I have not watched the doc but I am aware of it. I will definitely give it a look see.
If we’re talking good-bad movies I have a bundle to share, I own so many VHS tapes of hilarious stinkers. Out of all of them my number 1 pick is The Polar Bear King. It’s absolutely unforgettable. Other recommendations: SoulTaker (1990), Waterworld (1995), Hider in the House (1989), Dark Asylum (2001), Vampire’s Kiss (1988). I could keep listing forever. XD
I get what you mean, unintentionally bad. Games that are so disastrous that they achieve a strange beauty of their own. Another one that comes to mind is the infamous CrazyBus.
As you mention the 3DO I immediately think of many of the old PC FMV games. Now, these games are rarely bad, most of them are quite good actually. But seen through today’s eyes some of those FMV sequences are particularly hilarious. I recently played The 7th Guest and I was having a good chuckle each time an FMV sequence played. Not a bad game, and in my opinion the extreme-cringe of the video sequences only add to the charm.
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OMG!!! How do I not know about this masterpiece? It looks truely epic!
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I just had a flashback and I remembered one of the truly best worst movies I’ve ever seen. Steven Seagal has put out a large amount of hilariously-bad straight-to-dvd films over the last couple decades and I’m sure many of them are incredibly bad. But there’s this legendary film called Belly of the Beast (2003) that will take your breath away. It seems like he lost his mind with this one and completely jumped the shark. This film is so completely bizarre, it’s like The Room.
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I’ll definitely check out The Polar Bear King. I’ll admit, I unashamedly love Belly Of The Beast. It has a crazy Asian flavour and is so over-the-top and kind of surreal. It is a far better movie then the Ticker and Submerged. He has made so many strange, borderline incomprehensible movies over the years that they all start to blur together. Belly Of The Beast has a really great title though, especially since it seems to coincide with Seagal really starting to let himself go. If you have any interest in his movies (the good and the bad), I highly recommend Outlaw Vern’s book 'Seagalogy: A Study Of The Ass-Kicking Films Of Steven Seagal"! It looks at every movie he has ever made one-by-one. It is really entertaining, but you need to see every movie to read along, so you have to be a bit of a masochist.
Also, Best Worst Movie!!! So damn good.
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First game comes to mind Floating Runner: Quest for the 7 Crystals (Floating Runner: 7-tsu no Suishou no Monogatari) for Playstation.
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That looks kind of awesome, lol. I would definitely play that.
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category 1 (WTF haha)
When playing video games one’s sense of enjoyment generally doesnt translate in the same sense of an ‘its so bad its good’ experience or reaction in the way a movie does. When you watch a SBiG movie you are passively watching something with mild amusement in some orthogonal way is possible if one’s disposition allows it, and it’s usually easier if that is your disposition. However, playing a game that is poorly made and finding some sideways enjoyment out of it is often a challenge for either the player or odd circumstances which allow that experience to emerge. Given the circumstances it is just often a punishing experience, but there are exceptions. Some games can just be really weird and outrageous, and will amuse in some sense just based off the wonkiness of it alone, but is that really a game? A good example of a ‘wtf haha’ done right… five nights at freddies/whole jump scare genreis based of cat 1 when the entire game is basically just a pretext to lead up to the ‘WTF haha’ moment. While it didn’t play out as such, the Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed bug would have been a perfect example of SBiG if it happend in the context of ‘survival horror’… I can only imagine how big the first AAA jumpscare game would be. Let’s see what we get next month for October. OMG please dont!
(category 2: jokertainment?)
