Games

Pixel Perfect Memories: Worst NES Game Ever

74 Comments

Hey ya'll!  Sorry I was absent last month.  Maybe the wedding got in the way.  Either way, I wanted to give everyone a head's up on what's going on over at my website.  I just recently finished the Star Trek countdown, and coming soon will be the Top 100 NES games.

So far this column has talked about great games and my site will follow suit.  So today let's discuss terrible games.  Won't limit it to the NES, but if you have a nomination for worst NES game, let it fly in the comments.

Without counting unlicensed games, like Action 52 and Bible Adventures, there's still plenty to choose from.  Of games that were somewhat well known, I'd have to nominate Bart vs. the Space Mutants.  Awful graphics, shoddy game control, a botched license with little humor, and overall confusion as to the goal pretty much sums it up for me.  Of course, the above description could apply to about 100 games on the NES.  So what do you say?

Also, of course, feel free to discuss any awesome finds you've come across recently.

74 thoughts on “Pixel Perfect Memories: Worst NES Game Ever”

  1. Worst NES Game: Bible Adventures. I'm sure a lot of you have seen the Angry Video Game Nerd video on this one, but having played it in my youth, I can absolutely mark this one up as one of the very worst ever. Three games - all tedious. Two of them involved stacking various things on your head and trying to bring home various animals. Those were boring and time intensive (it says something that it was almost impossible to really 'lose', but everyone I ever saw play them only got to about the third or fourth level before saying "nope"). The third was the infamous 'Moses' game, where you had to carry Moses safely to the finish line of every level. That one could have been interesting, but terrible level design, annoying AI, and a quirky failure condition (you *need* Moses to beat the level, but if you or a enemy soldier tosses him into the river, there's no way to win, but since the level doesn't restart from there, you have to wander to the finish line anyway so you can get scolded and restart the level. Just bad.

    Worst Game Ever: Sonic the Hedgehog 2006. Horribly broken in just about every way.

    No new games this month. I think that I'm on a Batman kick now, though, so I'll probably start up Arkham City pretty soon.

  2. Worst game of all time is easy: ET. Nuff said.

    NES game... gosh, this is really hard. Perhaps one of the most frustrating was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the first one. The one with the horrible underwater bomb defuse section. I always wanted to finish the game, but was never able to get through the technodrome.

    I recently finished Red Dead Redemption. What a phenominal game. Great world, good story, fun to play (especially hunting animals). Nothing like dropping four bears in the woods, then while collecting the skins getting mauled by a fifth.

    Got back into Dark Souls. Friend of mine just started playing it. Can't say enough good things about this game.

    Also got Playstation Plus a couple months ago. Some great deals out there. I've tried Infamous 2, Just Cause 2, Hard Corps: Uprising (if you like Contra on NES, check this game out), Supersonic Rocket-Powered Battle Cars (something like that). Plus I was able to get NBA Jam at a discount. Also won a code for Rainbow Moon, which you should check out if you're a fan of old school RPGs.

    Regarding the Batman kick, I borrowed Arkham Asylum from my nephew a few months ago and started it, but haven't been playing it lately (RDR and Dark Souls gettin' in the way). Enjoyable and I look forward to checking it out more.

    Oh, and if anyone's interested in playing something online, I'm twinsfan4 on PSN.

    1. I recently finished Red Dead Redemption. What a phenominal game. Great world, good story, fun to play (especially hunting animals). Nothing like dropping four bears in the woods, then while collecting the skins getting mauled by a fifth.

      I don't get to play many games any more, but that's the last game I bought and I still enjoy picking it back up when I can.

      1. John Marston is my favorite video game character ever. What the game lacked in difficulty, it made up for in every other way.

    2. The underwater bomb scene was stupidly difficult. It's certainly not a terrible game, but considering how much promise it had, and to be ruined by the 2nd level, a label as one of the most frustrating seems accurate.

