The 30 Dumbest Video Game Titles In History 113
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dumb or ridiculous? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm going to Game Stop tomorrow and ask them if they will give me Touch Dic.
Re:Dumb or ridiculous? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
But... horses can not use a keyboard can they?
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A miss (Score:2)
You forgot "...you insensitive clod!"
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Bad
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or is it
idspispopd?
Just the mandatory top worst list (Score:5, Interesting)
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 d
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It's kind of ridiculous to imagine becoming a "tycoon" at that.
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Attack of the Mutant Camels is even less strange if you consider that
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Re:Just the mandatory top worst list (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
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The worst I ever saw was "Prison Tycoon". Sit back and think about making a game of that for a minute. I can't think of a single facet of such a game that wouldn't be morally reprehensible. It holds the honor of being the only comput
True enough (Score:2)
But, just to give a couple more examples of dumb or ridiculous Tycoon games, and how abused _that_ name has got over the years, picture:
- Rotlicht Tycoon. (Red Light Tycoon.) Yep, it's about running a brothel. I'm guessing you wouldn't buy that for your kids either
- Klo Tycoon. (Toilet Tycoon) Yep, you're running a public toilet in that one.
I swear I'm not making either of those up.
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Well, it sounds stupid, so no I wouldn't. However, I wouldn't stop them from using their own money on it like I did w/ Prison Tycoon. The only thing you could tell me that would put it into that territory would be that slavery is involved in the gameplay, or perhaps slapping around the 'ho's to keep them in line. Ick, what nasty stuff to be contemplating.
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The scariest part is that there was also "Prison Tycoon 2: Maximum Security". And "Prison Tycoon 3: Lockdown".
No, I am not making that up.
Sweet! A mercenary management sim! (Score:2)
Totally! You'd be in charge of managing the operations and finances of a mercenary outfit, like Executive Outcomes, Inc. [wikipedia.org] or Blackwater [wikipedia.org].
You have to deal with the financial and tactical quandaries of supplying private military force to questionable wars in unstable parts of the world, but also cope with employee attrition and manage the moral quandaries and public outrage that comes with being a mercenary orga
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And just for the record, I think If It Moves, Shoot It! is an outstanding name.
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Reminded me of perfect game for /. crowd... (Score:5, Funny)
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
PS. Frustrating that I can't seem to find it even using the title - Spermen (but I might remember that wrong)
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Re:Reminded me of perfect game for /. crowd... (Score:4, Informative)
Looks to me like a hack of the actual C-64 Q-Bert.
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Thanks, I guess
(yup, might as well be demoscene/warez group hack, expecially since it was on warez compilation floppy (in this country that was the only thing available...the concept of copyright didn't even exist until ~1992))
Re:Reminded me of perfect game for /. crowd... (Score:5, Funny)
You are doing it WRONG! (Unless you a gay.)
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Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
But I... I do deny them my essence.
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--jonaskoelker's employers keyboard.
Please tag NSFW.
--jonaskoelker
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Irritating Stick (Score:3, Informative)
Then again, it was kind of a pointless list to begin with.
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What about "BAD DUDES"?? (Score:2)
"Rampant ninja related crimes these days... White House is not the exception..."
"The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?"
This is my personal winner: (Score:5, Funny)
WHAT?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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As well as having superb gameplay it had digitized voices... or was that another Barbie game? In any case, they were both great.
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Until I RTFA, I had never considered the possibilities of the title.
Re:WHAT?! (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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So that's how you get a story posted on
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(Cultural spoof notwithstanding, many video game players at that time mostly weren't allowed to watch zombie movies in the 70s and 80s.)
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Re:WHAT?! (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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How is a game that is a parody of the horror movie genre a precursor to a game that was solidly in the horror genre of video games?
Did they miss the joke of the game? You ran around killing zombies with a squirt gun full of holy water! You killed the alien pla
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Let's see what else... I've played Spanky's Quest, that's actually a decently fun game. Leisure Suit Larry 3 and the Long Alliteration, I'm sure I played that sometime in my youth. Tech Romancer was a fun rental a decade back, and that has a cool name if you ask me. I own Tactics Ogre but I never knew the subtitle was "Let Us Cling Together". That's pretty hilarious.
And honestly, if you would think about som
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Name this game (Score:2)
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See http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=323 [atariage.com]
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"Lemme see, Atlantis, Chopper Command, Demon Attack, Enduro, Communist Mutants from Space, Moonswe-- wait... what?"
Of course, it probably backfired at the register:
"Mommy, mommy! Can I buy Communist Mutants from Space? Please, please, pleeeeease?"
Yeah, you c
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Cheats (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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BEWARE ALIENS SPADGE HAS DROPPED ONE
or,
BLIMEY GUVNOR LOOK AT THE SIZE OF HIS JOHN THOMAS
or a lot more:
http://www.gamewinners.com/amiga/AlienBreed.htm [gamewinners.com]
Yes Prime Minister? (Score:2, Informative)
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Similar lists? (Score:1)
one thing i do remember was Devine Divinity being in the list for redundant redundancy
How to be a complete bastard (Score:3, Informative)
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There was also a board game, I have the companion piece "How to be a Complete Bitch" which featured Pammy Stephenson (Billy Connelly's wife) rather than Adrian Edmendson.
A couple of titles.... (Score:3, Informative)
- 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.
Single page? (Score:1)
Minter Madness (Score:5, Insightful)
CNet syndicates /b/ ? (Score:4, Funny)
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Get out.
YIC (Score:2)
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I nominate this article for the (Score:3, Insightful)
What about Space Rangers? (Score:1)
It's not really surprising, though (Score:2)
Time Race / Leisure Suit Larry (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Cobras vs. Chimps FTW (Score:2)
Who could forget "Desert Bus"? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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-Peter
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Not True (Score:2)
You're being totally unfair to the game! How could you leave out the bug splat? It's the most exciting thing in the whole game!
"Bastard" is a book tie in (Score:3, Informative)
Prolly flamebait (Score:1)
Each new iteration negates all previous ones by virtue of the fact that they weren't final. The tagline is going to have to be "Final Fantasy XIV - this time we mean it! No more fantasies from here on out. Maybe. OK, one more after this." Followed by Final "Fantasty XV - It's a full blown addiction. We just don't know how to stop ourselves. Please Help."
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Surely there are more (Score:2)
While the gameplay itself wasn't that bad, Karateka meets Slime World, Atari put out "Kung Food" for the Lynx. You're a green guy trying to get out of the refrigerator. The death scenes were hilarious.
You can't forget the promotional perk products for the Atari 2600, "Tooth Protectors" and "Chase The Chuc
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I never saw frogs and flies, but Astraware have a game called bzzz where you feed the frog by guiding its tongue. My four year old son loves it on wife's Palm TX.
I am not affiliated with www.Astraware.com except as a satisfied customer.
Truth in Advertising (Score:2)
The game itself was entertaining, if you like vertical-scrolling games like Xevious.
A great game. (Score:1)
Iggy's Wrecking Balls (Score:2)
http://ign64.ign.com/objects/002/002272.html [ign.com]
I remember HTBACB (Score:1)
No 6 Inch Maidarin? (Score:2)
grabbed by the ghoulies (Score:2)
Immature gits (Score:3, Funny)
What are these guys, like 13 or something?
'Zero Wing' FTW! (Score:2)
Pick Up the Phone Booth and Die (Score:2)
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Dead Or Alive Extreme (Score:2)
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