(This suggestion from @spudgfsh)
The worst games you’ve ever completed
My first thought here is that I don’t play terrible games, and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t play them to completion unless they were very short and/or very easy. Naturally, some of you may suggest that one or more of the games I have played to completion are crap, but in my opinion (which is of course the correct opinion) they are not.
My second thought is this: Oh god, I completed Kameo.
Before getting onto that, let us have a little wander through some of the less than stellar titles I’ve finished in the past, shall we? Thank $deity I keep a gaming diary to remember them all…
Pre-History
That is, before I started the diary. I recall just one game from this era which was awful but I completed it (and completed it many, many times) was The Great Waldo Search, a game based version of the Where’s Wally? books that was crap because it was so easy. Maybe it was aimed at toddlers. Maybe, it was just crap.
2005
A few poor titles come to mind – Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude for the Xbox wasn’t as saucy, fun, clever or good as the previous games in the series. Too many repetitive minigames, not enough point-and-clicking. Sonic Heroes (Gamecube) was the first of many, many disappointing Sonic games but far from the worst, and although Tony Hawk’s Underground and its sequel (both GC) are bad in terms of Tony Hawk games, they’re far better than that Waldo thing.
2006
The only game in 2006 I completed that’d I’d class as even nearly crap was Prey for the Xbox 360. It was clever, had some great mechanics (like the spirit walk), but there’s a bit in the middle where you are forced to kill your girlfriend and I hated it for it. Stupid game, but not rubbish.
2007
In 2007 I completed Ico which I didn’t really enjoy, but far, far worse was the monstrosity I mentioned earlier: Kameo: Elements of Power (360). Even back then, Rare had lost whatever made them great in the 8 and 16bit eras, and Kameo was an unfinished, wax-covered, repetitive pile of festering… something. The only reason I completed it was to prove wrong those who said if I played the whole game, rather than the unenjoyable demo, it’d redeem itself. It didn’t – the demo was a warning. I’ve written about it in the past, so won’t repeat myself, but to sum up: No.
2008
Remember when Xbox Live died and to make up for it Microsoft gave us the worst game on Xbox Live Arcade for free? You know, Undertow? Yeah, that was pretty poor, and I did complete it in 2008, but was it worse than Kameo? Of course it wasn’t. Also free (but for advertising reasons rather than barely-there apology) game Dash of Destruction wasn’t great either, but again, not as bad as Kameo.
2009
A crap-free year! At least in terms of games I completed, anyway. Bit Boy!! on WiiWare was the weakest of those from 2009, but even that was enjoyable.
2010
Some people would say The Conduit on the Wii was a bad game. Those people are Wrong people. It’s a FPS which is excellent to control with the Wii remote, and I don’t need to discuss it further because it’s not crap.
2011
Hold you hard, boy. Hold you hard. In 2011 I played the Neo Geo game Magician Lord on the Wii (there’s an SNK compliation I worked my way through over a few months) and OH MY is it a stinker. For the full story, you can click here, but it makes Kameo look like Bioshock. It is nightmarishly bad with everything that can be bad about a game all in one go. I summed up my thoughts in one line: “If this game were a person, I’d both punch and kick it in the face”. Bear this in mind when I tell you that also in 2011 I completed both Sonic Colours (Wii) and Sonic Generations (360).
2012
This was a good year, especially compared to the last. Mad Dog McCree on the 3DS wasn’t fantastic, and the Goldeneye 007 reimagining on the Wii wasn’t as good as the N64 original, but neither even approached crap.
2013
When the worst game you’ve played all year is F-Zero (the SNES original, on the Wii U Virtual Console), then the rest isn’t even worth considering for this blog post.
2014
Another decent year. There were dips with Blok Drop U (Wii U) and Armillo (also Wii U), but neither can trouble Magician Lord.
2015
84 games I completed last year. 84. You’d expect there to be a fairly large pile of crap titles in there as a result, right? Somehow, that isn’t the case. By a very long way, the 3D remake of Altered Beast for the 3DS was undoubtedly the lowest point of the year, but even that has some slight redemption. I wrote about the original Mega Drive game here, and all that is still true, but it’s no Magician Lord.
2016
At the time of writing I’ve completed 64 games so far this year, and almost every one of them has been great. Or at least good. Apart from two, and they’re both Batman. The Mega Drive game Batman was a favourite back in the day, but replaying it a few months back left me disappointed as it’s not as wonderful as I recall it being. That said, it’s still reasonable and Magician Lord has nothing to fear from it. However, Batman Returns (Atari Lynx) is far, far worse – as I wrote here.
And the winner isn’t
It’s down to whether Batman Returns (Lynx) is worse than Magician Lord (Neo Geo) and I have to say, it’s a tough call. They’re both terrible, I never want to play either again, and either would be hard to beat as I very much doubt a worse game than the pair exists that I would want to see through to the end.
However, Batman Returns does have a few things over Magician Lord. It’s a lot shorter, with just four levels, and Magician Lord seems to go on and on and on and on and on forever. Batman Returns also has a cheat of sorts that lets you continue (and ergo allow you complete it, and be done forever with it, much quicker) which I don’t think Magician Lord has. Even if it did, it’s still a much longer game. Finally, when it came out, Magician Lord cost about £150, which is around THREE HUNDRED POUNDS in today’s money, whereas Batman Returns was nearer £30 (approximately £60 now). Imagine spending £300 today on the stinker that is Magician Lord. I’d be physically sick.
There’s your answer then. The worst game I’ve ever completed is Magician Lord for the Neo Geo. But please, never play Kameo: Elements of Power either.