In a way, there are probably some really good examples with 3do, or if we really want to go to the dark side the CD-I! God, what a weird and curious oddity that thing is! If you aren’t in the know, these were really low qualilty control systems where it seemed anything and everything could get published on them (cartridges were more expensive to make, that’s my best guess but i havent researched the reason.) I’ve only played two games on 3DO. Slayer (which is a legitimately cool game and reason i got into 3dO) and The Horde which might qualify for SBiG. The Horde is a crap game that is tolerable by it’s hokey low res FMV cutscenes. (the reason why i havent explored 3dO since slayer XD) jokertainment. Some games are funny or have jokes, but these are low quality games that make jokes at their own expense, and aside from that have little more going for them to make them worth playing,
Category 3: Morbid Fascination/page turner)
Ever play something that was so bad you just could not look away and kept going at it, suffering just to see what it would do to you next? God, there really are a lot of these things and they are the kinds of experiences you don’t forget. For me, that was Metal Heart Replicant Rampage. a truly atrocious janky russian crap that is some kind of postapocalyptic cyberpunk in a real shoddy state. given the genre, and the state it’s released: postnuke cyberjunk. if you endure it you are rewarded with a hilarious story and quest line… until the game breaks down that is and you are left with nothing. A good example of how a bad game goes dangerously close to 'torturous to play" for the SBiG factor, and how it’s a real challenge to find something that holds this together with a poorly made game, because it must simultanous hold the player’s interest and dedication while actually being functional enough to proceed through, which generally speaking can be a real challenge and delicate balance in Morbid fascination territory, with flat or linear media, it’s common and easy to do with say manga or movies, especially horror, you can bait with a story, lines or character… or even nudity, but its a much harder task with games becuase the player has to do the work and the game itself has to work.
I’d say many of the 1C titles manage to pull of the first 3 (but mostly second and third) elements pretty well and somewhat often. Another one is Planet Alcatraz/Dungeon Cleaners 2. Buggy but playable game. Not so great but tolerable. barely. What makes it SBiG? the russian to english translation. combined with the facial expressions of the janky engine. provides a morbid fascination and nice jagged alliance 2 type feel but also shares elements of jokertainment due to said translation. 1C titles are very good at this… and sometimes you even get good little russian bugs that can be fun too! (This might be ‘racist’ but i think the concept of ‘bug nope/feature YES’ resonates as a russian thing) XD
I would like to see more JRPGs take the plot/story and dialogue this low for the page turner dynamic rather than settle for a mediocre story. let’s be honest people who play JRPG’s are willing to grind and suffer for sake of seeing the next page. So it seems like the perfect genre to go down that low road with, anime nudity is more than welcome as well. but whatever you do, dont give your grinders something bland they could get anywhere. Much better to just give them something horrible. just horrible!! Cthluhu saves the worldr did it proper (Barkley didn’t take this approach so much imo, while it’s a goofy story it’s at least as legit as most JRPGs, but there are some morbid fascination elements sure.)
Category 4: Bugsploitation
This is maybe the most important category for SBiG in context of video games because it is unique to the medium. There are a lot of games that have various glitches and bugs players might use to cheat in some way. (slipping through walls/ceilings,advaning to next areas, item duping, point-farming, getting enemies stuck/killed off, etc.) which add to the ‘so bad it’s good factor’ since they act as an aid, or are simply fun for some reason or another, if not for the functionality, the sheer discovery of them. i always assumed some of these bugs are discovered and dliberately not changed for this reason? Nintendo 8-bit Glitches When I was younger I would look over games playing them to discover these things just for themselves for the emerging features, gameplay and sometimes secret content. I haven’t played games like else.heart break, but i have played games like street hacker and it’s not the same experience at all. Again, this would seem to be something the russians are (sometimes) good at.
