Perusing through my massive back catalog of games from my childhood has led me to one conclusion: Games of the past have more capacity to challenge the imagination than those on today’s consoles.
Pocky and Rocky for the Super Nintendo! Can any childhood be complete without it? Come on, surely I’m not the only one who has played this? No?
In essence, the 2-D warmth of games we played as children symbolize a spoiled innocence that has been long lost, which has since been replaced by so-called “Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games” (MMORPGs) and first-person shooters. Games can still be addictive, but the enhanced technological capabilities of today often provide a shortcut. Technological innovation replaced game play innovation. Today game story lines are often bogged down with tedious cut scenes which just take away from the game play more than anything else. The titles on older systems of the ‘80s, ‘90s, and first half of the ‘00s weren’t just reduced to the number of polygons or shades of green. They relied on fun game play and clever artwork to keep their patrons entertained – instead of hooking hopeless addicts with make believe social lives which require a monthly subscription fee and the final ounces of one’s self-respect.
Perhaps though, I should be more balanced about the Video Game’s Golden Days. In some ways, it was actually the Dark Ages.
This is what Pokemon Stadium looked like when it first came out in 2000. It may have been state of the art at the time, but play it now and you’d better have some killer weed.
It would be misleading to say that all of the games from the past deserve recognition. Video games are just like all media: the majority of titles were overhyped, derivative, and poorly designed. This list covers some of the worst offenders from my own vast collection. After weeks of gaming I’ve narrowed down my list to five guilty titles that were considered classics at the time of their release but now do little more than piss you off. Play at your own risk.
5. Battletoads (Nes/Snes/Genesis/Arcades) 1990
The brawler genre of the early 90s arcade games is pretty strange in retrospect. For years hundreds of games were produced where the heroes wandered the streets beating up seemingly infinite thug antagonists. But no title in the genre was stranger than Battletoads.
Just think of them as Ninja Turtles knock-offs, only they eat insects instead of pizza. And they’re from space. And their leader is a bird instead of a rat.
The gameplay is very similar to Double Dragon, Tradewest’s signature, arcade-style beat-em-up from the 80s. But when the 90s came around, it became clear that ass-kicking, reptilian protagonists were the way of the future. Like Double Dragon, Battletoads was notorious for its extreme difficulty. In the first level, you pound lots of pigs into submission with punching and kicking combos, which are all executed with the same attack button.
In the next level, you rappel down a long tunnel filled with crows that attack you from different directions, often making retaliation impossible. Both of these levels are difficult, but you can forget about finishing the next which forces you to jump over a sea of balls while riding in one of those speeders from the Endor scene in Return of the Jedi.
The game also features the option to have two players cooperate to beat the game, which would make the idea of victory at least semi-plausible. But trying to get through each level without punching the other player is not only frustrating, but inconceivable.
In the present day, Battletoads retains its nostalgic status in the form of a popular prank phone call perpetuated by 4Chan and other trollboards.
4. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (Nintendo Gamecube)
I played this abomination years ago when it first came out at an Electronics Boutique at the mall. It was probably the only time I’ve been laughed at for playing video games in public. I don’t blame them – I would have laughed at me too. I must have looked like a moron, banging on those plastic drums. Still, the gaming establishment regarded Donkey Kong Jungle Beat as a major innovation at the time it was released in 2005. The game also got undue credit merely for its ability to invoke positive memories of the groundbreaking Donkey Kong Country series for Super Nintendo.
But in reality, it was just another of Nintendo’s often feeble attempts at innovation while ripping off a more successful property, in this case the original Donkey Kong Country. The level design is repetitive and the bosses are recycled with just a few minor changes.
A gorilla with dreadlocks? Really? That’s the best idea they could come up with? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering this is from a development team who thinks rhythm controllers are best suited to platforming games.
This game play demonstration of the DK bongos is fairly self- explanatory, but it doesn’t mention anything about your palms turning itchy and red halfway through the first level. I’ve never played any other bongos that do this. It’s only the DK bongos that cause this unpleasant side effect, it seems.
Like Mario Party, this game is much more fun to play while drunk. The bongo drums, although stupid and of little cosmetic value, can withstand all of the inebriated pounding you can muster.
3. Altered Beast (Genesis/Arcade)
“Wise Fwom Your Gwaaaaaaave.” This is 16-bit voice acting at its finest.
It’s also the finest part of Altered Beast. Once the game actually starts, it’s all downhill from there.
More than anything else, this game epitomized the late ‘80s game industry’s obsession with creating half naked male protagonists who went around punching stupid looking monsters. At a certain point you collect enough power-ups to alter zombie He-Man into beast man, whose form varies based on the level you’re on.
