Bad Ideas in Video Gaming; What Were They Thinking Quiz

Answer: "Custer's Revenge" (Atari 2600)

The game got poor reviews and sparked controversy because it depicted a cowboy raping a Native American woman, who is tied to a cactus, while the cowboy, Custer, has to dodge arrows heading towards him. It's was ranked #1 in the "Ten Most Shameful Games of All Time" by Gamespy.com, a video game website providing reviews and tips on video gaming.

Answer: "Aquaman: Battle of the Atlantis" (GameCube and XBox)

The game got a 1 of 5, the worst score a game can get by X-Play for having poor control, graphics, storyline, and for becoming a poster child for future bad games! This game was only for GameCube and Xbox; a version for the PlayStation 2 was cancelled, sparing PS2 gamers.

Answer: "Revolution X "(various consoles)

The game's main goal is the rescue members of Aerosmith, who have been kidnapped by a group known as New Order Nation. The New Order Nation bans all youth culture including music, television, and video games. The game did well in the arcade version but did poorly in the home-console version because the looping music, some poor controls of the firing control for a side-scrolling game and the poor digitalized graphics at the time.

Answer: "Pac-Man" (Atari 2600)

One of the reasons why the version for the Atari 2600 earned poor reviews was in the graphics was a mess in compassion of the arcade version, which did well. The version for the 2600 becomes one of the notorious games to be at fault for the Video Game Clash of 1983, but not the worst. There's another, a movie-based game, that did much worst... we'll meet this game later on in the quiz.

Answer: "Night Trap" (Sega CD)

The game didn't do too well because some of the graphics didn't add up with the game play. The game becomes tiresome after awhile because most of the rooms that to watch are empty, and it brought controversy because of the mature acts. For example, some violent acts and women in nightgowns were seen.

Answer: "Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon" (CD-I)

The game didn't have some the excitement like the "Zelda" series from the Nintendo. One of the failures of the game was in the graphics, which appear to be done by a pre-school student. Another flaw was in the game play, which sometimes crashes during the time. Unlike the Nintendo counterpart, it didn't become a decent RPG, but a horrible hack-and-slash sidescroller.

This was pinned as one of the worst "Zelda" games, ever.

Answer: "Ethnic Cleansing" (PC, 2002)

This game was penned as among the worst games ever to be released due to its promotion of Neo-Nazism. The game requires the player to kill blacks, Latinos, and Jews; and the player must kill Ariel Sharon, who was the prime minister at the time of the game's release in 2002.

The Anti-Defamation League lobbied the developers of Genesis3D to change their policy to ban any game promoting racism. The Interactive Digital Software Association was also told to encourage their members to do the same. The game was mostly ignored by the gaming community and the press, leaving the game with no review.

Answer: "Superman 64" (N64)

The game did poorly in sales and has received poor reviews mainly due to the graphics and controls that were hard to maintain. Some said that the controls were hard to manage, and the Superman's flying ability was limited. This made missions within the game difficult to complete, if any could begin at all.

This was panned as the 7th worst video of all time, according to Seanbaby's EGM's Crapstravaganza: Worst Games of all time.

Answer: "Bubsy 3D: Furbitten Planet" (PlayStation)

When "Bubsy 3D" was released for the PlayStation in 1996, it was panned as one of the games in its series. The cause of the downfall for the "Bubsy" series were in the graphics which weren't exactly what anyone had in mind. The controls of the game were also another main issue; the camera angles were either delayed or were hard to control.

It had been said the game had killed the series because no new game has been released since 1996.

Answer: "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (Atari 2600)

When the programmers at Atari2600 were to make a game version of the film, "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", within two months, the programmers did all they could to make the demand. However, the game was panned as "the worst game of all time"! The main reasons for the decision were the repetitiveness of falling in the pits although the game and being caught by the FBI agent, poor graphics, and the idea that it was not being true to the film. Ashamed, the programmers had extra copies of the game buried in a landfill in New Mexico and they began the Video Game Crash of 1983.

The video game market, luckily, recovered by 1987 with Nintendo Entrainment System (NES) being the leading force behind the recovery.