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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Review: Playmobil Top Secret Agents (DS) ~ Climb ladders with stone.

This game didn’t have a site, so here is the GameSpot page.

My buddies over at Arpegi wanted me to review something different. Games I never really finished like SuperMan 64 came up. So, it’s obvious that they wanted me to review a bad game. I selected this “gem” instead. It’s a game I, tried, to play and never really 100% finished. Like I said in my Corpse Party impression article, I usually write about games when I’m completely finished them. But this game is different. On my old Dutch blog, I had simply a list of why this game was so terrible. But I am now going to give it a fair review. Let’s see if I wasn’t harsh on this game, I actually went ahead and replayed the game for as long as I could and then started writing this article. I’m rather curious how it’s going to turn out since my list of things I want to talk about has grown each part of the game. That can be a good and a bad thing since I didn’t tell if it were praises or complaints. One thing is for sure, it isn’t a good game, it’s not going to get many points. But like the Happy Video Game Nerd has a video series, how bad is it really? And is it worth playing it? Even if it’s only to see how bad it truly is.

So, what’s the game?

Alright, let’s dive right into this game. The first thing I have two men and… I already forgot what the game is about. The story is so generic that it isn’t even funny anymore.

The music sounds like a track of not even a minute looped over and over. The music sounds like something you created in a program where you can drap & drop samples into a timeline. Normally, I listen to the music while writing the article but this time, it couldn’t get me even in the mood to write or remember how to game played. It’s generic and forgettable.

So, I haven’t left the menu screen just yet. The font of the menu screen is terrible. When I’m on the menu where I can pick new game files, the word “game” looks almost like the replaced the letter G with an eight. Some letters are pretty close to each other and some letters like the “W” seem to take up more space than they should.

Plus, it wouldn’t surprise me that they didn’t play many games before this. Which game actually says, “Delete game file”? So, in other words, you can delete the game files from the menu screen? Well, that’s a very new and risky feature. I’ll be sure to try that out.

So, I skip something’s at the menu’s and dive right into the gameplay. One thing I can credit this game for, the game looks clean and inviting to play. They did a good job there. The music gets a little better but doesn’t sound catchy at all.

Plus, the names in the game are way too generic. Like the story. A random bad guy suddenly takes over the city or world, and after you have some minor plot holes, you are left with a confused mind after the introduction. I can understand that

this game might be based on a cartoon series or a comic book show, but they then leave the guys who don’t follow it in the dark and confused.

Climb ladders with stone.

After the opening you get an extremely long introduction to the story. And like you would expect, the story is extremely generic. It’s a kids game, I can forgive it, but it’s extremely forgettable. Wait, I actually take something back. A kids game can have a pretty memorable story. If you take of the Nintendo games and look at the games that are targeted towards kids, you can clearly see that the story is rather interesting.

I went through the effort to make this screenshot myself. This clearly shows the Q&A (word for quality testing) that this game lacks. The animation goes down in my eyes since you don’t climb up the ladder correctly. And here is the thing, it’s the very first ladder you meet in the game.

I forgot to actually mention that you need to press select after each dialogue/cut scene. And I had and actually have still trouble adjusting to that.

I touched on this before, but the names don’t improve this game. “Jet Girl” and “Agent SPY” are two prime examples of this.

I have to give this game also some positive feedback, the game’s controls actually do work. And the game does what’s supposed to do. But let’s go further into the game and let’s see if it gets any better, or worse.

The driving. 

On my previous blog I didn’t give this game a full review like I’m doing now. And I want to correct that with this review. I often play games that aren’t targeted to my age or my style but when I got to the part where I needed to hit the road, I gave up.

I’m truly patient with games and I like to give them a fair chance, but this game truly lost me at the driving part. The drivers ride all over the place, and they can’t turn at the road at all. It almost seems like the game’s animation is based on a grid and made, and then the levels are designed. Sadly enough, this makes things break when a level is changed.

Also, I don’t get why on so many places you need to be reminded of the current date & time. That’s a truly “helpful” feature. It’s almost like they put this feature in so that the kids have no excuse anymore when it’s time to stop playing and go to bed.

I also don’t like how the game asks your language every time you start. This is similar to how you don’t have buttons to not have to press the select button after the 2nd or 3rd time you have to. Genius!

But back to the driving. It simply doesn’t work solid enough. Textures can glitch in each other, cars can ride in each other. Your radar/ map isn’t clear, and the controls truly are messed up and unresponsive at times. Also, the game got a lot uglier at these parts, and it looks pixelated as if this game was for MS-DOS. What I’m trying to get to is that this game doesn’t look sharp in these sections.

And at this part I started to lose interest. I remember from the first time I played this game that this is actually a couple of mini-games. And judging that you can select these from the main menu, the game must be a “blast to play”. Since this gives me the impression that the game is rather short. Well, time for the conclusion.

Conclusion

The good:

+ The game controls work in the non-driving sections.

+ The non-driving sections look inviting.

The bad:

– Nearly no sound effects.

– Lacking story.

– Terrible driving.

– Annoying menu’s.

– Bad animation.

– Music that isn’t fun.

– Extremely easy game.

– Glitchy AI, like in the driving parts.

– Uncreative names.

My final thoughts:

I played a lot of Playmobil when I was young, and I got excited when I saw this game. And oh boy, do I regret this buying impulse that I sold this game. I normally don’t get rid of games, but this game was way too terrible to play.

This game lost my interest extremely fast. I have read some other reviewers talk about this game being fun for kids, but if you are a kid or a parent, I don’t advise this game at all. There are way better games to play that are way more fun and will be less frustrating than this one. The Nintendo DS library is big, but this is one of the games that is a mold on the game library.

Don’t buy this game, it’s awful and doesn’t deserve any positive attention. I might be very harsh here, but this game is one of the worst games I have actually played without seeing it in a TOP 10 list.

Score: 20/100