Then you had the damn moving landing pads.

      Anyone who played it can't tell me they didn't have hours of fun just pounding their jumper into the ground time after time after time. Take away my points - see if I care!

  • Airworlf for 2600 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Foxman98 ( 37487 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:20AM (#3265329) Homepage
    Does anyone out there remember a game called "Airwolf" for the 2600? I was about 8... A huge fan of the TV servies (airwolf - the black helicopter) and I saw this game on the shelves and wanted it... So after many weeks of mowing lawns I was finally able to pick it up. Insert the cartridge... Boot up the system... Shock... Horror... No frickin HELICOPTER? The game was all about a stupid bi-plane that you had to fly through barns. Man it's been a long time since I've been that dissappointed. Other shining examples as far as I am concerned...

    • Duck Hunt - I mean, it looked like so much fun....
    • Terminator 2 for C64 - 10 Mins loading per 30 seconds of dull gameplay....
    • Zelda 2 - Link's awakening
    • Virtua Figher 3 for Dreamcast... - Man that game was awefull compared to the god that is soul calibur...


    And a couple of gems that have literally stolen months of my life...
    • Soul Caliber - If ANYONE has not played tihs, do yourself a favor, buy a dreamcast, and PLAY THIS GAME. Even compared to today's games and graphics it is absolutey amazing. And the gameplay...
    • Super Mario Brothers 3 - I was living in Holland at the time, and drove 2 hours into germany (who got the game earlier) to get this game. Was not disappointed ever.
    • Final Fantasy III - Need I say more? I remember all the rumors that flew aroudn about this game, like how you could revive Cid if you got these so-called books...
    • Do you mean the Gameboy version? That game rules! I played it for about 6 months non-stop when I was 8. That game was one of the most addicting games I've ever played!
    • inal Fantasy III - Need I say more? I remember all the rumors that flew aroudn about this game, like how you could revive Cid if you got these so-called books... Don't forget the rumours that you could revive Leo if you did a variety of different tasks, varing from rumour to rumour. The most common one being that fighting 255 battles with the Cursed Shield equipped gave you an item you took to his grave... In fact, I think this one still floats around the web...
      • God I had forgotten about that one. Man I remember searching the, at the time, brand new world wide web for every piece of information I could find on this game. I think I must have had around a a hundred pages of secrets. This was, of course, after I had finished the game. It saddened me, when the younger kid down the street bought the game, and played it, step by step, according to the strategy guide.
      • 255 battles with the Cursed Shield will get you the Paladin's Shield, one of the best items in the game, if I remember correctly.

        With Final Fantasy III people just started making up absurd rumors for fun. A lot of them were pretty funny.

    • Are you sure you didn't get ripped off? I think you got burned by someone who relabeled Barnstorming [atarihq.com] as Airwolf.

      And you're gravely mistaken with your quote about Zelda. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link [legendofzelda.com] was a decent game, but it was *not* Link's Awakening [legendofzelda.com], as you said. Many, many people will argue that Link's Awakening [legendofzelda.com] was one of the best, if not the best in the series (I would disagree personally).

      And as some people have mentioned in other posts, it's General Leo that everyone wants to be able to revive, not Cid.
    • The game with the "stupid bi-plane" that you're talking about is called "Barnstorming". It was definitely a classic, and fun too - many fine hours were spent nailing birds in the ass to make that "BZZZZZT!" sound. :) I dunno if your cartridges got switched or you're mis-remembering, but that certainly wasn't Airwolf (which did have a helicoptor).
    • Airwolf [atarihq.com] eh. That was actually Barnstorming. 8 years old and you bought a Taiwanese pirate cart. Just goes to show how long you've been a nonconformist I suppose.

      • Duck Hunt is only fun for shooting at the person next to you. What's fun is if you've got a particularly wanky gun, you can set a high score this way.

      • Zelda 2 wasn't a bad game. Underrated, really. It just... wasn't Zelda. Kinda like how SMB2 wasn't Mario. And New Coke wasn't Coke. And South Park with Butters...
      • FFIII (VI for elitists), well, hell it was a 16-bit benchmark. End of discussion.
      • This was in Holland, and, whether or not it go re-labeled I don't know, but I do for sure the the game I bought did not have a helicopter in it, and was most definately called "Airwolf".

        Speaking of airwolf, does anyone else here fondly remember that show and wish for re-runs? Airwolf, The A-Team, Knight Rider... I want to see them all over again!

