NekoJonez: Top 10 ~ My least favorite games.

There is a lot of shitty games on the market. Yet, in this list, you won’t see a lot of those “easy targets”. This list contains games that you might like or might be good. But the next 5 games I don’t find myself enjoying or there is too much broken in the game for me to finish it. This list is in a totally random order as well. I also challenged myself with picking releases on Steam, Gameboy, PC… And no easy targets like badly programmed Android apps with misguiding information on the market space. So, which games on this list do you dislike as well? And what are your most disliked games list? And why? So, without any further ado, and hoping that my introduction is long enough, for nicer lay-out sake, let’s start this list. Shall we?

#1: Aladdin (Gameboy)

Arpegi review

What more can I say about this shit that I haven’t told in my original review on my personal blog yet? Nothing much. I remember that I lend this game together with Duck Tales from a cousin. In the day, I was happy to even play shitty games since my parents were extremely strict in buying games for me.

But now, that I got this game from somebody who wanted to give away his collection, I feel a bit sad owning this game. Especially when I those reviews from the better SNES and Sega versions. The jealousy raises extremely fast.

I don’t understand how IGN can let this game pass. There are so many faults with this game that it’s a real shame that people play this game out of only nostalgia and therefore defend it.

Terrible controls, confusing health system, random crashes, bad graphics and even worse weapon range destroy this game completely.

#2: Barbie: Game Girl (Gameboy)

 

Wikipedia page

You can now go and judge me all you want, but sometimes I get my games from friends who want to give their old collection, that was gathering dust, to me. A school friend from high school gave me her old Gameboy games as a sort of goodbye gift.

Honestly, when I was a kid, I rarely played my sisters games. One of them was Barbie’s Secret Agent on the Gameboy Advance, and honestly, it’s a rather nice game. I even dare to go as far to recommend it for children and for a good and easy game snack.

So, I thought that it couldn’t be that bad. Oh man, was I proven wrong? This game is extremely bad. One of the worst Gameboy games I ever played.

Weird animations, confusing power-ups, too long death scene, LJN bad jumping, bad sound effects and irritating music just make this game pull your hair out. It’s not even worth to use it to torture your sister with it. It’s that bad.

#3: The cat and the coup (Steam)

Steam page

An interesting designed game doesn’t mean that you’ll get an interesting game. As I tried to review this game and failed to write a great article, I use this opportunity to rip it apart.

Due to its absurd art style, the message and meaning this game tries to deliver get lost extremely quickly. That makes my senses to try to enjoy the actual game. But the game is so boring that you better stay away from it. Unless you enjoy these types of “different games.”

It’s free on Steam, so no harm is done to your wallet. But some puzzles ask too precise timing, the art is just a mess, the menu doesn’t save your settings and confusing progress makes this a bad game. Such a shame while it tries to deliver a message about a president… I think.

#4: Playmobil Interactive – Top Secret Agents (DS)

Arpegi review

I played the first Playmobil game on DS. If I remember correctly, it was the one about knights and kingdoms. It was rather enjoyable. I also played Playmobil Hype on the Gameboy Color. Such a hidden game in the library of Gameboy Color games.

Then I played Playmobil – Pirates on the DS. While it was a step down from the first DS game, it was still rather enjoyable.

Then this “gem” came. And man, while I already ripped this game apart in my original review, I still wish I could rip it a new one again.

This game is complete and utter sh*t compared to what Playmobil games where in the past. From bugged out controls we go to the most cheesy names.

I read a review that this game is a great pass time for kids. But don’t give them this, they deserve better. Give this to your kid when it was naughty. It’s a passable game, but …. Wait, I take that back. It’s a great game to use for an easy rip-apart target.

#5: Nickelodeon – Avatar – The Legend Of Aang (PC)

Arpegi’s First Impression

I promised to finish it, but honestly, I deleted it for now. I continued to play it after my first impression article on my blog but I gave up. I couldn’t take the utter failure that is this game.

I even ran into more problems than just the ones I mentioned. Yes, even more, broken-ness in a game. I’m so disappointed at THQ to be a part of this failure. They brought us way better content then this quick cash in.

I own several Avatar games. One on Gameboy advance and another one on PS2. And they pass with ease. They are really good. I even finished the Gameboy Advance game several times.

I wish I had never played this game, to begin with. It had a lot of potential and with a big name like that, it could have been great merchandise and a nice collector item. Yet, even to collectors of Avatar, I say, don’t even dare to torrent this game to take a look. You will regret it so much.

It’s ugly, the controls make no sense, the menu is idiotic, the shortness of the game is displayed on the box, the installation makes the disc spin extremely fast, the installation instructions are on the disc itself… Read more of the faults in my original article.

5 “honorable” mentions.

So, before we close this article, let’s get a bit lazy. I was planning to make a top 10 but I’m tired from a heavy day in college. And I wanted to publish two articles like promised. Also, they installed new outlets in my gaming room so I have to take care of the wiring setup I had. Anyways, the five other games with a short description why I don’t like them, go!

