The inevitable worst game ever thread

General software. From trouble with the Banyan Tree to OCP Art Studio, post any general software chat here. Could include game challenges...
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Mike Davies
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Mike Davies »

I just remembered Super Cycle as a terrible game. The collision detection is... well ... not there. The game disintegrates into a turn left turn right until you get bored. I struggled to off-load this title earlier this year.

Which is a great pity. I tried the Atari ST version earlier this year, and found it to be quite playable. So it's a keeper on this system.
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Morkin
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Morkin »

Devils of the Deep.

Flippin' eck, makes Transylvanian Tower look like a world beater.

...And the "Out of left field" choice:

Pimania.

Forgetting the whole rigmarole about the prize, not sure if there was anything actually resembling a game in there.
My Speccy site: thirdharmoniser.com
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PeteProdge
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by PeteProdge »

Mike Davies wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:36 pm I just remembered Super Cycle as a terrible game. The collision detection is... well ... not there. The game disintegrates into a turn left turn right until you get bored. I struggled to off-load this title earlier this year.
"Any more realistic and you'd need insurance to ride it" boasted the advert, which passes anything said by a Darling brother for sheer optimism.
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Contact Sam Cruise »

I didn't think much of Friday the 13th. Dull gameplay and awful graphics. A real horror of a game.

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PeterJ
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by PeterJ »

I have to add Embassy Assault which was written by ICL. I was given this soon after I got my Spectrum. What a disappointment!

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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Contact Sam Cruise »

As a child it was easy to be sucked in by colourful and exciting artwork on the box or cassette inlay cover! For example, Survival...

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Pobulous
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Pobulous »

I think Survival gets a pass, as it's educational.

Biggest disappointment for 13 year old me was Monte Carlo on the Horizons tape, closely followed by Foxes and Rabbits!
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by AndyC »

Contact Sam Cruise wrote: Thu Oct 25, 2018 8:21 pm I didn't think much of Friday the 13th. Dull gameplay and awful graphics. A real horror of a game.

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Were it not for the ridiculous bug that you can only attack in one direction (and Jason always attacks from the other side) it might have been a reasonable game. There was the inkling of an interesting concept to it, but it's just unplayably buggy.
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Ralf »

Worst game ever obejctively? Probably some totally unknown crap written in Basic by some 10 years old kid ;)

But should we really include such stuff in our discussion? I think not. You shouldn't mock kids for their first attempts.

Commercially released games are different stuff. You have right to expect them to be decent. Especially if they were great on other platforms and turned out terrible and disappointing on Spectrum.

My personal disappointment is Final Fight:
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Yes, the sprites are huge. Just as huge as the original. Seems impressive, heh?

But everything moves slow just as you walked in a swamp. It's totally unplayable.
Adn the graphics are really bad. Here on screenshot it's even okay but during most of the game you watch ugly, blurry backgrounds, automatically converted from some better platform.

It was a great beatemup on arcades but turned out too much challenge for Spectrum.

Fortuantely today we have great Mighty Final Fight which uses smaller sprites but performs splendidly :) ( https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/index.p ... 6&id=32221 )
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R-Tape
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by R-Tape »

PeteProdge wrote: Sun Nov 19, 2017 2:31 pm You could put a gun to my head and I'd have created a better game in BASIC in about 15 minutes
This sounds great. It's like entering the CSS CGC, but with a gun.
Ralf wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 8:59 pm Worst game ever obejctively? Probably some totally unknown crap written in Basic by some 10 years old
Nope. It's still SQIJ.
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Hank Scorpio »

Voyage Into The Unknown was pants, I can remember as a youngster loading it up on my uncle's speccy and probably spending about a minute trying to play it.

Macsen cocked up their conversion of the TV Quiz Countdown as well, first by making it two player only instead of the usual player vs CPU option and in the letters round it wasn't unusual to end up with trying to spell a word form something like "WXXUZNUOP" rather than having the more common letters in the English language appearing more often.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

I remember reading a review of Mastertronic's 1985-The Day After back in the day in Microhobby magazine (IIRC) and I had never read such a bad, bad review of a game up to then.

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Even nowadays I haven't downloaded and played it yet, so I haven't my own opinion, but... anyone can confirm that game disaster?
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MatGubbins
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by MatGubbins »

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Sun Nov 04, 2018 3:04 pm I remember reading a review of Mastertronic's 1985-The Day After back in the day in Microhobby magazine (IIRC) and I had never read such a bad, bad review of a game up to then.

