Gaming Steve: What was the Worst Game that you Completely Finished?

December 3, 2007

What was the Worst Game that you Completely Finished?

Recently I was moving some of video games and I was shocked at just how many of them I started and never finished -- and I don't plan on finishing 95% of them (who am I kidding, I don't plan on finishing 99.9% of them). So I started to look over the games that I have finished and I was shocked to discover how many of them were only “average” in quality at best. So instead of spending my valuable time finishing a quality game like Final Fantasy XII I instead finished Dark Reign (I was young and foolish!).

Which got me thinking about this week’s question, “What was the ‘worst’ video game that you completely finished?”

For me it would probably be … Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. This might sound a little harsh as in retrospect the game wasn’t really that bad. But after playing the original Legend of Zelda the day it came out (August 22, 1987 … yeah I’m old) and spending a week of wonderful sleepless nights plowing through that monumental game Zelda became, and still is, a true highlight of my gaming life. So after patiently waiting over two years for the sequel to the best game of all time up to that point in my life, Zelda II was supremely disappointing.

In theory mixing the side-scrolling gameplay of Super Mario Brothers with the RPG of the original Zelda would make for a fantastic game, but it didn’t. The two never gelled and to me Zelda II was disappointing in every aspect. The gameplay, the graphics, the music, the story, the ending, everything was a huge letdown. So perhaps it wasn’t necessarily the “worst” video game, but rather the most disappointing, but I think that still counts in my book.

Strangely I don’t regret playing and finishing it for one second. Playing a poor game only makes you appreciate the truly great games that much more.

So what was the worst game you completely finished? Tell me your story in the comments and next week I’ll select one random comment and give you some sweet gaming swag!

Posted by Gaming Steve at 9:00 PM | Comments (23) | Posted to Poll |

Comments

it would probably be advent rising. after all the hype, or at least my own excitement about the game, i still bought it after the luke warm reviews. the most disappointing parts were the horrible in game cutscenes that just seemed to fill time and seemed to have little to do with what was actually happening in the game.

Posted by E.J. at December 3, 2007 10:00 PM

I've played and completed Home Alone 2 for the Super Nintendo. The only reason I played it was because I was at my Mom's house for a week and I had neglected to bring my own games over from my Dad's. Home Alone has some charm, but it just gets annoying and stupid. The first boss was something like an elevator that shot out towels and it just got worse from there. I mean movie to game translations are generally bad, but making a somewhat crappy movie into a game isn't good for anyone.

Boredom, it seems, is a powerful motivator to do things you never would do under normal circumstances.

Posted by PatMan33 at December 3, 2007 10:03 PM

If memory serves me correctly it was a Conan game for the Sega Master System. I wasted six weeks of my summer school holidays in 1991 perfecting my skills at that game. It was fun at the time, but as soon as I finished the game I realised I had wasted my entire summer!

Posted by SimEarth Freak at December 3, 2007 10:10 PM

I think for me it has to be Daikatana (worst game based more on critical reviews than my opinion - I actually thought it was kind of a diamond in the rough). I remember that the four different eras were pretty cool at the time, but that the boss encounters were terribly flawed. I still remember the Gorgon boss where they really didn't even complete the battle sequence - it ended immediately and really abruptly as soon as you hit the fire button with the mirror enabled: they went to a cutscene of her turning to stone and that was it...
Oh, and I didn't mind killing frogs all that much in the beginning. An almost decent game was there, but the unfinished bits and the high expectations brought on by all the hype kinda killed this one it seems.

Posted by Semisphere at December 3, 2007 11:33 PM

Doom III. About 1/4 the way through I put it away for a week because it was so bad, only finished it to see the story's end (and to justify the expenditure).

Posted by Moose at December 4, 2007 12:10 AM

For the record (And a few of you know) I also played Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, but I can't say that I finished it so... yeah. But I am the proud owner of a factory sealed copy of the game as well!