1. Disney’s Story Studio: Mulan (PS1) – This game made me shudder beyond belief. It’s a kids game but it holds your hand a lot. While it’s one of the best games on this list, I didn’t enjoy my experience.
2. Flikken 2 – Moord in het hotel Ganda (PC) (Dutch link) – So, making a game from a TV series makes for bad results. But what if you have a local TV show that gets re-created in a game in a country that isn’t ready for gaming studios? You get a rip-off of a game that gets boring extremely quickly.
3. The Bard’s Tale (PS2) – I just couldn’t get into the humor. I found it actually more annoying to play then funny. Or I just played it on the wrong system.
4. Dune (PC) – They just tried a tad bit TOO hard with this game. And it makes me dislike the game for its faults. I can’t get into it.
5. Fortune Summoners: Secret of the Elemental Stone (PC) – I expected a lot more of the developer. They failed to deliver here.

Final words

While I totally changed my mind of which articles I was going to write today, I think this list turned out pretty good. I had this list sitting in a word document since the start of September. And I’m glad to finally write it. Of course, it went under a lot of changes, but which list doesn’t.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this (mini-rant) list. If you want to read my latest review, go over to my personal blog. My latest, 16th, review is a special one since the developers of an Android game mailed me to review their game. And so I did…

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First Impression: Nickelodeon – Avatar: The Legend Of Aang (PC) ~ A messy pile of junk.

Image from Spong.com

Wikipedia link to the multiplatform game article.

I’m going to not mess with you guys. This game is a pile of junk. I saw scores of 5 out of 10 for this game but that’s way to much for this disaster. Honestly, I own also the PS2 and GBA version of this game and it’s a lot better then this game. The PC game nearly feels like an insult to the series, gamers and fans of the show alike. I’m even surprised that THQ published this train wreck.  Never have I seen this bad of production quality for a game released in 2007. Yeah, it made me facepalm several times. I bought this game as a free game along two other games and I kind of regret paying my hard earned cash as a student for this game. For any parents that want to buy an Avatar game for their kids, stay away from this game. I’ll fully play this game but it’s already clear to me that this game is going to get an extremely bad score. Let’s dive into my first impressions of this “game”. 

Signs of bad things to come.

I wished I had seen this at the store but the box-art betrays already that this game is actually a bad game. The first thing that betrays the bad state of the game is “Journey through 6 exotic locations.” Yup, six of them. And here is the cherry on the cake, it’s the very first sentence on the box after the expected: “Water. Earth. Fire. Air.” So, the game length must be short. But I can forgive that for a game based on a TV-show since they are mostly meant to milk money out of your pocket(s).

But then I look to the system specs. And this made me drop my jaw. What I saw may shock you. This game, released in 2007, can run on Windows 98/ME/2000 and XP. No mention of Windows Vista, that was released a year before this game. The low system specs really made me worry. 

Then I opened the box. No instruction manual nor advertisements. Odd considering it’s from a TV-Show. But for whatever reason, the developers decided that it’s a good idea to put the installation instructions on the disc itself. I’m quite serious, it’s on the disc. What you need to do when the game doesn’t start automatically.

And it made me skin crawl reading it. Most computers have DVD drives for a while now, and they still use CD’s? Yes, this game is using a CD-Rom. It isn’t shy to hide it. It display this on the disc itself. I had to take other games to actually confirm that other games didn’t have this and some big games didn’t have the CD-Rom logo.

It gets worse.

The lack of (decent) screenshots, I can explain. I had to go and make screenshots myself. This game is actually skipped by a lot of reviewers and that’s another sign of how bad this game is.

In addition to that, the game has no option menu. So, you can’t adjust the controls, or change your screensize. Oh no, that’s too advanced for the developers of this game.

What’s also to advanced is creating an acceptable installation program. It’s as basic as you can get. Even the name is slapped with red letters, almost with paint. With annoying background music. The installation is annoying. Plus the disc spins so fast that I was afraid my disc was going to be damaged.

Then to the launcher. The game is even bad there. It has an option to re-install the game. Sigh, what’s the use? Let’s go to the actual game. Let’s not rant about the bad menu and the possibility to replay the introduction movie. And that the extra button doesn’t have an animation.

In game.

The controls are awkward. You barely use the keyboard. Walking goes extremely slow. The game plays like a point and click game. The dialogues are extremely cheesy and not enjoyable. The tutorial is basically in a conversation and it made me sigh extremely deep. Plus, you can’t click anywhere to go to the next lines in a dialogue. Nope, you need to click exactly on their arrow. Lucky us, that the space bar skips it too.

Above that, they don’t use the buttons on your keyboard. Nope, mostly everything is done with your mouse.

The graphics are a joke. It’s almost made for a portable system. The above view doesn’t help the game visually. But visually it’s even worse as some characters look the same.

The voice acting sounds bad. I even think that it isn’t the original cast that did the voices. And if they did, I’m confused and I can’t believe it.

Invisible walls are everywhere. Even on some places where it isn’t supposed to be.

Plus you can’t sit on an air cloud when trying to attack. Nope, not going to happen.

And finally, you don’t have any visual representation of when the game saves.

I’m going to leave it here. I’ll torture myself with finishing this game but I think I’m clear already, avoid this game. It isn’t worth your money. At all.