category 5: competitive bugsplitation/deathmatch)
Goldeneye 64 which is a real bad textured, buggy as f*** FPS for N64 that really doesn’t deliver in it’s era, however it was saved by the multiplayer feature, and suddenly all is forgiven! In fact, it’s present bugs and various grievances often at times enhances the experience in multiplayer… The earlier days of multiplayer games often had this SBiG quality with the ‘lag.’ Early days of Hallf Life in the 56k era was my favorite experience of competitive bugsploitation as there really were all kinds of tricks (fragging people who got discconected on dial up was just another part of the game)
(category 6: cryogenic lifespan)
We could also look at very hard games, that are hard for different reasons not necessarily intended that result in the game being technically possible to beat, but very unlikely to figure out how to do it any time soon. This results in the game shelved in your backlog for all eternity, and it’s always in the back of your head somewhere, giving it a kind of immortality. Games like David Crane’s A Boy and His Blob. which aren’t ‘bad’ games but in this example (it could be any adventure game really lol) we have a game that was hard in that you don’t know where to go/what to do, arent really given hints, this leaves a player frustrated and wandering around for hours, days, weeks, months and coming back to it ever now and then (if you grew up with adventure games lying around and would return to them when bored, rather than look up a guide or youtube demonstration) a good challenge is one thing but this dynamic is not likely what the designer most likely intended when trying to sell a game, so maybe it would count as SBiG? How about text based adventure where you simply were lost forevvvvver. The exctiment of discovering a new command or place to go (“up”) was exhilarating, and i venture to guess not part of the design! hence SBiG (or so Hard it’s good?) If you are like me you have tons of SbiG games like this for the NES and SNES that you want to beat because they were so hard it’s good, (I think this is the same idea Dark Souls has going for it) and want to finish them, and if you are one of the unlucky souls that got halfway through a game like zork or myst… i can only imagine your suffering! XD
(Category 7 Unintended Results/emergent Gameplay)
I dare say Scorched Earth and Elastomania are so bad it’s good. The chaotic aspect of things just happening enhances the experience, often in ways not intended by neither player or developer in the way these things often play out. (If not mistaken i believe this is how jailbreak mod for Quake came about, though i haven’t played it) This might be one of the bigger difference between new games that are good and old games that are sometimes good. a new game wont have emergent gameplay not intended where everyone is exploiting something, or playing the game in ways not intended, especially not a multiplayer game. That will get ‘fixed’
(Category 8: unexpected audience)
Now here’s another example,. Bible Adventures or maybe even Chex Quest I’m really not sure where these games were going or what they intended but they created a stir in their own ways and with unique audiences certainly would seem to qualify for the SBitG type reaction. Sometimes an unexpected audience can result in insane large outreach. look at what happened to the companies that made Doom and Grand Theft Auto In the same way movies that were SBiG (like Contamination, Evil Dead, or Dead Alive) that they got a Congressional audience and the whole country talking about it, these games too got a big audience from the resulting media attention and almost becaome ‘videogame nasties’. We couldn’t have Lord of the Rings or Rockstar games were it not for the phenomenon of an unintended audience. This isn’t quite the same thing as ‘hype’ (pokemon go or NMS) These are games that get famous for the wrong reasons or made famous by people outside of the context of those that play them. Will probably be really interesting in future to see where an unexpected audience can go with viral media, social networks etc, taking off, in a world where gaming has become almost ubiquitous…could the next game of the year be simply little more than a simple meme?
Ironsky Invasion. I’m not sure if this counts as SBiG. I don’t think it desrves it. But it should be mentioned. This is an example of a game that is perhaps trying to be SBiG and really just a mediocre game with a silly gimmick that doesn’t really make it SBiG. And in same sense there are games like that are decent as they are made that are also trying to be SBiG such as Cthulhu Saves the world, (still Cthluhu saves the world has a terrible story which does count as a page turner, especially given the context it is a JRPG which makes you suffer a bit for the more-lousy-than-usual story!)
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Alpha Protocol, EYE Divine Cybermancy, Messiah. These are good examples of games that couldn’t be made ‘better’ if they were messed around with they would become less fun.
Likewise if Dark Souls was made easier… would it be as much fun?
If the Goldeneye64 multiplayer was fixed and polished would it be as fun? (in my opinion no. the fact you cant aim and run, oddjob is too short to hit, you cant see people on the damn tv because its too dark, etc etc makes it fun)
Indeed, if the flaw were fixed would it be as good? if yes its not SBiG, if no then maybe it qualifies. Now i’m wanting to make a shelf for this kind of thing because it’s worth a ‘special classification’
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I’m a big fan of Billy Drago, but I think it’s fair to say that 9 out of 10 movies in which he appears are terrible. I enjoy these movies a lot though. I think the best bad/good movies with Drago in it are pure comedy.