Posted by PatMan33 at December 4, 2007 12:47 AM

Dang, I can't speak 100% truthfully as I never finished both sides of Hegemonia's final missions. It was truly a sad RTS. The graphics were without a doubt excellent when you were at those few times you weren't looking into a blank area of space, reused asteroid dust models, or boring planets. The weapons were alright, I did love the HUGE number of upgrades the game had, but combat was sad. If you want to win, get Battleship hulls as soon as possible. That simple.

In late game the computer AI says "pump out as many battleships in true robotic fashion as possible" and then you're stuck fighting an endless wave of enemies and often quitting because the fight would last forever.

The campaign had a good premise and I did enjoy it. Earth vs. Mars is nice. The opening cutscene was good for its time, but they made you think space had rapid-fire weapons. It eventually turns into a colonization effort after you choose which side you want to win and fight out the war on that side, and after that it turns into you settling an alien civil war.

However, I have never been more afraid, in any horror game even, of the "mysterious" alien base you encounter very early on after the end of the Earth-Mars war. Scares the living crap out of me to this day.

Posted by Paroxysm at December 4, 2007 12:59 AM

It was this termintor game for the ps1 or ps2, don't remember. Might of been called Terminator Judgement day (or was that one of the movies?) Basically the game was trash, boring, bad music and sound effects, and there was constant bugs when it came to the music and sound.

Posted by Tarrock at December 4, 2007 2:01 AM

Zelda 2 is constantly taking a much undeserved thrashing. It's suprisingly dificult to find people that liked it. It's probably the first game for the NES I ever really loved. It seemed larger and more complex then Zelda 1. I loved having an inventory of spells to use, a feature which didn't fair very well in future Zeldas. I'll keep my defences brief though, I'm sure no matter what I say I won't make any converts.

Sorry for not touching on the actual subject here, don't feel like I've finished any bad games (unless cheating my way through them for the plot counts).

Posted by Daniel at December 4, 2007 2:21 AM

For me it was Deus Ex 2. I absolutely loved the first game and I was really looking forward to see what happend after the game's ending.

Well, we did get to see what happend, just not in a way I hoped for. The gameplay was much worse and the once epic story was shallow. I still finished it, but I wasn't satisfied.

I'm hoping for the best for Deus Ex 3 (which was recently announced)

Posted by Terr at December 4, 2007 8:05 AM

bionicle: the game. *pukes*

as a little kid, i loved the bionicles. i had tons of them, and i couldn't get enough of these awesome toys.
then, on a really really bad day, i decided to buy bionicle: the game. i was so exited!

when i came home, the dissapointment began. the game was so damn easy and boring, i started to feel pain in my left pocket. yes, thats where my wallet was.
every level is the slame. you can recharge your lifeforce whenever you want and with ONE single press on a button you can activate a shield which cant be destroyed by ANYTHING. after i finished the game in 2 hours i went to bed.
me and my wallet cried ourselves asleep that night.

luckely a friend of mine, also a huge bionicle fan at that time, had borrowed a ps2 from his uncle. with it he borrowed a few games from him, including FF X. but his mom thought he was too young to play FFX so we traded Bionicle for FFX. best deal of my whole life. because that trade opened the gates to the world of an awesome RPG serie for me.

so every disadvantage has an advantage behind it. you just have to know where to look ;)

Posted by xenomorph at December 4, 2007 8:39 AM

I think completing "Athena" on the NES was a total chore. What a bad game it is! It was a generic run, jump, and sword game. They even cheated on the background graphics by having visible seams on the tiles. It wasn't the first game I wished I had never bought--that would be Pac Man (Atari VCS). Yes, I'm that old, too.