      • Re:Airworlf for 2600 (Score:2, Informative)

        by prator ( 71051 )
        You didn't need a "wanky" gun to get a high score in Duck Hunt. If I remember correctly, all you have to do is turn up the brightness to a certain level, and then any shot will be a hit.

        -prator
    • Terminator 2 for C64 - 10 Mins loading per 30 seconds of dull gameplay....

      Given that T2 came out in the summer of 92, what did you expect? I didn't know they were even still developing games for the C64 in 1992.

  • It's about love, damn it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:22AM (#3265335) Homepage
    You can tell when a game is good or bad, and 95% of the time, it's about how much the developers love what they do.

    Take a look at Morrowind, the upcoming game from Bethseda. I've spent a week with it, and while it's still beta and crashes, you can see that they give a damn if people like what they're doing. It's not about how much money you spend - the game Starships Unlimited [apezone.com] and Serious Sam [croteam.com] were made on a low budget - but they were both fun, entertaining games that succeeding in spite of their backgrounds. (Let's face it - who would have thought a no-name Crotian programming house would have made one of the best games of 2001, and 2002 with Serious Sam 2?)

    Then look at Final Fantasy X. Basically, it's a movie that sometimes you walk from point A to point B to watch the next movie. And it tells - the designers just didn't have that same love, that same pride in what they did (except in making great movie scenes and giving a reason to make sure Lulu won so you could check her out when she bent over.)

    It's true with fucking everything. If somebody doesn't care about what they make and what they do, then neither will anybody else. It doesn't always work (Battlecruiser 3000 - lots of love there, but not universally loved), but it's true with your work, your spouse, your children - and the games you play.

    Of course, that's my opinion. I could be wrong.

  • Heh.. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Matrim9 ( 558092 )
    I like how, near the end of the bit on the X-BOX game, it throws in [in it's own paragraph!]

    (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)

    for no apparent reason. :o

    [And for you guys who, I suppose, didn't bother to read the entire article, the guy rips on the X-Box games just as bad as the rest of them.]

    • Re:Heh.. (Score:2, Informative)

      by gewalker ( 57809 )
      It's called disclosure. Repsonsible journalists are supposed to reveal commercial ties that may influence their journalistic impartiality.

    • Memorandum to the Clueless (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is for you, and every other completely clueless dipshit who comments on this. They do this for the purposes of journalistic disclosure. It's so people such as yourself don't come back in six months after finding out that MSNBC is a Microsoft venture and claim MS bought exposure.

    • Re:Heh.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Col. Panic ( 90528 )
      the guy rips on the X-Box games just as bad as the rest of them

      "rips on" by saying it has the most realistic (or was it "beautiful?") sky, islands and water and the physics were *too real* so it was overly challenging.

      that sounds more like marketing to me

      • Re:Heh.. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by NanoGator ( 522640 )
        The whole point he was making was "wow, they sure spent a lot of time making this game pretty, too bad the play stinks." That is a rather common problem in the game industry.

        The only way this could be considered marketing vs. an honest review is if you think graphics are far more important than game play. In that case, it sounds, from what this guy said, that this game'd be for you.

  • Playability is why we own consoles (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DohDamit ( 549317 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:23AM (#3265340) Homepage Journal
    If we wanted awesome graphics, we would use a computer.

    If we wanted complex story development or AI, we would use a computer.

    If we wanted real tactical or strategic challenges, we would use a computer.

    But we don't. We own consoles because:
    • We don't want to have to read a fucking manual to start playing the game
    • We want it to work in our living room
    • We want to be able to enjoy ourselves immediately
    • We want to have easy fun

    We own consoles because the games are easy and fun to play. Any development shop that misses these points is bound for the garbage heap of business history. The article hits this right on the head. Anyone who claims this is about any one console missed the point.
    • Ok, my view on it. I used to avoid consoles, because the games were generally more expensive than PC games and there weren't as many options with a console (I like a lot of strategy games where the lack of a keyboard would cripple me).

      However, the reason I got a PS/2 was mainly down to the social aspects. I had a few mates round on Saturday night for a PS/2 session; any multiplayer session before was something like HOM&M3, in which you spend at best half your time playing, the rest is waiting for the other player(s) to finish their turns. The PS/2 on a widescreen TV was much more fun with a group of people, even when we were doing 2 player SSX tricky. Two people played, the other 2 laughed their asses off as people crashed and burned, often painfully...