    3. Hard Corps: Uprising is actually a sequel to Contra, of sorts. It's fun as hell, but ramps up in difficulty quickly.

      How did you get that code for Rainbow Moon? I get plenty of stuff with PS Plus, but man, I want that one and don't have the space to drop any money on it right now.

      1. Hard Corps for the Sega was one of my favorite games as a kid. I played it all the time. I think I got to the true final boss maybe three or four times.

      2. I won the code participating in a contest on IGN. It didn't come from PS+. I nearly bought the game, but decided to look for a free code on twitter. Found 2 contests and won one. I've played about 5 hours and do enjoy it. However, I got back into Dark Souls, so I'm afraid it may get ignored for a while.

        1. I knew it wasn't from Plus, as I'm pretty diligent about what comes out there; I just didn't know where to find it...and I assume it's long gone now. Oh well.

    4. Nothing like dropping four bears in the woods, then while collecting the skins getting mauled by a fifth.

      going for that wilderness badge, eh (that one was a bitch)? i took the time to get 100% in that game, and i had a great time doing it.

      What the game lacked in difficulty, it made up for in every other way.

      yeah, that.

    5. There are about 100 games for the Atari that are worse than ET. It's just none of them nearly destroyed the video game industry.

      1. I remember reading that there were more copies of the game created than consoles existed.

  3. For me, the worst NES game may have been Back to the Future. Why am I dodging bees in this game? Why does it look so crappy? I have no idea.

    Anyway, I've been back on an NBA 2K11 kick since the NBA offseason is in full swing. I was just recently playing a playoff game against Denver (2015 season), they still had 'Melo and I was shocked by how realistic the AI can be in this game. Denver's possesions consisted of bringing it down the court, passing to 'Melo and standing around watching him take a terrible jump shot.

    Also, I'm still playing through Skyrim. I'm determined to finish the main story line, dammit.

    I'm still working on Dead Space, as well, which is a pretty intense game. I got to a part where I had to shoot asteroids with a cannon in a first person perspective to prevent them hitting the ship, though, a type of game section I generally hate. I'm still working up the motivation to try to get past that stupid part.

    1. Why does it look so crappy? I have no idea.

      Because it was made by LJN, the absolute worst designer of games for the NES. They did many movie licenses and ruined all of them. They made many other awful games, too.

      That said, I did win the game when I was a kid. Stubborn persistence, or something. At least they got the part right about Marty having to dodge men walking back and forth holding a pane of glass and throwing bowling balls.

              1. I said "almost." Obviously no one could rival Brooks in modesty. Least of all me. I'm not nearly modest enough.

      2. I got hung up on 18 for a while, but otherwise nothing gave me too many problems. It was a good game, and way creepier than I expected. Now I'll have to play 2.

          1. Ditto. I liked the first one more than 2. The gels were a lot of fun, but the puzzles felt more linear to me. I would still recommend the sequel though.

  5. I find myself barely playing games at all these days. Even my Diablo III playing has curtailed almost entirely from the initial blitzkrieg.

    However, my recent trip to Italy has given me the jones to get back into the Assassin's Creed series. I've been going through Assassin's Creed II and Brotherhood finishing up all of the minor quests I had breezed past before. I'm now considering picking up Revelations, but it looks to be the exact same game all over again. Maybe I will just skip to Assassin's Creed III, although I doubt if I would play it enough to justify the purchase.

    And on topic: the worst game I ever owned was called Elemental Gimmick Gear for the Sega Dreamcast. I didn't buy it on purpose, the guy at the store just mistakenly put it in the case when I was trying to buy a used copy of Ecco the Dolphin. I decided to give it a shot since I had already taken it home. Nothing about the game, from the story to the gameworld to the gameplay itself, made any sense whatsoever. I did not keep it for long.

        1. Actually, just let me toss it out there for all the Nation's gamers that this is a huge game sale week at Best Buy. Look for the Summer Blowout Sale at the site. Metroid: Other M got tepid reviews, but is down from $50 to $5. Several other big name games are in the $5-$15 range.