Here are 6 “Billy Drago movies” that are absolutely worth watching:
Never Say Die. - Billy Drago plays a lunatic cult leader in this b-movie. Awesome! Never Say Die (1994) - IMDb
Death Game. - Billy Drago and Richard Lynch are awesome in this movie. Bo Brown is annoying but the badness of this movie makes it very worth watching. Death Game (2001) - IMDb
Convict 762. - This movie is sooooooo bad, I can’t think of a sci-fi movie that’s worse then this, and that’s exactly what makes it fun. Convict 762 (1997) - IMDb
The Takeover - Also with John Savage and Nick Mancuso, they are great in this movie. The main actors are really acting so horrible that it makes it fun to watch. The Takeover (Video 1994) - IMDb
True Blood. - Great fun as well with known names in it like Jeff Fahey, James Tolkan, Ken Foree and Sherilyn Fenn True Blood (1989) - IMDb
In Self Defense. - With Yaphet Kotto and Linda Purl! Great movie! And the things that happen in this movie are so unlogical and bananas that that alone is very entertaining to watch, because it’s just so bad! In Self Defense (TV Movie 1987) - IMDb
Then there are a few other movies I would like to mention, that I like a lot as well, while I have to admit that these movies give a new meaning to BAD:
Meltdown. - Robert Z’Dar is playing Crazy Eddie in this movie and it’s a blast to watch Meltdown (2009) - IMDb
Head Of The Family. - This is probably one of my favorite Charles Band movies just because it’s so weird. I’m actually not so sure if this movie should be mentioned here, it’s not a bad movie in my opinion. But then hey, it’s a Full Moon movie haha Head of the Family (1996) - IMDb
Syngenor - Possibly my favorite B-movie Creature Feature of all time! David Gale, the actor who played dr. Carl Hill in the Re-Animator, is sooo hilarious in this. I know I’ll still watch this movie many times in the future! Syngenor (1990) - IMDb
So, that’s it for now.
EDIT I read some comments and it was about movies, and I just started to write my reply to this topic. Then I saw that your question was about games, so my bad… I’ll try to think of some games later on
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There are a lot of hilariously bad Unity games on the Wii U eShop. I guess Nintendo was so desperate for 3rd party support that they accepted anything submitted to them.
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I love B movies, so I’m glad you misread it! I’ll have to check some of these out.
My favorite two so bad it’s good movies are Troll 2 and Cabin Fever. B movies are always fun when you’re around other people who appreciate them the way you do.
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…so I’ve finally taken on what I can only describe as Torgo’s bad movie list challenge, and purchased (it’s impossible to rent them here in the UK as they’re so bad) the following:
- Belly of the Beast (Steven Seagal during one one of his many low points, arguably his entire career is a low point).
- The Polar Bear King
- The Room (Tommy Wiseau)
- Troll 2
So far I’ve only had the pleasure of watching Belly of the Beast. Apart from it being amongst the most awful “cinema” that I’ve ever witnessed and the fact the Seagal is a morbidly obese mumbling slug, I actually quite enjoyed it (for all the wrong reasons).
I can’t wait to dive into the rest, although my wife is threatening to divorce me as a result. I may have to add Cabin Fever to the list as well then.
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I watched Killer Mermaid around Halloween. It was hilariously awful. I loved it.
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Ok, so Cabin Fever and Killer Mermaid have now been added to my film wish list (not sure how the wife is going to take it, but both available one iTunes / AppleTV in the UK).
Re: The Room (Tommy Wiseau)
…I am just lost for words. After 5-10 mins I was fractions of a second from pressing the “stop / switch off / please god no more / nuke button”… but I persevered. I am now completely lost for words. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to express myself. I can only give a glimmer of an indication as to my comprehension of what I’ve just witnessed, via the following… I’ve by copied and pasting the following review that I found on IMDB (not my word, but someone else’s)…
IMDB
292 out of 378 people found the following review useful:
"Tommy Wiseau ranks among the greats…
Author: ilovetommywiseau from Hollywood, CA
23 February 2004
Tommy Wiseau ranks among the greats: Spielberg, Scorcese, Griffith, & Welles. In THE ROOM, he has created a piece of cinema that has no parallels. It is a unique piece of artistic greatness.
Let’s first discuss Mr. Wiseau’s expert crafting of dramatic tension. Denny, the slightly mentally retarded 20-year-old, wants to watch Johnny and Lisa make sweet love. Denny also frequently acts like a brain-damaged Golden Retriever in that he continually wants to play catch with a football, even though everyone only stands 6 feet apart. Denny eventually gets involved with drugs and has to confront the hate-filled Chris-R (and there is no logical reason why the character has a hyphen in his name so don’t ask). Johnny nobly comes out of nowhere to provide Denny salvation, and then this plot point is totally forgotten.