      Of course, your points about "easy fun" and easy accessability are good too. On the PS/2, time between switch on and playing is around 30secs-1 minute. On a PC, you need about that to load the OS, let alone get a game started. That and the fact that shutdown is so much easier; you can pull the plug on the PS/2 without a problem (unless you're saving to the memory card at the time!) but a PC has to be shut down properly, taking 30 seconds or more (OK, you can switch off if you have a journaled filesystems, but I still use FAT32 for sharing between linux and XP).

  • Definitely bad in one aspect (Score:5, Informative)

    by sunhou ( 238795 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:27AM (#3265351)
    Ethnic Cleansing [resistance.com], made by Resistance Records (owned by the National Alliance neo-nazi group) using the Genesis3D [genesis3d.com] open-source rendering software. In the game, you control a white KKK member who runs around beating up on other races. And you thought people were upset about violence in video games after Columbine...

    On the other hand, on this topic someone asked "why is beating up on other races bad, but beating up cops and prostitutes (in Grand Theft Auto 3) OK?"

    • Re:Definitely bad in one aspect (Score:5, Informative)

      by Treeluvinhippy ( 545814 ) <liquidsorcery.gmail@com> on Monday April 01, 2002 @11:48AM (#3265663)
      Because Video Games like any other medium are subject to what is politicaly correct at the time. Killing cops is politicaly correct at the moment, for those who decide what is politicaly correct today used to get arrested alot during the 60's & 70's. While killing a black person isn't so politicaly correct anymore. ( I say 'anymore' because in the 20's it was perfectly acceptable to be a member of the KKK and a member of congress at the same time) Killing is killing I don't care what skin color or uniform she/he is wearing at the time. Logic dosen't seem to figure into any part of the debate.

      Political Correctness has been applied to quite a few games that a many of you own. For example In Return to Castle Wolfenstein single player, you are allowed to run around and shoot Nazis. Banners depicting swaztikas hang from every precipce and Adolf's portrait hangs wherever convienant, all there ready to be shot-up by whatever weapon the player has handy.

      Now in multiplayer mode, the swaztikas are gone replaced with a deformed W with funky wings and Hitler's portraits are nowhere to be seen.

      You see, it's politicaly correct to kill Nazis, but it isn't to play one in a fantasy game depicting WW2.

      Wtf? Did the meaning of the word fantasy change since the last time I checked.

      Just because someone plays a Nazi in a game dosen't make them one.(People have been doing it for years. I mean those Avalon Hill board games wouldn't have as many cutouts if nobody can be Germans. Anybody remember those? The ones where they had those folding sections of maps that could be aranged in all kinds of ways. Came with a thousand cardboard squares representing various units. Whatever happend to that company? I should consult google) Just as much as playing GTA3 makes one a copkiller or pimp.

      Besides wich, whose to say what's politicaly correct? While the term is moderen the concept has been with us for centuries. Galileo was tortured by the Inquisition for supporting the Copernican Model of the solar system. Why? Because it underminded how the church said the universe functioned. A big no-no at the time. This is an example from the Middle Ages about political correctness was used to suppress unpopular ideas or thoughts, by focusing on the books that Galileo and others like him wrote. Wich was at the time the only mainstream media. The church was the big power and got to decide what was politicaly correct. As the monk Victor Bruno dicovered when he wrote that maybe there could be other worlds around other stars, and got burned at the stake for it. So much for the whole 'thou shall not kill and forgiveness' bit.

      I'm thankful in a way, it has been much worse in times past. Political correctness today is more annoying than dangerous.
      • Whatever happend to that company?


        They made a whole bunch of kick-ass board games, to wit: Advanced Civilization, Titan, Diplomacy, Cosmic Encounter, Acquire, and more. Recently-ish they got bought by Hasbro and are reprinting select games in fancy boxes with flashy boards and pieces.

  • all the MSNBC article looks at is games for the current systems. Go back to the last generation of systems, specifically the playstation, you will find a multitude of games that are far worse than any stated there. Most of this would be due to development time, and also price, users would be less likely to buy something bad for a system that cost them an arm and 3 legs (ie. xbox) than they would for their trusty psx. When you read this don't just nod your head, have a look at your own collection of psx games, if you don't have a ratio of 1 good game to every 3-5 bad ones you've never been to indonesia and had 50c games at your fingertips.

  • Hey, I -liked- Bloodwake! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by InfinityWpi ( 175421 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:31AM (#3265363)
    It's a damn fun game. The key, as in real life, IS NOT TO DRIVE YOUR BOAT UP ONTO THE ISLANDS! I mean, c'mon...