          1. Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor. Buy Sin & Punishment: Star Successor.

            That is all.

            Oh, and I suppose I'll comment on Other M. Never have I been more upset about a direction they took a story in. I haven't been able to muster the energy to play the game pretty much solely for that reason.

              1. It's the Wii sequel to Sin & Punishment which was released on the N64 in Japan, but didn't make it to the US until it hit the Virtual Console. Both games were developed by the awesome Treasure (Ikaruga, Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, etc.) and they both play as rail shooters. They're fast, hectic, really fun, and super well designed games. I highly recommend it at $5.

            1. Oh, I forgot that I had started that one. Mass Effect 3 ended up eating into the time I was devoting to it, but it was pretty fun. I'll have to go back to it soon.

      2. Really getting into this promotion, eh?
        I haven't said anything yet, but congratulations. Way to paint those lemons gold (from your show withering on the vine into higher things at your current employer).

        1. They promoted me and made it clear that another promotion may not be far off. I'm pretty satisfied with things at the moment, for sure.

          1. Nothin wrong with sellin out to the man so long as it lets you buy more (or better, or whatever) beer.

  6. i've been off the video games for awhile, but i've got max payne 3 for a week from the old library. so far it's... okay.

    1. "Okay" is pretty much how I felt about the game, too. I played for a few hours the first night I got it (I was really in the mood for kind of a mindless shooter), but haven't touched it since. I've been meaning to get back to it, but I just haven't felt up to it. I'm assuming it'll get forever buried in my Backlog of Shame since the fall release schedule ramps up pretty rapidly next month. Darksiders II, Sleeping Dogs, and The Last Story all on the same day? Uuuuuuugh!

  7. I'm really struggling to think of the worst NES game I've ever played. I know I was the most disappointed with Dragon's Lair. I'd never seen the arcade machine but it sounded cool. I saw there was an NES game and rented it immediately. I was disappointed when I got home and it was a terrible action game that controlled like butt. My cousins had Bible Adventures and I recall that being pretty awful.

    I actually bought a huge box of NES stuff last month. It was probably the best video game related deal I ever got. After shedding the duplicates and stuff I had zero interest in & giving my friend without an NES a huge box of stuff I ended up with around 45 awesome games for ~$40. I've been in the mood to hook my NES and start playing some of the games but I just don't have the time.

    I started Theatrythm: Final Fantasy and Gravity Rush this month. They're both really fun and I wish I had more time to play them both. I intended to play Theatrhythm a bunch this weekend at the con J & I attended, but I mostly ended up hooked on getting Street Pass hits. It's so addictive. Whoever designed that idea at Nintendo is flat out brilliant.

    The gaming related thing I'm most excited about this month is that I got five games closer to finishing my Dreamcast collection (it's not every game created for the system, just every game I want). Four of them were games I didn't expect to find for a while, and I got them all at relatively good prices. I've got the itch now, maybe I can finish it up by the end of the year. I think I only need twelve or thirteen more games.

    1. Dragon's Lair is truly horrendous. Good choice. The first four feet in the game are hard to surpass without dying 50 times or more.

  8. Also been a while since I've played video games. Trying to get back into finishing Skyward Sword. Still looks painfully bad on an HDTV, but I'm getting used to it. I do like that it has a built-in hint system, though I feel like they're less like hints and more like exact steps to move forward.

    1. We had that game on one of our big screen displays at the store. I begged them to put it on one of the smaller screens, but the supervisor at the time wasn't having it. Then she saw it and about puked. I really don't know why the Wii has no HD capabilities. What a weird decision.

      1. It's hard for me to remember, but I think when the Wii came out HDTVs were still fairly expensive and not a ton of people owned them. I know I bought my first 32" HDTV for like $650 in the summer of 2007. I assume they misjudged the market for HD when they created the system. It's a very Nintendo decision, I think. They always have one kind of head scratcher of a decision (going to optical media a generation late, when they did using proprietary discs instead of DVDs, no HD in the Wii).

