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."
Wrong... (Score:2)
This "Company" Spoofs all the B-Games of the 80s and 90s. Games with horible (even at the time)
Graphics and Sound, Pointless Game Play. Poor direction or goals... But they are fun to play just
because they are so bad.
Re:Wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wrong... (Score:4, Informative)
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (Score:2)
Enough said
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Re:Wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
Mocking games = Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Cult following = The Rocky Horror Picture Show....it was so bad but has a huge following BECAUSE it was bad.
There aren't really any games that people play because they enjoy how bad they are. There are games that people mock because they were bad. There are memes started because of poorly written games (All your base....). But how many times do you go back any play them?
That was the point of the article. Not that there are games that are constantly mocked.
Layne
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I disagree. MMOs are a prime example. Why does anyone play Runescape when they've played MMOs with better graphics, better gameplay, and a better culture? Because they enjoy how bad it is.
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 tha
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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.
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Two great, but ultimately underperforming films with that approach recently were Grindhouse and (seriously) Snakes on a Plane. I suspect the approach doesn't work with audiences who are susceptible to actually being scared by them?
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To summarize, while no-one may be playing bad games, the idea of bad games have certainly gained a cult following.
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Eh? I wouldn't consider RHPS bad. Budget production, sure, but certainly not bad.
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Flash (Score:2)
(I'm assuming it's Flash -- on Konqueror, I just see "start plugin", so maybe it's Java...)
Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors (Score:5, Informative)
"Years ago, I'd heard about a mythical unreleased videogame developed by Penn & Teller for the Sega CD and 3DO. The game was supposed to be an oddball adventure game, with some cruel magic tricks and minigames thrown in for good measure. This Absolute Entertainment press release from March 1995 sums it up nicely.
The most infamous part was "Desert Bus," a "VeriSimulator" in which you drive a bus across the straight Nevada desert for eight hours in real-time. Then you drive it home. Also, I'd read the bus veers to the right, so you can't just leave the joypad propped up. The rumor was that if you won the game, you got one point."
Re:Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors (Score:4, Informative)
IIRC at least some playable form of that game exists because there are strategy guides online for how to beat the adventure portion of it (it was pretty kooky even by adventure game standards, in some places you can have Teller get on his hands and knees behind a bad guy and have Penn push the bad guy back to knock him over for instance). I think there was a side or top scrolling shooter in there too. It's a shame Penn and Teller developed it for a doomed system like the SegaCD.
Zero Wing (Score:5, Funny)
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"What IS this? I hope this is not Chris' blood"
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Michael Jackson's Moonwalker (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe it's not as "bad" as Zero Wing in terms of insufficient development, but considering more recent events concerning the main character, the premise(rescuing little girls) is hilariously wrong! I figured that it deserves amention here.
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right and wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
there aren't many "b" games, because "b" games are often buggy and unplayable. bugs are not fun or funny or tolerable. I don't crash out of a game and go "haha that was so bad it was fun". no.
even with the worst movies, they still "work" because all you are doing is watching them. there's no technological requirement. it's not like the movie film breaks while watching or anything.
it would require an unusual development house to create a game with no programming bugs and reasonable graphics engine to support a totally shoddy gameplay that allowed for humour and enjoyment.
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I'd say you've hit the nail there...
The FP compares technical problems that prevent game-play, with technical problems documented in but not affecting movie-play.
As the best analogy to a B-movie I can think of, take something like Maniac Mansion... Completely absurd plot and bad "acting", yet it has a pretty
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Except its more like the gameplay is what gets it. Its not funny, but its cult. Longest Journey and Syberia were traditional adventures that people really dug and have a following, but its not like an A-game's following. Some of the hardcore strategy war games that are designed to be long and boring and detailed... its like their designed to be bad, except there's people that love it.
Deus Ex II (Score:2)
The programming is great and it doesn't crash, yet you never stop laughing, beginning with the loading screen ["The Future War on Terror"]
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Just as you can watch and follow a B movie, you should be able to play a B game.