Posted by Robb at December 4, 2007 10:00 AM

It maybe isnt the worst game I've finnished, but when I think of it, Gears of War pops up in my head. Why? Well, before I bought it I read the amazing reviews, thousands of people praising it. So I bought it. What I found was a game without much that much skill involved, a dumbed down system (yes the one button system works, but I think its boring), and graphics. Yes excelent graphics, but with theese graphics they build a pure grey and boring world that looks basicly the same through the whole game, and the voice dialouge is so... silly. Noone talks like that, especially not in a war. The final boss was easy and I was surprised when the game ended, I had just started playing. Maybe the online play is better (I havent got Live), but the splitscreen co-op was just plain boring, I was used with playing splitscreen on Halo 2. Something which was fun and worked well, and well, I expected more then that from GoW. After I had played it and gotten bored I checked reviews to see if I hadnt misstaken, looked on the wrong game. But no, everybody was still praising it.

Posted by H.U.C (Huckbuck) at December 4, 2007 10:07 AM

Star Fox Assault. I s'pose I was expecting so much more from it. I had been waiting on it for months thinking it would be as enjoyable as Star Fox 64. I was rather disappointed with the story line and the far too easy missions.

Posted by Met at December 4, 2007 10:11 AM

While I attempted to finish Dark Reign (hey, it got great reviews at the time) multiple times over several years, I just could not slog my way through that awful mess.

So, the worst game that I ever completed (even worse than Dark Reign) is:

Hydlide (NES)

I originally received this as a gift from my father about 1989. It looked similar to Dragon Warrior which I LOVED! Wow...what a letdown. The only things remotely similar to Dragon Warrior were the fact that it was a fantasy setting, and the graphics. It was quickly relegated to the back of my collection.

In 1991 I moved from Germany to the United States. During the move all my NES games were stolen by someone from the moving company (most likely).

So I began replacing games by saving my allowance. Hydlide was replaced. Yes, I bought this travesty TWICE! I probably didn't put a full hour into it over the next 10+ years, however.

In July 2004, after being completely floored by the greatness of Riddick on the XBoX, I decided to try and finish an old game out of principle. Guess what my pick was? Yes, it was a test of willpower. Could I force myself through it?

The 10 second midi song looped non-stop...for several HOURS. I had no direction (the game gives you none), but just ran across the map, bumping into infinitely respawning enemies until one of us died (that IS the combat system...hump eachother until one falls over), slowly, SLOWLY gaining levels until I was strong enough to hump stronger sprites.

Kind of gives new meaning to "level 'grind'", doesn't it?

Eventually I was strong enough to hump the final boss until he fell over, and I was "treated" to probably the worst game ending involving a princess ever.

Don't believe it can be this bad? Look for it on youtube.

I will never get those hours of my life back...and the 10 second midi is forever seared in my mind. Thanks FCI...go FCI yo******...

Posted by T-BirD at December 4, 2007 2:13 PM

The worst game I completed Multiple times was Dynamite Cop for the stand-up arcade. It was a complete rip-off of the Die Hard Trilogy arcade game where you and a buddy ran around from screen to screen, fighting villains as they popped up using weapons lying around like guns, harpoons, and refrigerators. The plot involved saving the president's daughter from some evil bearded villain cyborg on a boat.

At the start of the game, you picked your entry point onto this luxury liner and fought your way through. Depending on which entry point you picked, you'd get a different game. One lead you to the terrorist base where you fought men in shark costumes. No matter which you chose, at one point you Will fight an octopus.

As you took damage in the game, you lost clothing. I assume this was only for the sake of the one female character you could play. The other character options was a vaguely ethnic cop with shades and white cop with a monkey.

What made this game a real delight was that you could damage your friends during the game. At the end, when you defeated the final cyborg boss, the president's daughter thanks you and if you're on multiplayer, tells you to fight your teammate for her. This is the most brilliant decision ever as it means that whoever has the last quarter in his pocket to pump life back into his character wins the whole game. While a monkey dances. Pure Brilliance. -leeman

Posted by lemurbouy at December 5, 2007 9:00 AM

Oh man... Well, you have to throw out pretty much anything from the Atari/NES era. Seeing as that I was just a wee lad back then, I played horrible games of biblical proportions & simply thought they were just "challenging". E.T., the game that is now Legend, was played by me quite often and loved dearly.