    Seriously, one of the most fun moments I've had with that game is trying to outrun torpedoes and turbo-boosting over a reef, sending my boat into the air while the torps hit the reef and blew up behind me. Smooth sailing from there. It may be Microsoft, but MS's games department tends to hit fairly often...

  • Universally Stupid. (Score:4, Funny)

    by b0r0din ( 304712 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:34AM (#3265368)
    Wow. Picking up garbage. That is lame. Next let's make a game called "Day at the Beach" where in the time between flashing people and selling crack to preschoolers you pick up hypodermic needles and dead fish.

    What would have been better is to make a game where you find say a gun and just start capping everyone in line in front of you. Call it 'Universal Studios Rampage.' As a person who used to wait in lines, it would be quite therapeutic. Such missions could include going 'Back to the Future' to destroy Kevin Costner before he makes Waterworld. (Or the Postman, or that crappy movie about Bottles, or pretty much anything after Field of Dreams.)
    • C'mon, this game was the best garbage collector sim I've ever played. There are tons games where you play as a secret agent or a soldier, but this is one of the few truly ground-breaking games that lets you pick up virtual garbage.

      It would have been even better if you could have played as a park employee. Think of the action: people who are sick of waiting in line yelling at you, passing out from heat exhaustion in your costume, having small children puke on you... Now that would've been a game.

  • Waah, waah, waah. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hnice ( 60994 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:34AM (#3265370) Homepage
    The MSNBC article is about crappy games, and how they exist. There are crappy games. There have always been, and there will always be crappy games. Now that you can't develop them without a significant investment and a large team, there are fewer 'Bible Adventures' and 'Wally Bear and the No! Gang's, and no 'Tooth Protectors' at all, but there are crappy games of an entirely different sort.

    Anyone who feels that games have gotten 'worse', without qualifying that statement in some way, is full of it, or is simply blocking out the part of their brain which held (or maybe has never heard of) the Wall Street Kid, Amagon, King of Kings, M*A*S*H, Vigiliante 8 parts 2 and 3, Mega Man 4, 5, and 6, Pac Man on the Atari -- the list goes on and on.

    No one's saying that Monster Party and Burgertime and Utopia shouldn't get props. But there were over 600 carts [gamersgraveyard.com] released for the NES -- how many of them are you really pining after here?

    I'm so sick of this discussion. Have you played Super Mario Brothers lately? It's one of the best platformers ever, no doubt, but it's over in 30 minutes. Games are different now than they were ten or fifteen years ago, and you can dislike what has changed about them, but 'better' or 'worse'? Those are awfully broad brushes. For every Blood Wake, there's a Halo, for every Mortal Kombat Advance, there's an Advance Wars, and for every Mall Tycoon, there's an Unreal Tournament. It's the way of the world. Some things are crap. And this is not a new condition, even in the gaming industry.

    Now quit your whining and let me get back to my Sim Golf.

  • I miss the good old days (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Orangedog_on_crack ( 544931 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:35AM (#3265372)
    I have many fond memories of the golden age of video games from the late 70's into the early 80's. The graphics were lacking, the sound was no where near what it is now, and the premiss of most games was simple. For all that those old games lacked, they had one thing that almost all of the games today don't have....a soul. Back then gameplay was the main focus for game developers. Too many of the new games go all out for the "eye-candy" factor and gameplay seems to be a distant concern. This goes for the arcade coin-op games as well as the home games. That's not to say that there weren't some serious turds floating in the video game swimming pool back then. Anything with a movie tie-in was almost certainly a waste of time, and I'm sure that some of us old-timers, now in our 30's, remember how much of a big dissapointment the 2600 version of Pac-Man was.

  • Interesting and almost off topic (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Take a look at the reviews. careful to attack the games. A bad xbox game gets mentioned once, and it seems almost like they are complimenting the xbox while saying the game is a bit hard to control. Ever wonder what it's like trying to right objectionably about a product your company sells and wind up candycoating while ripping into the competitor, ask Steven Kent. Makes me glad I don't have his job.
    "The world is full of bias the secret is to know which way it runs"

  • Best and Worst Lists (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tiltowait ( 306189 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @10:36AM (#3265376) Homepage Journal
    Although nothing probably beats Custer's Revenge [classicgaming.com], there's a list of best/worst awards sites here [dmoz.org]. (don't mind the MSN stuff, the ODP is pulling a 4/1 joke).
  • Exihbit 1: Words people should not Misspell
  • ...It's just like Old Man Murry but without the gratiuitous overuse of the word "fuck". Man, I miss OMM - and before you say it's still there, they've done, what, about 3 updates since September? Might as well take down the site with that sort of update rate.
  • All games just try to be violent, or flashy 3D, or have some kind of commercial tie-in which almost never works.