        They always seem to make their decisions without paying too much regard to what other companies in the market are doing. I know there's a lot of griping about the Wii U not being powerful enough, but I don't know. The woefully underpowered Wii had two of my very favorite games of this console generation (New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Punch-Out!!), so I'm sure I'll have plenty of fun with the Wii U. Now if they'd hurry up and announce a launch date so I could reserve the darn thing that would be just swell.

        1. The proprietary discs in the Gamecube drove me nuts, and made me steer clear of the system until I traded a crappy old laptop for one a few years ago.

          1. I bought my GameCube the day it came out. Well, actually, it came in the mail a couple days early. I sold it to buy an Xbox when Jet Set Radio Future came out, and haven't rebought one since. I got a GameBoy Player fairly recently and I've been waiting to buy a GameCube. The mini discs were annoying, but adorable. I really love the design for the GameCube. I think it's one of the most aesthetically pleasing systems ever designed.

            1. I ended up getting one for Pikmin and the Metroid Prime games. Also, the version of Metal Gear Solid (Twin Snakes) that the system has was top notch.

              1. Yeah, I think there were definitely some gems on the Cube. F-Zero GX is one of the greatest racing games ever, and tough as nails. Wind Waker is a wonderful game. Metroid Prime is incredible. Even though it was ported elsewhere after the fact Viewtiful Joe kicked serious ass.

                1. I loved Viewtiful Joe, despite it having the worst videogame title ever for a good game, and the fact that its difficulty made me want to club a baby seal.

                  2. It is a pretty bad name, yes. I'm thinking Metal Gear Rising: Revengance will take that crown early next year, though.

        2. I assume they misjudged the market for HD when they created the system. It's a very Nintendo decision, I think.

          Yep, all of that.

          I like New Super Mario Bros. Wii quite a bit, but I actually like Galaxy quite a bit better. It's rare a Wii game can keep me off my PS3 for long, but that one pulled it off. All I have left are purple star challenges, which I may or may not do (I've done a bunch already).

            1. Nintendo games drop in price slowly, but that's less about Nintendo and has much more to do with their customers. PS3 and 360 customers know when stuff comes out, and games sell the vast majority of their units in the first week or two. With the Wii, customers come in casually, notice something new to them and say "Oh, when did this come out?" I smirk and say "about five years ago."

              So, sales are healthy for much longer, which means prices don't drop for ages. The first Galaxy just dropped to $20 after years at $50.

              1. Kart was pretty awesome. I loved Galaxy and Smash Bros. too though. I have yet to pick up Skyward Sword, despite the fact that that game was the reason I bought me Wii (well, knowing that it would eventually come out).

  9. I finished most of "Arkham City" last week. I'm still trying to get enough puzzles and trophies to finish the Riddler side mission.

      1. It was alright. The gameplay is almost identical to the first one, just the plot is different. I don't have the Catwoman DLC because we bought a used copy, so I can't say what that brings to the table.

        Overall, it was pretty good, but I probably wouldn't endorse paying new prices.

        1. I would almost say that I preferred Arkham Asylum. The game play was probably better in City, but I much preferred the organization of Asylum. The Catwoman DLC was fine, switched up the game play a little bit, but maybe not worth $10.

          1. I enjoyed Arkham Asylum a hell of a lot. The way the game progressed was similar to Metroid and I adored that about it. I could only tolerate about two hours of Arkham City before I gave up. The freedom to travel about the city was neat, but I really liked having to get power ups to get places. I was also really turned off by the constant stream of characters calling Catwoman a bitch. It was really over the top and it felt like they were trying super hard to make the game super serious and edgy. I hated that.