ImageImage

Even nowadays I haven't downloaded and played it yet, so I haven't my own opinion, but... anyone can confirm that game disaster?
I remember buy it, and trying to play it back in the day. Did I get far? Nope. Just tried again and managed to get a few character squares to the left and kept crashing. The gravity is all eff-ed up. This is a game for Pavero to make a map.
1985 makes Voyage into the Unknown a very playable and enjoyable game.
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WIWC
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by WIWC »

1985... hateful.
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by AndyC »

I might have gone for Jack and the Beanstalk or SQIJ, but now you've reminded me that Voyage Into The Unknown exists and that was spectacularly awful. Here's a crappy BASIC effort and you have to guess what the controls might be. I mean, at least with SQIJ you knew the controls were broken and had the opportunity to give up right away. VittU just printed up random messages as you mashed away at the keyboard trying to figure out if it would get better if you could just get past the starting sequence. I suspect it did not, I never found out - I traded my copy in the playground for JSW2, one of the best deals I ever made.
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Wall_Axe »

1985 is rubbish but as a kid I didnt just dismiss it. The sound and graphics created a bit of an atmosphere.

I thought that it was my own fault for not being good enough at the game. I just considered it to be too hard but something that I could possibly take a go at now and again.
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Vampyre »

Going by games I actually owned as kid, and therefore had to put some effort into, rather than stuff I've fired into an emulator for 20 seconds I would nominate:

Corridors of Genon - I know this is considered a decent early Speccy game but I absolutely hated it. It was abysmally boring.
Warlock of Firetop Mountain - a very dull game of aimless wandering.
The Crypt - The loading was probably quicker than the movement response. Best thing about it was the inlay artwork.
Ah Diddums - A bug-ridden, tragically programmed, incomprehensible travesty from the most overrated, overly arrogant software house in Speccy history.
Jack and the Beanstalk - An utter, almost impossible, mess.

Funnily enough I owned original copies of all the above - not that I bought or chose any of them personally! I think all of them came from an aunt. None of them would have been Bargain Bucket stuff either - I had them all in 1984.
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Spector
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Spector »

Hello everyone. I would like to begin by adding an obvious game to this list: Super Soccer by Imagine. Awful Awful Awful Awful Awful.
BloodBaz
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by BloodBaz »

Definitely SQIJ for me.
I love how you have to POKE before the game even runs (or remember to put BASIC into CAPS MODE before loading?) Inspired!
Also, a game that has made me laugh out loud in it's well rounded crapness!
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Alessandro
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Alessandro »

Spector wrote: Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:46 pm Hello everyone. I would like to begin by adding an obvious game to this list: Super Soccer by Imagine. Awful Awful Awful Awful Awful.
Hi Spector.

Super Soccer was indeed horrible, but wait until you try Peter Beardsley's International Football. Or Gazza's Super Soccer :x

Gazza II, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether.
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Contact Sam Cruise »

Alessandro wrote: Sun Nov 18, 2018 1:27 pm
Super Soccer was indeed horrible, but wait until you try Peter Beardsley's International Football. Or Gazza's Super Soccer :x

Gazza II, on the other hand, was a different matter altogether.
I remember Super Soccer being a sluggish mess with colour clash and awkward controls. What was the best Spectrum football game? Emlyn Hughes International Soccer
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stupidget
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by stupidget »

Vampyre wrote: Mon Nov 05, 2018 3:29 pm Jack and the Beanstalk - An utter, almost impossible, mess.
Yep, I too had the gross misfortune of owning this hideous projection of digitised vomit. The music was just an aural assault and the colours were migraine inducing. Shame on you Thor.

Like Vampyre says, because I actually spent my hard earned paper round money on it, I at least tried to play it.

Another game that I owned and utterly hated was William Wobbler!!! My goodness what a godawful waste of Zeros and Ones which could have been put to much better use. Shame on you Wizard Computer Games (UK), yep, I'd never heard of them either.
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

William Wobbler reminds me of that stupid character in Star Wars ep 1 whose name I don't want to remember...

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MatGubbins
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by MatGubbins »

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 8:05 pm William Wobbler reminds me of that stupid character in Star Wars ep 1 whose name I don't want to remember...

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Yup, is that an atomic mushroom cloud in the background?
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stupidget
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Re: The inevitable worst game ever thread

Post by stupidget »

MatGubbins wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 8:48 pm
Yup, is that an atomic mushroom cloud in the background?
It's actually the game designers soul being sent to eternal damnation for releasing this abomination :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
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