    The demise of the side-scroller...at least Abe's Odyssey still used it

  • And your point is? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by silvaran ( 214334 )
    I anticipated an overly unbalanced article, being that
    (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
    and held my breath while I read the article. Fortunately, it does do a good job of picking on all the top players in the industry, though the article truly has no point.

    I found myself hunting around for a "Next>" link at the bottom of the article, confused at the abrupt end. None. Then I re-read the "conclusion":

    Playing a fighting game without good controls is like going to a Milli Vanilli concert in which the dubbed music does not work. I mean, what's the point?

    That doesn't explain this article at all. It explains partially what to look for in a fighting game.

    What is the point of this article? It's clearly not an extensive review of the worst games. I consider myself an adequate judge of a good game, after purchasing (interpret how you may) over 100 games for the original Playstation, and another 20 for the PS2. I've seen far worse games than what they have here, many not worth the price of rental. Granted, there's nothing worse than a fractional frame-rate or the controller-breaking frustration of a ridiculously difficult game, but why warn consumers about the pothole in front of them, only to have them fall into the next?

    I counted about 8 games to avoid. I'd be willing to bet there are more than just a few games that serve no other purpose on the shelves than to be load-bearing devices. Few are even worth the price of a blank CD (but you didn't hear that from me).

    IMHO, if you want to write an article like this, give the do's and don'ts to selecting a game. Give suggestions on how to weed out the worst from the best. Don't just list a bunch of bad games, say why they're bad, plug a few consoles (any publicity is good publicity) and leave it at that.

    (conclusion reduced to prevent conflict of interest)
  • Ok, so the author of the article likes to complain, but it's hardly news people. As aristotle would say, "beauty and the other beauty." Good games wouldn't exist without bad games. If all we needed and wanted are good games, then there would only be one game. One game would do every thing, be everything and rule everybody. That's a boring world to live in. There has to be aweful games to make us appreciate games that are well designed and executed.

    Numerous philosophers have addressed the idea of perfection and quality. The bottom line is everything changes, everything is good and bad, everything is nothing and nothing is everything. Like a great game just happens without precursors. Like game designers magically hit the bullseye on the first shot every single time. The only thing that article does is hype how great the graphics are in the new game consoles.

  • I think Arctic Thunder should be the worst ever! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nelson ( 1275 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @11:03AM (#3265485)
    My sister works at a radio station. They did some promotion giving away PS2 games. When the people don't come in 30 days she can keep stuff if she wants. So one afternoon she strolls over to my place and gives me this game. Up to that point I had been completely high on PS2. I had Ico, GT3, NBA Street and I didn't think they could make a bad game for such a fine machine. Then I slipped Artic Thunder in.. I don't remember that crappy a title on any platform. They wouldn't let me trade it in at the store!


    Ignoring the slow downs, I haven't really even played it enough to see them, there is just this amazingly cheap quality about it all. I mean the premise is insultingly stupid. I'm reminded of the mid 1990's when there was this glut of first person shooters release, I mean just dozens of them on the PC and they were largely Doom with different levels and graphics, or about that sophisticated and a lot of them you could tell were just rush jobs, someone somewhere hired a few artists and an engineer and tried to crank out a game in a week and make some bucks off the trend. they had this feeling like there was no soul put in to it, the authors didn't even care if they were good or not, that's how Arctic Thunder feels. Honestly, I doubt the authors really cared if it was any good, if not, then they have to be slave programmers in some radically different culture where they've never seen snow or something. There is just something amazingly shallow about it and I've only put about 10 minutes on it.

  • All shooter games on consoles shouldn't be played (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WildBeast ( 189336 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @11:03AM (#3265487) Journal
    I have a hard time using shooter games on a console. It's so much harder to control. Nothing beats PC's for shooters.

    Consoles however are great for racing, party and fighting games.
    • As a die-hard pc fps player I thought the same thing until I played halo. Are the controls as accurate as they would be on a PC? No. But they are completely transparent after 10 minutes to get used to them and don't detract from the game at all.

      If you had to play against someone using a keyboard and mouse you would get slaughtered, but you don't so why miss out on one of the best fps's of all time because of imagined problems with the control scheme. It is incredibly fun and, after all, that's what is important.

