Five gaming veterans, five tales of gaming woe and epic failures - find out what grinds our gaming gears...
You gotta love Winston Churchill. The cigars, the heavy drinking, and thoroughly beating the Bosch in World War II - awesome stuff. He also had a way with words, and one of my favourite quotes of his is this one:
"Why, you may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together - what do you get? The sum of their fears."
Okay, that quote also lead to a so-so Tom Clancy novel, but it's a neat quote nonetheless. And it's true, also, of gamers and game journalists - get us in a room together, and sooner or later you'll end up with the sum of all our fears. In other words - really, really bad games.
So, inspired by PC & Tech Authority's Worst Product's We've Ever Reviewed article, we thought we'd take the same look at some of our worst gaming experiences. So, without further ado...
John GilloolyWhen the term bad game experience springs to mind two things instantly come up. One is the lagtastically imprecise attempt at a control scheme that was marketed as Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. The other is the compounded awfulness that was Red Faction for the Ngage.
My loathe affair with Red Faction began at E3 in 2003, where Nokia's press conference featured a video with Lead Designer John Romero talking more about being the ‘creator of Doom' than his port of Red Faction to Nokia's gaming phone. The video ended, lights dropped and across the loudspeakers came ‘I'd believe anything that guy said' as the lights went up to reveal the Daikatana visionary himself on stage.
He then proceeded to show a demo that effectively undid months of careful hype from Nokia. Not only did blowing up the tiny 176x208 pixel screen accentuate how horrible the graphics were, but the multiplayer demo clearly showed how pathetic the control system was, and how Romero had learned none of the real lessons from the Doom experience.
Namely match your game to your platform.
Red Faction for NGage had the single most stupid system for a first person shooter that I have encountered, with a handy button to toggle between moving and aiming ensuring that gameplay was stilted and awkward rather than smooth and slick. Rather than adapt to the limited controls, Red Faction forced an evolved PC fps control scheme onto a directional pad in a magnificent example of form not equaling function.
It was both the last big E3 moment for Romero and a stylish torpedoing of what was supposed to be the NGage's coming out party.
Josh LundbergOddly enough, some of my fondest memories have been of playing terrible games; I played Conflict: Desert Storm over and over and never once thought it was anything other than fantastic. But its not.
My favourite bug ever had to be 'the trip' I encountered with a friend in GTAIII. Down by the docks on the grassy area to the right, there is a slight hill. Walking down it one day the anonymous player character simply tripped over for no reason, followed by that famous word: WASTED. It seems this level of realism was taken into account with the inclusion of Euphoria in GTAIV.
As a youngin', or more accurately, an early high school student, I loved playing Operation Flasphoint every day after school. The game was buggy and had mediocre character models, but the vehicles looked spectacular and it offered a scale of warfare I'd never seen in a game before. I. Loved. This. Game.
Which is why its so sad to say that my worst gaming experience in recent memory was definitely Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising online. Yes, the singal player was so-so, I'm not ignoring the downfall there, but the multiplayer was positively abysmal.
The absolute lack of care was utterly disgraceful. A minimum ping of 150 isn't particularly helpful in an online war simulation (if you call OFPDR that), let alone one on such a large scale. Two pathetic patches were made available and then Codemasters held their hands over their ears and screamed 'nahnahnahnah I can't hear you!', having stolen the innocence of my war-waging youth.
All this being said, Bad Boys 2: Miami Takedown is probably the worst game I have ever - and will ever - play. The very mention of its name should be considered a crime against humanity - playing it an offense punishable by death. The developers should be sent back to the Bizarro World, because clearly their sense of fun is inverse to that of the rest of humanity.
If you'll excuse me, I have to go and hand myself in to the Human Rights Commission.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012