The Top 10 Games I Wish I NEVER Played!

Now in the 21 years I have been played A LOT of games. I mean a crap ton of games. Out of EGM's top 200 games of all time, I come in at about 180. But out of all the greatness my life has experienced..... (sigh) You gotta eat your turd sandwich every now and then. These are games i was dupped into buying, renting, or borrowing from friends growing up. And I haven't forgotten these travesties in my life. I'm looking at you Mark Christiansen who let me borrow number 10 on my list.

10. Contra Force (released September 30, 1992 NES)

Hey you wanna play some Contra? Fluid run and gun action. Just you, your guy, your gun, the Konami code and a friend (if you want)? We got a run and gunner but you don't fool me this is not Contra. This is less Contra than Metal Gear 2 is Metal Gear. What's wrong you ask? First and most important NO ALIENS! Instead your fighting some terrorist organization. Gone is the style of upgrades and along with that is the good ol' spreader (lame). Also you remember how awesome it was to play original contra with a friend? Well they still have co-op but it’s so slow its like watching a slow motion video. I reject this as a Contra game. From now on I will refer to it as "That Generic Shooting Game".

9. E.T. (released December 1982 Atari 2600)
This would be at the top of most peoples list but not on mine for a few reasons. First, as a child I only played it for like 5 minutes realized it is a piece of crap and stopped. And as an adult I bought it at a pawn shop for 35 cents, so its not like a broke the bank on this one. But, unlike a fine wine it does not get better with time. It just got moldier and stinkier (I think that’s a word). Everybody knows all about the history, that it single handedly killed the industry in the early 80’s, and the landfill where possibly millions of unsold E.T. copies are buried. But what a lot of people don't realize is that back then it took 3-6 months to properly program a game. But Howard Scott Warshaw only had a measly 5 weeks to make the game. If this game turned out this bad with a full programming schedule it would be higher on my list.

8. The Adventures of Bayou Billy (released June 1989 NES)

Konami, this is game number 2 on this list for you already. For those of us that have played this game know exactly why it’s on my list. There are so many layers to this game like a big, fat, stinky onion. The game was broken up into 3 game styles. Side scrolling beat-em-up, driving stages, and shoot em ups that you can use the zapper for (which is kinda awesome). First the side scrolling missions were next to impossible. They seemed to be 5 miles long with almost no power ups and every enemy takes like 80 hits to kill. Not to mention crocodiles come out of the water to kill you. And if an enemy has a knife or gun you might as well turn off the game. The driving missions are kinda cool you have a gun and grenade toss but you have to have precise aim and if you hit another vehicle, rock, pothole, bunny rabbit, old defenseless lady, baby, your car explodes. And just like the side scrolling missions IT NEVER ENDS! The shooting missions were kind of a breath of fresh air. From start to finish it’s just a non stop trigger fest. This is the only saving grace of the game that kept it out of the top 5. But it doesn’t save it from me saying “Whoever made this game so hard should be eaten by a crocodile!”

7. Friday the13th (released February 1989 NES)

When I saw this game I had to have it. I knew nothing of it at the time but just by the sheer fact that it was a Jason game it had to be mine! Soon after I realized why everyone says it’s lame. First off you’re not Jason. You’re the campers booo. Second you have to go around Camp Crystal Lake saving kids from Jason. You get lost too easily on the map, you never seem to be going the right way, and when you finally get to save a child in peril… You fight Jason in this Punch-out!!! rip-off where he mercilessly hacks at you with a machete and you seem to have waded up pieces of paper to your defense. By the way why is Jason dressed like Barney the Dinosaur? So after hours of saving kids, fighting off Jason, saving more kids, fighting more Jason, fighting his dead mothers head (I have no idea what that’s all about) and finally defeating Jason for the final time you are rewarded with the most disappointing end screen in history. I say just let the kids die!

6. Pac-Man (released March 1982 Atari 2600)

Now for those not in the know I am not bashing the Pac-Man we all love and adore. This horrible travesty barely represented the genies that Namco gave us in the arcades. Instead we were given a boxy incomplete mess of a game. The sounds were gone. The round pellets were gone; instead Pac-Man ate pez. And the ghosts were all the same color and barely visible. I stilled played it because it was the closest thing that we got at home at the time. It still amazes me that Atari was so arrogant that they printed 12 million copies of the game when there were only 10 million Ataris in existence. Which meant they thought it was going to be such a phenomenal hit that everyone that has an Atari would buy it and they would sell 2 million more Ataris to accommodate the difference. Also AGAIN, just like E.T. the game was developed in 6 weeks instead of the 3-6 month average time. Most embarrassing thing about this is that I actually own 2 copies of this game. If you are a retro game collector for your own sanity buy the Colecovision or NES version of this game they are vastly more superior.

