Forums > Game Talk > favorite "so bad, it's good" games?

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creditsdude (42) on 4/7/2021 4:43 PM · Permalink · Report

I'm kind the kind of person that enjoys mediocre or downright terrible games more than critically acclaimed ones. Right now, for example, I'm playing the Shrek 2 game for the PS2 and I'm constantly amazed by how a lot of the characters, plot elements and locations aren't even in the movie it's based on. Does anyone else a favorite game that's terrible but still fun to play?

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Deleted (15789) on 4/7/2021 11:02 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

Try Welcome House (The Sega Saturn version if you don't want to see loading screens all the time)

It's all you've ever loved about Resident Evil (tank controls, awkward camera angles) minus the horror elements. :)

There's nothing special about this game, but it has its charm with its unique presentation and slapstick humor and it's pretty accessible for non-Japanese gamers.

The Granstream Saga is another often overlooked game. If viewed in isolation, it's a pretty decent linear game that's only going to give you a WTF moment by the time you've almost cleared it and got to a plot twist. It's scenario was written by the same guy who did all the Gaia SNES RPGs and Actraiser (Though it feels like by the end of the game he was running out of time and/or ideas). You might be put off by its presentation (in particular, 3D models of people being without faces, while Kapok and Korky didn't suffer the same treatment!) but it's a labor of love that's running without any slowdowns and Action RPG fans will have some fun playing it.

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Daniel Saner (3503) on 4/9/2021 7:56 AM · Permalink · Report

That looks absolutely amazing, even just the screenshots tell me that I'd love it! =D

I think I really need to track down a copy of that. When looking for it on eBay, I saw that there even was a sequel!

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Daniel Saner (3503) on 4/9/2021 1:50 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

This may be too obvious an answer, but I always had a soft spot for Limbo of the Lost. Best remembered as the game whose visuals were made up almost entirely of screenshots taken from other games. When I heard about that story I was curious enough to fetch a copy off eBay. It was pretty easy back then, cost me about five bucks; I see the prices have increased by about a factor of 100 now.

Why do I think it's a "good" bad game? For one thing, beside the blatant and illegal asset rip-off, you still feel like this was someone's passion project, the dream of releasing their own game. Despite the shortcuts taken, you still notice that also a lot of effort went into it, even if the results are super amateurish. But they tried, and you notice they tried, and that makes a real difference. Especially if you compare it to the other kind of asset flip, the trash that is swamping Steam these days. Those are completely legal because what they rip off was either free or cost them $5 on the asset store, but they're all just lovelessly slapped together turds thrown onto the market in the hopes that some buyers don't notice and fall for it. Limbo of the Lost, on the other hand, slapped the stolen assets together with love =D and genuinely tried to offer something.

The other part is, of course, the story behind it. Obviously, most people just see it as this crazy story to joke about, but because I was so fascinated by it I kept looking into it for a while and saw these other sides to it, sometimes almost heartbreaking. What a lot of people still know is that the game had been in development since the 90s, when it looked like it would have had more original artwork. A few years later I found an article online that tried to interview the people involved in the development; it was some online magazine, I don't remember now but it was in a language I had to tediously Google Translate to get it; nobody else in the world seems to have ever cared to get some more background on it after joining in on the initial "haw-haw". And it was a really sad read. The main developer refused to be interviewed, but the others claimed they didn't know about the plagiarism until after release – they worked on isolated stuff like script, puzzles and voiceovers, and sometimes wondered why the main guy doing all the visuals and coding was so reluctant to show the progress of the full game. And those other guys had all of these stories of disappointment, feeling betrayed, having had a dream shattered. And I can only speculate on what went on in the mind of that main developer, if he truly didn't know any better, if he thought nobody would notice, or just thought they'd get away with it… my best guess after everything I've read is that it might have been one of those slippery slope situations, where people start cutting corners under pressure, and start losing sight of all the lines they cross, until the hole they dug is so deep that it's too late for them to get out of it anymore.

It's my favourite "good bad game" not just because it does have some loveably trashy qualities of its own, but because the story around it makes it so much more than the actual end product itself.

