Now this is a subject that really gets my proverbial goat. How I don’t envy those among us who buy bad games on the spur of the moment. Their spontaneity is a thing to be admired. I have a few friends (one especially) who seem to insist on buying terrible games, even despite my dire warnings to the contrary. “Beware the ides of Bubsy 3D,” I’d say, but alas, my words were not heeded. And whatddya know? He now proclaims it to be the worst game of all time.
Bubsy 3D. For all those whose innocence has not been completely destroyed by the experience of playing it, allow me to explain. Here is a game in which the player is told to find the 99 pieces of a rocket so they can fly back somewhere. Pretty boring so far, but nothing earth-shakingly terrible. It is only when you actually play the thing that you realise there’s a whole world of dire ineptitude out there that you simply didn’t know existed. I haven’t completed the game myself, having only played it (for as little time as possible) at my friend’s house, but I can imagine that, upon completing it, one is changed beyond recognition. If you survive it with your head held high you become a man, and if you suffer it through boredom alone, I am sure you eventually become some kind of twisted monster. You see, the fact that a game designer can sit there and concoct a game in which all the levels are giant chessboards with slightly different amounts of enemies – and think that’s a good idea – simply beggars belief.
But perhaps (and I brace myself as I say this) the designers can be forgiven. After all, it was a sequel to a game that by most accounts was half-decent. If the designers realised the errors of their ways after the deluge of bad reviews and vowed never to make something so bad again, then perhaps God in his infinite mercy will give them a place in heaven. What cannot be forgiven, however, are those games that set out solely to make a quick and easy buck on the backs of the fools among us who are so easily swayed by advertising. Take ‘Little Britain’, for instance. The TV series was vastly overrated for one, but it had its moments. But the game! I played the first level, and, having not seen the horrors of war first-hand, I rank the experience as one of the most traumatic of my life. I played that fat girl (“yeah but, no but”… urgh) and I was tasked with skating in the park and collecting as many CDs as I could. Collecting CDs, I ask you? I haven’t seen the back of the game’s box, but if they mention that as one of the unique selling points then surely anyone with half a brain wouldn’t touch the thing with a twenty five-foot bargepole. But alas, such is the stupidity of the people, it was bought en masse and as I recall, reached no.1 in the charts.
The fact is, as long as there are easily-duped consumers in this world, there will be pathetically dire videogames. So I beseech you, if you will listen: never, I mean never, buy a game if it is based on a TV show or a movie, unless the reviews agree it’s decent. Never buy a game on first sight. Use your common sense and your logic, please. 90% of games, if not more, are not worth buying. Know what you want before you buy – only then will you find true gaming greatness. If everyone heeded these warnings, who knows: one day maybe these terrible games will not allowed in public. Let us pray for that day.