            1. Right now I'm having that issue with The Last of Us. It's a post-apocalyptic survival shooter, with intriguing characters and story, done by Naughty Dog. It should be a slam dunk, but in the eight-minute gameplay video, the bad guys drop something like 100 F-Bombs. It's lazy, stupid and repetitive. It honestly pulled me straight out of the world. If they're trying to hide their positions, why are they even talking in the first place, let alone dropping a constant stream of profanity that really doesn't fit the situation? Lazy, lazy writing.

              1. Yeah, absolutely. The entire E3 showing of The Last of Us turned me off pretty badly. I hated all the gratuitous violence. I think they say they're trying to make it visceral so there's some emotion, but the clips I saw just looked like another gory shootbang game. Fairly disappointing. Between that and the fairly awful last half of Uncharted 3 I'm a lot less hyped for TLOU than I was when it was announced.

              2. I too get turned off by all the language in video games. I can understand a little, to maybe set the mood, but often it's just gratuitous and unnecessary. I noticed it especially with Infamous, which wasn't terrible, but there's a lot of language at the beginning of the game, but barely any after that, maybe a d-word here or an s-word there. But when I replayed it on the evil side, I noticed how much was said at the beginning. It's just stupid.

                Red Dead had plenty too, but that felt more even throughout the game, and also felt indicative of the environment you were in.

                Violence I don't mind too much as long as it's not overly gratutious, like God of War gratuitous. I don't need blood spurting like I just punctured a water balloon. And I don't need gore. That's unnecessary. And I'm not sure I want to play something visceral as The Last of Us that seems to be designed to make us question our violence or delve into areas that no one would realistically ever want to be in. I've heard a lot of excitment over that game and I just have not gotten it yet.

                1. Violence I don't mind too much as long as it's not overly gratutious, like God of War gratuitous.

                  The God of War series is pretty much my least favorite series of very popular games. I find Kratos to be a despicable, boring character. The violence is really over the top and very much turns me off. I played the demo of the third game, and I remember having to tap a button to tear some guy's head off, or something. Sigh. Oh, the sex minigames are embarassing, as well.

                  Even some non-gratuitous violence makes me uncomfortable. For example, the Call of Duty games. Relatively realistic settings, relatively realisitic characters all being killed basically mindlessly. I love the Gears of War series, but at least there you're killing tons of non-human creatures.

                  1. Hmm. I feel more engaged by Call of Duty's realism than Gears of War's cartoonish constant violence. Tomato/Tomahto, I guess.

                    That said, anyone that didn't feel pretty heavily ooked out by "No Russian" should really take a deep look inside to see if the desensitizing hasn't gotten a little out of hand.

                  2. I enjoy Call of Duty, but only the multiplayer. I found MW3 particularly overwhelming in terms of over-the-top action violence (think Transformers). I understand that people think it's cool to have millions and millions of troops and vehicles all shooting at each other, but after a while, it honestly just gets boring. (I had the same complaint about Avengers)

  10. I ended my subscription to gamefly a couple of months ago. Just don't have enough time to make it worth it anymore. I did end up buying about 10 discounted games before I ended it. The nice part about buying used games from gamefly is that the included DLC isn't used up (like the Catwoman DLC for Arkham Asylum).

    I started playing Final Fantasy XIII-2 a couple months ago, but couldn't get into it. I'll probably try again later.

    I just finished up Dead Island, which I quite enjoyed. It plays a little like Borderlands, but doesn't feel quite as expansive. There were some bugs with the inventory system that were pretty annoying. There's also a point in the game where you can't go back to the rest of the map, and I hate it when open sandbox RPGs do that.

      1. Chocobo racing was fun for approximately five and a half minutes. I'm in favor of any thing that gets rid of the need to do that.

        1. My close friend at roommate at the time, Leif, is a completist for the series and will do any side quest, no matter how much it sucks. He played Chocobo Racing until he'd bred and won everything there was to win. Normally this consisted of him feeding greens to the Chocobos, getting the wrong type, and then resetting the game for hours at a time. It was horrible.

          1. I got the gold chocobo, but used an on-line strategy guide to make sure I always had the right greens

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