And that’s when the fun really starts, right? Wrong again, Beast Man! That’s when the game really starts to kick your ass.
Your seemingly undefeatable new beast form is no match for this poop demon that regurgitates heads.
2. Mortal Kombat 4 (Playstation/N64/Arcades)
Back in the ‘90s, the concept of playing Mortal Kombat in 3D was every MK fanatic’s wet dream. And in 1999, those dreams were fulfilled when Mortal Kombat 4 was released on consoles and arcades.
It was awe inspiring to see Liu King turn into a huge Shenlong dragon and chomp Johnny Cage in half, blood spraying all over the arena in awesome 3D graphics. It was nothing short of exhilarating. Even more awesome was the new female ninja character Tanya, with her face-crushing, neck snapping fatalities. In retrospect, this game was the clumsiest 2D to 3D transition I’ve ever seen, and the latter fatality is probably one of the worst in the series.
Even further tarnishing the once mighty MK series were embarrassing spinoffs such as the awkward beat-em-up MK: Special Forces and Sub-Zero: MK Mythologies.
MK: Sub Zero Mythologies could have made the list, but it was just too good. Sub-Zero fighting Ultra-man riding an obese Godzilla? What more could you want?
There was even a remake of Mortal Kombat 4 for the Dreamcast called MK: Gold, which somehow looked even worse than the Playstation version. This marked the beginning of the dark ages for the MK series, and we wouldn’t see a decent 3D Mortal Kombat game until 2004’s awesome Mortal Kombat: Deception.
Unfortunately, most of the awkward MK4 exclusive characters managed to get invited to that party as well. Some of the main characters failed to make the jump into the polygonal realm. Instead of getting the classic badass villain Shang Tsung, we get the shape-shifting assclown, Shinnok.
Problem?
1. Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario World 2 (Super Nintendo)
I know what you’re thinking. “How can Jeremac, a self-proclaimed retro gaming addict, attack a classic Super Nintendo platformer!” Yoshi’s Island is widely regarded as a worthy successor to Super Mario World. Don’t be sucked in by this game’s cutesy art style or the upbeat soundtrack. Yoshi’s Island is nothing but a pain in the ass. The difficulty surpasses that of any other Mario game and the stages are so long that it gets extremely tedious during the later levels. I’d rather change baby Mario’s diapers then torture myself trying to get through the world 4 castles again.
But what really kills this game is baby Mario’s annoying screaming every time Yoshi takes damage. Wahhhhhh! Wahhhhh! Wah! It never ends! Isn’t it enough to die a cheap death without a baby screaming as you plummet to your doom? Why couldn’t they just make a sidescroller about Yoshi? That’s what I thought when I first played Yoshi’s Island. Three years later I was ecstatic when Yoshi’s Story was released for the N64. No crying babies, just lots of different colored Yoshis and fun, laid back platforming game play.
Ah, I’m feeling better already.
I don’t normally have temper tantrums when I’m playing video games. But Yoshi’s Island has succeeded in becoming the first game that has caused me to jump to my feet, toss my retro duo console across my parents’ basement and shout, “EAT S****, BABY!” at 2 in the morning. Whether it was because of the game’s in-your-face mega happy visual style, crying babies, or its over the top difficulty, my retro duo is now out of commission.
Thanks a lot, asshole.
Honorable Mention:
The N64 controller, despite being just an accessory to gaming, makes the list based on its credentials of being an oversized, overrated and poorly conceived piece of s***.
When I was seven years old and playing Goldeneye on the N64 for the first time, I thought the best way to hit the Z button on the back of the controller was to give it a sharp pelvic thrust.
Glad you enjoyed being young. The social games? My husband and kids play them together. They play with their friends. It’s not the last bit of self- respect. It’s how they are feeling their way into being grownups. I love how it’s brought them together. The graphics are mesmerizing enough that they have “enoughness” for my borderline ADD kid, who couldn’t cope with a simple board-game- not enough stimulation. He played Monopoly through, for the first time ever, on a video game. He’s learning to deal with his father’s co-workers, online, and learning to be treated with respect, and to be respectful,and do things in teams. The older kid is playing with his friends, after-school this way. We all live far enough away, that they can’t easily play together afterschool. Some kids are hitting puberty, some are still fragile young children, but all of their avatars are equally strong. They can play in teams as equals.
I’m a big, big fan of the new generation of games. and I don’t even play.
7 y.o. With an N64? Geez, I still have my TRS color computer. First game was on a cassette tape.
We loved these games as a kid? Sonny, we didn’t love these games as adults, which is what we were when they came out.
If I had a kid before I gave him the gift of a video game I’d give him a blueprint of the floor plan of the house with arrows marking the path out the front door and into the real world.