What makes a movie a B movie is laughably bad story execution, acting, etc.
So a B game should be completely playable, but with a laughably bad story execution, voice acting, etc.
The problem is that describes every story-driven video game out there this side of the True Greats.
Example: Gears of War. In the space of video games, it tells a coherent story with fairly high production
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Taking the gameplay out of the equation, Command and Conquer is a "B" movie. Einstein going back in time, shooting hitler, and then stalin invading anyway; giant towers that shoot electricity with vicious guard dogs; even a hot, buxom woman with two pistols that likes to blow things up. All these things are a formula for a bad movie plot, and yet Red Alert is one of the great RTS games.
From a technical aspect, Red Alert was simply an interface improvement over the original C&C. It would be considered clunky by modern standards (especially by the standards of the two following sequels).
As an example, I'll create a concept for a new game - you control a small number of units rather than large armies (usually 9 or 10). You also have a few buildings which can either create these units, or upgrade modules for them. These modules will improve the weaponry and armor of the unit, although
Duke Nukem 3D (Score:2)
The tech was actually just a bit above Doom at the time, I suppose, and the engine was (is) rock solid. But the gameplay was oddly unbalanced -- just enough to be ludicrously funny. For example, the Pistol is laughably weak (surprise, surprise), the chaingun and such are actually reasonably balanced, but there are also just downright weird weapons (like the shrink ray -- shrink your enemies and then step on them), and ludicr
Not entirely true. (Score:3, Insightful)
How about the Street Fighter II series? Certainly, at some point, if not from the beginning, it was so bad -- it became a joke. I have recently started up a game of this, not because it was fun, but it was a great laugh -- its infamous.
Of course, no discussion of B games is complete without talk of Cluster's Revenge...
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It really is a classic bad game. But I wouldn't say that its "so bad it's funny", nor "so bad it's good"... Its just a bad, bad, game. Maybe if the premise wasn't rape it could have come closer - but it seems like without the rape it would be "shit", instead of "disgusting shit"
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Welll lets see... (Score:2)
Given the actual history of Custer it would certainly seem like such an event would be considered rape. Sure the box didn't use the word but even the imagery there is of a scared native American girl and a leering perverted looking Custer.
SF II? What? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're kidding, right? The game that largely launched the 2D fighter genre in America? There were similar games before SF II, but it was the first of its kind to reach the kind of popularity it has when it was out.
You could make the argument that someone along the way its sequels became derivative and boring compared to games like the Tekken series, but the original SF II was a classic.
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I agree that the game was influential in popularizing the genre, but my point was more towards your latter assessment. The many derivatives of the game were so tactless that I consider them to fall into the "B" camp. Surely, at some point
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B-Games (Score:2)
Time Killers (Score:2)
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I have to give it a lot of props just for not being a Street Fighter clone at a time when such were ubiquitous and universally crappy. Not only was Time Killers better than your average SF clone, it was more original. I really enjoyed touches like the way wounds would appear on your character when they got hit, and who didn't love walking up to their stunned opponent
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Yeah, you're right about all that -- and I didn't know it came out before Samurai Showdown. And I disparaged the controls, but for the feel not
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.
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"detective" alone is a counterexample to this article. Link [giga.or.at] - plays in frotz and other Infocom game interpreters.
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I'm SO glad I'm not the only one with a social group that likes to shout "Want some RYE? Coursh ya do!" at inopportune times.
"Stealth" for the NES (Score:3, Funny)
What!? (Score:5, Informative)
"This guy are sick!"
"All your base are belong to us."
Cases of B-Gameplay being funny are harder to think up (partially because we don't have a strong vocabulary to talk about gameplay) but I have fond memories of watching my friend play Super Mario Bros 2, float behind Wart's head, then proceed to throw vegetables at him from that location where Wart couldn't hit back. Or watching a big fearsome undead boss in a Final Fantasy get killed by a Phoenix Down.