      Now the lack of an online mod community for multiplayer, that is another problem entirely.

      David
    • Perfect Dark on the N64.

      (and Goldeneye's not bad either)

      I originally felt like you did, but PD is just so well balanced :) You just have to adapt to the loss of resolution...
  • I usually download most of the PS2 games from usenet for evaluation purposes.
    When I really like a game I will really buy it in the store to support the company that made the game.

    Many games are dvd-rips anyway, so the original will give you some extra music and movies and originals will speed up the loading times, because you don't have to do the swap-trick.

    Here's some recent nice games you might want to check out:
    -Rez: retro style 3d shootem up, very nice & spacy.
    -Blood omen 2: adventure, you are an evil vampire.
    -Spyhunter: 3d version of the old arcade game.

    Most of the other games a really crappy, basicly they look too much like clones of eachother, they lack the originality I was used to getting from some of the japanese supernintendo games manufacturors.
  • Poor quality games can easily be attributed to lack of competition. When Nintendo won the battle to keep their interface format propriatary, and independent developers disappeared, it was inevitable that all games would eventually sink to the same level of mediocraty. It is as if IBM had prevented Electric Pencil, WordPerfect, SPC, and Microsoft from competing to build better word processors in 1986.

    sPh

  • The games people *really* shouldn't play (Score:5, Insightful)

    by technopinion ( 469686 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @11:28AM (#3265574)
    This article would have been better titled "Games you shouldn't buy" or some such thing. Playing a bad game does nothing but harm your pocketbook.
    It's some of the really *good* games that people should steer clear of. Take Everquest, for example. How many divorces, college dropouts, employment losses, etc., etc. has that game caused? How many of you, like me, finally managed to kick the habit after countless months of lost productivity, and yet still struggle with the urge to start playing again?
    You don't see any web sites devoted to Kabuki Warrior Widows.

  • The game that should have NEVER been created... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Turken ( 139591 ) on Monday April 01, 2002 @12:30PM (#3265905)
    I saw a PC game at Walmart (yeah, I'll buy stuff there, especially when they have a sale and knock $5-$20 off 80% of their console titles!!!) that truly frightened me. It was targeted towards children, and the premise was that you "train" and fight dinosaurs against those that your friends are raising. What is so absolutely despicible about it though is the "training" process consists of connectecting the included barcode scanner to the computer, and then scanning random products around the house in order to earn powerups. Buried in the fine print is the requirement that your computer also have an internet connection... Hmmm... I wonder why.

    Granted, I haven't actually installed or played the game to verify my fears, but this game (and I really wish I could remember the title) smells very strongly of spyware of the worst kind. And they're targeting kids, albeit semianonymously, as primary info collectors. Aren't there supposed to be laws against this sort of thing?
  • I bought Mortal Kombat Advance the day it came out, thinking to myself, " I loved the old Genesis version, and loved MK3, this should be good!" There were no reviews out at the time.

    This game taught me to be a bit more patient, and wait for the damned reviews. I have never seen such a poorly programmed piece of garbage in my life. Half the time, the characters do not do the moves after being input properly. The opponents are as cheap as they come. This game really frightened me.

    I still have it. It hangs from my car rearview mirror, a hole drilled through the ROM chips, never to hurt another, as a lesson to myself to be more patient.
  • Oh man, I used to work for that company. They made some truely awful games (Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, anyone? Anyone? Please!). What I used to love was our games used to be called "sleeper hits". Is that code for "sucks so bad it's funny"?
  • Difficult is the flying noses in Kid Icarus.

    Difficult is being naked in Ghosts and Fucking Goblins.

    Difficult is DODGING THREE MISSLES FROM A SUBMARINE IN "TOP GUN" LEVEL 4 THEN HAVING TO REFUEL *AND THEN LAND*

    Ugh. They were fun for about 1 afternoon before you got so frustrated that you burned them in effigy and went back to playing Kung Fu.

  • by hard experience, Games Not to Play.

    Any school child has been thoroughly indoctrinated about these.

    For instance, any one with a deck of cards asking if you'd like to play "52 Card Pickup". I only had to play that game once, at age 6.

    Another great card game that any 8 year old can teach to a 5 year old is "Janitor".

    The worse part of the whole thing is that, despite growing much older and more knowledgable and ostensibly working at a professional job, the workplace is still full of such games and people with mentalities to propagate them.

    I especially like equivalents to "Bring Me a Rock".

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