Edit: I just spent half an hour trying to find that article. It was from a Swedish magazine that since disappeared. It's archived here, in the text of the blog post you can find a link to the PDF of the issue with the full article. This is literally the only serious treatment I've ever found of this story after the initial dust and gloating had settled, and now it's only preserved deep in the Internet Archive. This is how we're losing the history of our digital age, people!

Edit 2: And it just gets sadder every time. While looking this up again, I found that Laurence Francis, one of those other two team members, died in 2018, aged just 57. Here's one of those heart-breaking quotes of his from the article, re-translated from Swedish, on how he managed the time to work on the game: "It was thanks to my partner. She gave up everything. She worked all the time, so I could sit at home and work on this game. So you understand why she doesn't want anything to do with this story. She's disgusted by what happened. She gave up so much, so I could do this."

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The Fabulous King (1332) on 4/9/2021 9:51 PM · Permalink · Report

Best post in Mobygames in a long time!

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The Fabulous King (1332) on 4/11/2021 11:43 AM · Permalink · Report

The sad thing is that Laurence Francis had actually a pretty cool voice. If the project wouldn't have stigmatized him as a laughingstock, I think he could have had a career in voice roles in adventure games. I discovered that he even has written two books.

A strange trio, but there was some genuine talent there. It's sad that it never found it's outlet.

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Flapco (46075) on 4/10/2021 3:03 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

Xena: Warrior Princess for PS2 is pretty bad but i liked it enough to create an entry for it:) I even finished it.

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Mobster223 on 9/28/2021 10:42 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

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Alianger (44) on 4/14/2021 4:37 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

MD: Time Killers Dark Castle The Faery Tale Adventure Awesome Possum Action 52 Slaughter Sport Battle Master Wayne's World Sword of Sodan

SNES: Home Alone Wayne's World Street Combat Lester the Unlikely Eek the Cat Bebe's Kids Timecop Casper

NES: Cheetahmen 2 Action 52 Rocky and Bullwinkle Transformers Fist of the North Star Super Pitfall Dragon's Lair Ghostbusters Little Red Hood MUSCLE 10-Yard Fight

SMS & GG: Great Sports series Rise of the Robots GG F-16: Fighting Falcon SMS Cyber Shinobi SMS Alf SMS The Flash SMS

GB: Oddworld Adventures GB Alien vs Predator GB Wayne's World GB Xenon 2 GB Dragon's Lair GB Bubsy II GB Road Rash GB

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Adzuken (836) on 4/15/2021 3:55 AM · Permalink · Report

Going to have to go with Trespasser: Jurassic Park. It's mainly the fact that the biggest threat to you is a bunch of drunken dinosaurs that trip over their own feet. It never stops being funny.

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Maddeline Alberts on 9/8/2021 2:24 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

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Phoebe Pattinson on 9/13/2021 7:18 AM · edited · Permalink · Report

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ganther bale on 9/28/2021 12:32 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

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Jack Builder on 10/4/2021 7:50 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

[Q --start creditsdude wrote--]I'm kind the kind of person that enjoys mediocre or downright terrible games more than critically acclaimed ones. Right now, for example, I'm playing the Shrek 2 game for the PS2 and I'm constantly amazed by how a lot of the characters, plot elements and locations aren't even in the movie it's based on. Does anyone else a favorite game that's terrible but still fun to play? [/Q --end creditsdude wrote--]

Hahaha, Watch Dogs, dude. Why is she bad? 1. Physics 2.Increaseliness 3 worse than the second part Why is she good? 1. Atmospheric 2.With a cool plot 3.Has its own cool mechanics

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Pseudo_Intellectual (66248) on 10/5/2021 3:58 PM · Permalink · Report

I love keeping "Bomb'X" in my pocket as a game I can pull out and blow someone's mind with.

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June Delas on 10/29/2021 6:03 PM · edited · Permalink · Report

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Iowinm on 4/5/2023 12:15 PM · Permalink · Report

Totally agree with you, Shrek 2 on PS 2 is a hit! I also love Bionicle: The Game, very cool game.