The worst game I think I've played to completion that I can recall was fairly recent. I made the mistake of renting Bullet Witch. I knew going in that it probably wasn't going to be high art, but I had no idea just what I was in for. It was a bland, last-gen looking game with crummy level design, ridiculously overused enemies, nigh useless spells and weapon upgrades, and a typically vague/cryptic japanese-style story. Hell, the seemingly only other character you meet in the game, aside from the witch herself and her unexplained inner voice "the darkness" is a Guile from Streetfighter lookalike named MAXWELL COUGAR. Yes, the all caps is meant to express the seriousness of a man named MAXWELL COUGAR. It sounds like a name that Strong Bad would come up with. At any rate, I regretted my rental almost instantly and only played through the game in it's entirety to punish myself for my bad judgement.

It came with a "collectible poster" which I ended up signing and sending to a friend of mine who'd moved out of state to hang up in his office to remember me by. Funny thing is that, for the longest time, Bullet Witch had a disproportionate ammount of free DLC support. Why can't the good games get that kind of support, huh?

Posted by Razorburn2021 at December 5, 2007 12:32 PM

Oblivion. (SPOILER WARNING) Granted I didn't "finish" every single quest. Although I now wish I had waited before completing the main quest, I did thoroughly enjoy many side quests. But come on, WATCHING someone else fight the main boss is the final level??? What the hell?! All you have to do is WALK to the endscene and watch it... LAME.

Posted by Deep Lee at December 6, 2007 2:06 AM

The worst game I played to finish was the Silver Surfer for the NES. It was a cold and rainy day during Christmas Break when I was in junior High. I started that morning and played it all freaking day. I ended up with more points then I knew what to do with and some cheesy credits.

Posted by Idiotpoe at December 6, 2007 11:10 AM

Gotta be KotOR2.

After the first one, I had such high hopes for the sequel. But then everything was just "off" about the second. The NPCs weren't as interesting, the setup was confusing (you're not Revan from the first game, but we're gonna keep making references to him and asking you to remember what you did), you could see the heel turn coming from 8 miles away, etc. etc. I kept slogging along hoping things would take a turn for the better, only to be rewarded with a basically unfinished ending.

(sigh)

Posted by Pfellah at December 7, 2007 12:32 AM

My game would probably be Super Paper Mario, it.. is SO repetitive :(..

Posted by PikMini at December 7, 2007 6:13 PM

very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce

Posted by Idetrorce at December 15, 2007 10:53 AM

"Kya: Dark Legacy" comes to mind. It was a present from my father, so I felt obligated to beat the thing.

The graphics were nothing special. The animation was nothing special. The voice acting was enough to make me want to cry, and the scripts for the cutscenes were just as bad. (How many sixteen year-old girls use the word "must" on a regular basis?)
The premise was absolute crap- A teenage girl, Kya, and her step brother find her evil father's "secret" laboratory (in a hidden room that sits SMACK DAB in the middle of their house) and end up being transported to a strange world that he created. Oops.
Once you start playing, you get tossed into your basic "tutorial" level without instructions. The only time a helpful message flashes across the screen is if you get caught in a trap. The traps are neither pointed out nor explained.
If you suffer through that first level, you reach a short story section, where it's explained that Kya's father is the evil overlord of this world, her step brother is probably in mortal danger, and the local currency is called "Nooties."
Next you get to suffer through Kya's martial arts training and her acquisition of a hair accessory that also serves as her only weapon. Then begins your trek through the game's six or eight levels. After clumsy boss fights, horrifying "skate board" sections, "free fall" sections, and flying a plant-powered zeppelin, you get to the final boss. You defeat Kya's evil father in a horribly unbalanced fight, and end up getting stuck in yet ANOTHER freaky world. That's right- they were planning to make a SEQUEL to this crap. The worst game never made, eh?

Posted by Bunny at May 26, 2008 3:01 PM