My parents steadfastly refused to buy us a gaming system (Atari at the time), and compared to how my peers turned out I think we ended up the better for it. We did have an Apple IIGS with some educational games; I really loved Number Munchers because once you had the primes memorized it was really relaxing. But I spent HOURS with the word processor and PrintShop, writing and drawing. Sometimes for school but mostly for myself.
I know my comment sounds stuffy but I’ve lived by that rule: I’ve climbed a lot of live volcanoes and slept at the top with a full moon and 10,000 ft. thunderheads sweeping in from the sea the same level as I am. I’ve motorcycled completely around the isle of Bali and hiked the Inca Trail twice and been to all the major temples in the hiking only deep Guatemalan jungle.
That is because I have steadfastly refused to allow myself to be “Amused to Death.” The mere mention of video games gives me a pain. Read “The Machine Stops” and then go outside.
I rode a bicycle across New Zealand, horses in Fiji, raced enduro motorcycles in the Sierra Nevada, rock hounded blast agate in the Black Rock Desert and somehow still found time to play MechCommader.
Sheesh.
@John Lwu
Not so much stuffy.
More like you’re bragging.
Congratulations for doing all those things. Not that I believe you but this is the internet. My belief is not relevant.
I’m a gamer. I’m a lot of other things but a gamer is one of them. I love to play games.
However I also enjoy reading, tinkering in my shop, hunting, and camping. Gaming is fun but it has not hindered me in my other pleasures in life.
Those things you’ve done? It wasn’t because you didn’t game. It wasn’t because of anything really.
You saw something you wanted to do and you did it. You could have easily done those things and played a round of Tetris too.
You forgot “Larry the Lounge Lizard”. I think that was out around 1986.
I think the title was “Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards”.
Never played it. I did try to play Leather Goddesses of Phobos, but could never get out of the men’s room in Sandusky.
You’re right, what scandal that stirred up. Sex in a videogame? Proved that computers were the devil’s tools.
Of course when you actually played it there was no sex, only some mildly suggestive texts and at the end a cutscene that had a naked (if you had a lot of imagination, given the pixelation, he may have been wearing underwear) Larry tied spreadeagled to a four poster bed.
Some other classics from the era were the Eye of the Beholder games.
Difference of course between these and the ones mentioned is that they’re not as cheesy (though LSLLL comes very close).
“Your seemingly undefeatable new beast form is no match for this poop demon that regurgitates heads”? Ffssh–I’ve known that since the age of eight! (The disturbing part is, I was born in the sixties.)
Damn kids. I was finished with college before any of these were even released.
You want to play a bad video game? Go dig up an Atari 2600 emulator, and try playing “E.T.” That one will send you screaming back to Yoshi (whatever the hell that is) in a heartbeat…
Man, I was way past my kiddie game phase by the time these came out.
My embarrassing childhood video game memory is the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man.
Anyone for Tel-Star? Made me an alcoholic.
anybody ever reach the end in “Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe”? That was a pretty funny game from very early in the 80′s. Just getting out of the room before the dozer came along to clear the path for the new inter-galactic freeway took a few days.
I remember hearing about a third party game for the Atari 2600 called Custers Revenge. A naked little Colonel Custer walked from left to right killing naked Indians, ducking and jumping over arrows. At the end of each level he entered a village of teepee’s and raped an Indian woman. Horrible graphics. Horrible idea.
WORST. GAME. EVER.
Can’t really comment on the rest of the article, I haven’t played any of the games listed. My only issue is this bit:
“The N64 controller, despite being just an accessory to gaming, makes the list based on its credentials of being an oversized, overrated and poorly conceived piece of s***.
When I was seven years old and playing Goldeneye on the N64 for the first time, I thought the best way to hit the Z button on the back of the controller was to give it a sharp pelvic thrust.”
If you weren’t holding the central prong of the controller with your left hand (easy access to both the Z and stick) then there’s your problem! Very few games required your left hand to hold the left prong.
Tiger Heli on the NES was addictive, but I could only “beat” it using the Game Genie. Except you couldn’t beat it, the game just started over
All those games mentioned are incredible wonders to the ones I was teethed on. Ah, kids these days!
I was there for Pong & the original Asteroids games.
I’m afraid I left gaming after ADVENT and the Zork trilogy.
I do miss Infocom.
Great post. Having downloaded emulators in a vain attempt to recreate my lost youth (and thousands of quarters) playing such arcade staples as Starwars, Popeye, Space Invaders, PacMan, Joust, etc., I can identify! They are appallingly bad 25 years on.
I loved all the KROZ games played on the old 286 and 386.