5. C2 Judgment Clay (released 1994 SNES)

During the mid 90’s we were bombarded with good and awful 2d fighting games. And oh man is this one of the awful ones. I know I know, Shaq-fu was worse but guess what. I never degraded myself into playing Shaq-fu because I knew it was bad. You know how I knew? It was freekin Shaq-fu. What has Shaq touched besides a basketball that didn’t turn into a giant turd? But I digress. C2 Judgment Clay was the second game in the Clayfighters series. I never played the first but this game played off the popularity and sheer awesomeness of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and for that Interplay should be ashamed of themselves. I’m sure they’re not because they sure got my 60 bucks! I mean what’s not to like. Claymation, awesome! Fighting games, great. A claymation fighting game, a plague of biblical proportions. With its broken fighting engine, crappy graphics and slow motion game play I regret ever considering spending my hard earned allowance on this. In a fighting game there is always a clear winner and loser. But in the case of C2 Judgment Clay, you are always the loser.

4. Amagon (April 1989 NES)

I will forever be haunted by this game. This was the first game I bought with my own money. When I was young I got paid 2 dollars a week allowance by my father. Now after 25 weeks I would have enough money to buy a new Nintendo game. I remember my dad asking me if I wanted to buy a game. I was all like “Hack yes I do, lets go do that RIGHT NOW!” So we went to the Toys r Us in Johnston City New York and the game I bought was Amagon. Now back in the late 80s very early 90s we didn’t have endless supplies of media to tell us if a game was good or bad. Like Las Vegas it was a gamble and most of the time the house won. Now looking at the box it had everything a 6 year old would love. Dinosaurs, skulls, monsters, aliens, a dude shooting an assault rifle, and the promise of turning into an Incredible Hulk like character. But unfortunately that was the end of the greatness. The game play was relentless. You were constantly rushed by a barrage of crappy bad guys like. Birds, weird crab thing that fall from the trees, snakes that spit fire balls at you, wasps that poop fireballs at you, dancing mushrooms, muscle-bound lions that uppercut you, and strange elephant men who take like 30 shots to kill. It sounds more like a bad acid trip than any game I would want to play. Now the only good part of the game is when you transform into “Megagon” that hulk like thing I told you about. You then proceed to walk around just punching everything in the face. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE WHOLE GAME! The game was so hard I couldn’t even get past the second level. And even to this day I have never seen anyone who has legitimately beaten the scum of the Earth that is Amagon.

3. Fester’s Quest (released 1989 NES)

Remember how awesome the Addams Family was? How they were just so darn kooky and that was the joke of the whole show. Hey you remember that episode where Uncle Fester was just chillin’, sipping on a sweet tea and aliens came and invaded the town, and Fester had to go around the town shooting all the aliens with his blaster? Yeah, me neither. But that’s the premise of Fester’s Quest. Every enemy took like a million hits to get rid of. The power ups actually hindered you more than helped you and it was hard as titanium. I can’t past the second level yet again! I don’t get it its not that I can’t beat hard games. I mean for crying out loud I’ve beaten Ghosts n’ Goblins! Hard is never a factor for me, its cheapness and that’s what this game is. The cheapness of this game is worse than the rubber band effect in NFL Blitz. I don’t suggest ever touching this game but if you’re a masochist like yours truly do yourself a favor. Play it with a game genie.

2. Batman Forever (released 1995 SNES)

Wow! We are now scrapping the bottom of the pig crap silo. This is the third movie based game for batman. The original Batman on the NES is just brilliant. Batman Returns on the SNES is one of the best beat em ups of all time, reminding me of Final Fight or Streets of Rage. But, something happened for Batman Forever. The fluid controls were gone, as well as the awesome music, visuals and most importantly the fun. They basically took all the fun and replaced it with a spoonful of hatred. They took away the button mashing beat em up style and replaced it with a Mortal Kombat type fighting engine. Mix that with crappy unfair bad guys, obstructive views, and ridiculous controls and you have this frustrating piece of garbage. I hate how Acclaim took two of my favorite things Batman, and video games and made me hate them both at the same time. To me that’s a crime against nature. But wait it gets worse. You can play co-op with robin. Because everyone wants to play as Robin….(sike!) Because Batman Forever is a title that’s so bad you need to share the nightmare with others. But as bad as this game is. It’s not nearly as bad as our number 1.

1. Superman 64 (released May 29, 1999 Nintendo 64)

What can be said about Superman 64 that hasn’t already been said? From the second you press the start button you’re thrown into this puke green world and forced to… fly through rings in a certain time limit? What? You’re Superman you should just be able to fly around, beat the mess out of baddies use heat and x-ray vision and pick up heavy stuff. Not only is the game boring and has no point but, it just seems like Titus Software got to alpha testing (the period of the game development where the team works to get the bugs worked out) and said “Good enough. Ship it out!” You run through walls into no mans land, Superman looks like Rocky Dennis from “Mask”, and the game just makes no sense whatsoever. So in the game you fly through rings, destroy some cars, fly through rings, save a couple citizens, fly through rings, beat a couple bad guys, and the FLY THROUGH MORE FREEKIN RINGS! It’s just a never ending cycle of crappy game play with time limits. I wish that I had a time machine to go back and shred the memo that Titan sent out to make this game and sully the good name of Superman for the past 10 years. Now throughout gaming history, Superman has gotten no respect in any video game form. And this is the biggest slap in the face to the most recognizable symbol of good ol’ fashion Americana. Now, putting this at the top of my list is not original in anyway. But when it tops so many worst of lists I just couldn’t ignore it. Plus this game is so bad I feel that it slightly ruined my life. And if you have played Superman 64 you probably feel the same way.