The 'so-bad-it's-good' game

Video Games
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Does anyone know games they believe fall into this category?

It is pretty common with films. There are tons of cheesy awful horror and action movies that
I love, but I haven’t played a bad game that really does it for me.

I have been playing Ride To Hell: Retribution lately, and I have heard it referred to by
some as the Manos: The Hands Of Fate of games. There are some hilarious moments
(completely unnecessary fully-clothed sex scenes for example), but for the most
part it is just a bad game. Repetitive bland gameplay that is really starting
to test my patience. Honestly, it’s just really boring.

I know there have been a few recent games like Goat Simulator that are bad on purpose, but
that is not what I am looking for.

Any suggestions?

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The Dynasty Warriors games
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Friday the 13th
Bomberman
Wacky Wheels

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Rex Nebular - not bad for gameplay, bad for content
Monster Party was always one of my favorites too!

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I loved Nanobreaker for this very reason. I’m sure there’s a ton, but this was the first that came to mind. Good topic!

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I loved Renegade, The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants, Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode. All of which are for the NES. I knew the games were bad when I played them but I still enjoyed the heck out of them!

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Were Captain Planet, Friday the 13th and Wacky Wheels games you played when you were young? If so, have you played them since? I still have a huge nostalgic soft spot for Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade on the Gameboy. I can’t even tell if it is a bad game or not because every level brings back so many memories.

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I just went through my ‘Played’ list and found a couple of games that kind of fall into
this category.

Disaster: Day Of Crisis for the Wii. It’s a mediocre action-adventure game with mediocre rail-shooting sequences, clunky driving sequences and crappy platforming that somehow combined and became one of my favourite games for that console. It’s like a ridiculously bad b-movie, but it is so much fun to play. Waggling that damn wii-mote has never felt so satisfying.

Cro-Mag Rally – this game was on all our school computers when I was young. It’s a crappy kart racer, but it has my favourite glitch ever. If you hit a wall on a certain track at the right angle you can leave the playspace and just drive around in this white featureless void. We used to play it every lunchtime for a while just to try and see if there was an end to the abyss. There never was.

Zombie Revenge for the Dreamcast. I just picked this up the other day. I haven’t spent much time with it yet, but it got terrible reviews. So far it has been a lot of fun. Just silly arcade beat em up fun.

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That’s actually true but I’ve recently replayed Wacky Wheels and Friday the 13th and I’ve still enjoyed them a great deal. Wacky Wheels being a shameless Mario Kart ripoff (but with animals!) works best when played split-screen but the single player still holds up as well and no playthrough of F13th is the same. I don’t know if I could play the Captain Planet game today though. The best thing about it were the interior levels with the worst being the plane fights, which I absolutely hated.

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I would put Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (N64) into this category. The gameplay is not bad (although it suffers from early N64 camera disease), but the plot is hilariously poorly translated, the crawl animation must be seen to be believed, the enemy character models are bizarre, and so on. One of my favorite games, but largely for the hilarity factor.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is obviously an amazing game, but dat voice acting… Guessing if you scroll through this list you’ll find some other so-bad-they’re-good candidates.

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Rise To Honor is definitely a so bad it’s good game for me. The controls are so awkward and the voice acting is so wooden but it’s great fun to play. The fact that you can smack someone with a fish alone is worth giving the game a try

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I have always wanted to play the Goemon games for the N64, but I never stumble upon them in the wild here in Australia (as well as Chameleon Twist). Bad voice acting makes everything more entertaining

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Cro-Mag Rally. Pre-installed on ever PowerPC era OS X Mac. I miss that era but I don’t miss Cro-Mag Rally.

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Our school computers only had Cro-Mag Rally, Bugdom and Nanosaur. They were all probably terrible, but I have a lot of fond memories of playing them.

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All made by Pangea Software for OS X. All terrible in some respects, but I have no doubt lots of people have a soft spot for them. Especially if you played them when you were young.

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was going to say that i think this applies to all the warriors games (which i am a huge fan of). other than those i can’t think of any other games i play that i considered “badfully good”.

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You may have misunderstood the topic. The games are considered bad but the player still likes them. They arent perfect but some people still have great memories playing them.

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It’s hard to place games in this category because I feel the need to defend games like Deadly Premonition, haha, I would almost put it in the category of “so-good-it’s-good” !!
I’m not sure if these fit into the category, perhaps they’re too good. Does the game have to be unintentionally bad? In that case they don’t fit, but CRYPT WORLDS and Goblet Grotto are both weird games that almost fit the bill.

I’d also like to add is the infamous Bad Rats. I’m not sure if anyone would actually call this a “good game” in any circumstance but it’s worth mentioning. Even time I’ve played it I get a good laugh out of the experience. It’s not pleasant but it has to be seen to be believed.

Another one I always hear about (but I’ve never played it personally) is Big Rigs.

If you’re still looking for so-bad-it’s-good gaming content you should check out the Vinesauce youtube channel. A lot of his recent content is just normal boring gameplay but occasionally he uploads videos that fit firmly in this category and it’s fun to watch.

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I think I am looking for something weirdly specific. For me a so-bad-it’s-good game is one that is enjoyable because of its flaws. Those flaws being the reason you want to continue playing.

Unlike a movie where all that is asked of you is to watch, a game requires you to actively participate. Because of this bad games are usually too frustrating to want to spend much time with them. I am looking for that ultimate bad game. The one where everything about it is terrible, yet it somehow amounts to something not only playable but a hell of a lot of fun to play. I don’t know if this game exists yet.

To try and clarify – Ride To Hell: Retribution is a terrible game, but for the first couple of hours it is a lot of fun to play. However, because I wanted to finish it I had to subject myself to roughly 12hours of broken repetitive gameplay. By the time I finished it I hated it so much I was tempted to take the disc outside and run it over repeatedly with my car.

You mentioned Big Rigs. I should definitely give that a shot. Being a racing game means I would not feel compelled to finish it, so I could have those first few initial hours of joy and then promptly walk away.

I think Deadly Premonition is a great game despite its flaws. They are pretty surface level stuff (controls, graphics, etc.), but once you are able to look past them you realise what an inventive game it is and you fall in love with its personality. Another example of this is Alpha Protocol. I loved that game despite some obvious flaws.

I am looking for unintentionally bad games. Intentionally bad games can be fun, but those that are earnestly aiming for something more are just more endearing to me. I feel the same about movies. Sharknado might be entertaining, but it is too self-aware to ever be a great bad movie. Compare that to The Room or Troll 2 (probably the two most well know so-bad-it’s-good films), both of which are probably the works of crazy people with a tenuous grasp on the English language. Despite this, they are weirdly ambitious and full of ideas.

I got a really good deal on a 3DO and a bunch of games the other day. Amongst them is Night Shift and a few other interactive movies. I think I might find what I am looking for amongst them, but I haven’t had the time to try any of them out.

Oh, and lastly, thanks for the link to Vinesauce. I checked out his Action 52 video and it was really funny. I guess bad games are easier to enjoy when you’re not the one who has to suffer through them. I’ll also check out Bad Rats. It sounds… interesting!

Sorry for the wall of text.

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Oh man Troll 2! Brilliant stuff.

I think you might be on to something there. I remember playing 3DO games and I think they were an earnest attempt at making a quality product yet were downright terrible. I thin 3DO games would be a lot of fun to enjoy for their pure failure.

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OMG, Troll 2!!!.. just the epitome of “so bad it’s good”. If you haven’t seen it already I strongly recommend watching the documentary…

Priceless.

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