Though yes: "bad in a good way" only happens with certain kinds of bad. When the controls are painfully bad, that sucks. Though similarly if the lighting is terrible on a TV show, that doesn't make it campy, that just makes it an eyesore.
Two Crude Dudes! (Score:2)
Except I believe the actual quote is: "Are you a bad enough dude to rescue Ronnie?"
Another one with awesomely poor dialogue is House of the Dead 2:
"No-one's gonna get away with this!!!"
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Completely off the mark! (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, games can't hope to achieve the level of greatness in this regard that films like Commando and Showdown in Little Tokyo or American Ninja 4: The Annihilation have reached, but there's definitely some gems that stood out over the years.
Exhibit 1: Captain America and the Avengers for SNES
This game has some of the most horrible dialogue and "voices" I've ever had to endure, but it's so bad it's memorable. The combat, and some boss fights (Juggernaut for example), is an atrocity because of the poor collision detection and lazy animations. And, it's impossible to beat. But hey you get to play as Captain America and Iron Man!!!
But really this game crossed from "bad" to "awesome" when I showed it to a friend, touting it as "one of the worst games I own." That day, it glitched like never again -- all the normal enemies had 10x the hit points they usually do, and all the bosses had only 1 hit point. But just as the 3rd boss arrived, "chopping" a tree down with his arm-scythe even though it was just a sprite temporarily hovering over a tree stump and the trunk/stump were different colors, the game froze
Exhibit 2: Rise of the Robots for SNES
AMAZING graphics, AMAZING music. And the sort of gameplay that you can make jokes about to this day. It's a fighting game, but Player 1 can only use 1 character! This lame cyborg who has awesome moves like "punch," "crouch and punch," "kick," and "jump kick." I swear the Turtles from TMNT III: The Manhattan Project (awesome game) had more moves. Player 2, on the other hand, could use any of the "evil" robots from the single-player mode. They also had like 5 moves, but at least they looked cool and.. there was more than one of them. Player 1 *could* use any of those robots, but only if one entered a cheat code. Yes you had to cheat to use more than 1 character in a fighting game!! That game was awesome... we'd have matches where we'd say "ok you can only use 2 moves this time to fight" and so we'd use jump-kicks and crouch-kicks only or something. Oh yes, and the final boss had a move that took off 1/2 your life, and a move that recovered 100% of
Exhibit 3: Amagon for NES
Nobody has actually beaten this game except for a friend of mine and I on emulator. It is right up there with The Adventures of Bayou Billy when it comes to ATROCIOUS game design. There's a million cheap deaths, the lamest enemies (and main character) I have EVER seen in a game by a huge margin, and typos in level descriptions because nobody has gotten to most of those levels anyway. The music is pure arse, and the ending? You get a big black cock in your hand. Or is it the handle of a ship steering wheel... hard to tell with the way they cropped the image. Given the rest of the game, it's probably a cock.
So yes, those games are so bad they're funny, and when I think of them I don't think "omg worst experience ever" I think "hahahhahaha." And that somewhat redeems them.
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Thanks for reminding me of the adventures of Bayou Billy. I actually beat the game in my elementary school days since my game library was small which gave me a lot of time to play it. A great example of an awesomely bad game, with dialogue as bad as any other example you could name.
Actually, every movie The Angry Nintendo Nerd [ghacks.net] has ever featured could qualify (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR OLD SCHOOL NES FANS).
What about Rag Doll Kung Fu? (Score:2)
Bible Buffet! (Score:2)
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Some of their work includes:
Bible Buffet [wikipedia.org]
Spiritual Warfare [wikipedia.org]
Bible Adventures [wikipedia.org]
You can read more about Wisdom Tree here [wikipedia.org] or straight from the horse's mouth [wisdomtreegames.com].
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/bigrigsotrr/re
the Angry Video Game Nerd would disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
WarioWare? (Score:2, Interesting)
carmageddon 64? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not about the games anymore (Score:2)
B Games (Score:2)
The game shipped with a bug which made the models rotate randomly (Speed as well as direction) during cut sequences, horses, carts, people, arms, legs etc. Imagine a guy talking about the incoming monster hoard while windmilling his arms and having his head repeatedly fall INTO his chest.
We were all rolling on the floor dying with laughter during each cut sequence, the plot of the game was terrible the gameplay trite and boring. But that b
Make My Video (Score:2)
Terrible games, but funny in a "I remember what FMV looked like in 1992!" way.
Superman 64? (Score:2)
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
Isn't there a B level of games in Japan? (Score:2)
Anybody know?
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Only fellow japan-o-nerds would call it that instead of what's actually on the box [gamerhelp.com].
Actually, scratch that, I still call it "Katamari Damacy"
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Each one is some weird animation with a poorly-done child voice over saying something bizarre like "Wow. Space is like a giant bowl of chocolate soup that goes on forever..."
Loom (Score:2)
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Loom was one of the all-time great games!
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I'm very grey and old (Score:2, Insightful)
"Gulpman", anyone?
How about "Pedro"?
I once bought an adventure game only to find that it was text only and quite boring. I didn't laugh. I can't even remember the name (but side B wouldn't load... disgraceful).
Two Words (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck_rampage [wikipedia.org]
Last Battle (Score:2)
See also the review at Something Awful [somethingawful.com].
Crackdown (Score:2)
The XBox360 game Crackdown is a B-rated as they come.
Fun as hell sometimes, but so over the top and bad I felt like I was playing a white Midwestern teen boy's idea of the "Ultimate Justice" after he watched too many lone cop movies.
So the programming of the game, and the art may not be "B", but the content sure the hell was.
ZeroWing FTW (Score:2)
Atari 2600 (Score:2)
You play a naked General Custer with a huge erection, running across the desert avoiding arrows so you can 'molest' an Indian woman tied to a pole.
Night Trap starring Dana Plato (Score:2)
Night Trap [wikipedia.org]
Kriss Kross: Make My Video [wikipedia.org]
Custer's Revenge [wikipedia.org]
Stroker [lemon64.com]
I could go on...
Dracula for Intellevision (Score:2)
Life's Battle (Score:2)
B Game definition (Score:2)
Just Cause (Score:2)
There are popular b games (Score:2)
I sought out the infamous penn and teller game too. And I have driven a bus to Las Vegas, but crashed on the way home. I got one point for that.
They have more in common than you think (Score:2)
Daikatana (Score:3, Insightful)
OTOH, for "kind of cheap but it knows it's bad and has fun with it," I nominate Duke Nukem.
Link mah boiiiiiiiii (Score:2)
No BC3K? (Score:3, Insightful)
I really hope Derek Smart replies to this. It would be just like the old days!
Gotta go, some kids are on my lawn!
Clearly the writer never played Terminator Rampage (Score:2)
About 6 months later I got a DX4-100, effectively 3 times faster (and back then, 3D cards didn't exist) - guess what.
About 15 fps, terrible terrible code - some of my pals still laugh about that game to this day.
Shakfu (Score:2)
Exact same game as Mortal Combat and Primal Instinct, but with different character skins and level graphics.
Games are not movies... (Score:2)
Games are more like rollercoaster or amusement themepark rides then movies, in my estimation, once you've experienced a game you don't usually want to go back to it unless there is a compelling reason (multiplayer, etc).
The author never played Criticom (Score:2)
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Re:It's not really an apples to apples comparison. (Score:2)
Hypercard is an excellent engine for doing a game like Myst. Myst was basically a 3D rendered slideshow presentation with a story. Hypercard is just that...it was marketed as a presentation software, not a development environment. But it was presentation software that had an entire programming language to drive it...it was a wildly popular cult software development program for Mac. I honestly wish t
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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.
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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
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One could argue that achievement points on the XBox 360 essentially cause all XBox 360 games to h
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