The best part of the movie is Mr. Wiseau’s acting. He is leagues ahead of other contemporary actors. He is on par with DeNiro in Raging Bull, Nicholson in Easy Rider, and Brando in Streetcar. He delivers his lines as if he IS Johnny, the All-American guy who is trying to stay on the wagon and can’t get that promotion at work. He clearly has been well-trained in Method Acting. His Croatian-Serbian-Norwegian-Klingon-Mongolian-Yugoslavian accent is barely noticeable when he delivers lines such as You're tearing me apart, Lisa' andI treat you like a princess but you stab me in the back.’ You feel Johnny’s pain as he becomes a regular MacGyver and hooks up a tape recorder that is able to record for 24 hours straight. His laugh (ha-ha-ha) comes off as natural as can be. When you think JOHNNY, you think All-American guy. The fact that Mr. Wiseau is over sixty years of age and may be on some kind of horse tranquilizer for much of the movie is not an issue.
In the trailers for THE ROOM, it is mentioned that Mr. Wiseau’s directing and writing evoke Tennessee Williams, and a truer statement has never been made. You can feel the passion when Johnny transforms himself into Frankenstein and proceeds to destroy his room, moving at a very slow speed. It is as if he is saying to the viewer, Stella!!' except Mr. Wiseau does not need to say it verbally. He says it through his emaciated skin which has seen better days and through his jet-black hair which is clearly his natural color. Even though the Room takes place in San Francisco, it is as if Blanche DuBois is saying to us,Johnny, you are a real American, because you play football and say ch-ch-chicken.’
On the musical front, the shifting from a mysterious moody orchestral score to straight-up R&B ably shows Mr. Wiseau’s ability to blend different styles musically in order to create a unified mood in his movie. On the sound front, the boom operator clearly did an excellent job as half of the lines in the beginning of the movie are dubbed in later, even though the filming takes place in a quiet room with no extraneous noise.
With regards to editing, Mr. Wiseau deftly uses cutaways to 30-second-long shots from different vantage points in San Francisco. He seems to be saying to the viewer, I hope you weren’t interested in the dialogue, because now you will have to sit through 30 seconds of the same shot of the Golden Gate Bridge you’ve seen 10 times already, before we get back to the dramatic tension you were longing for.
Other attention to detail includes varying dates on how long Johnny and Lisa have been together (5 or 7 years), the switching from the day shots to night shots and then back to day shots on the same day, the fact that all of the men are dressed in tuxedos and decide to play football even though there is no justification for why they should be dressed in tuxedos, and using the exact same shots in the second love scene between Johnny and Lisa that are also used in the first love scene.
_Overall, Mr. Wiseau has proven himself to be among the top-rank writers, directors, actors, editors, gaffers, love maker, action stars, and best boys of his generation. He has shown the ability to take any aspect of filmmaking and transcend it. He is able to take monkey poop and turn it into a well-polished turd. I hope to see many more films from Mr. Wiseau in the near future, and I hope that all of them will have Mr. Wiseau acting as well as new and better performances from the guy that played Denny (he rocks!!). To Mr. Wiseau, I say L’Chaim, and let’s drink to much greater Cinema to come!!"
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And by watched I mean observed the first hour, fast forwarded, watched a little more, proceeded to laugh at it, then watched the ending. One scene in particular with the killer mermaid flopping and flipping out of the water to take someone out was so funny I cried.
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This movie was actually pretty good. But still mostly bad:
Donnie Wahlberg was decent in it.
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I would be tempted to play a Cat 2 SBiG game resurrection of Troll 2: The Game
The Bunker is a weird looking point and click game with FMV cutscenes. I’m guessing the game is minimal but it was more like an independent movie. This recipe would be a great way to make a game of this kind, the FMV throwback would appease and it would be suitable for the kind of game it is. Other genres such as a third person action adventure are too needlessly complex and would of course just be lengthy mediocre experiences. Straight to video with some point and click filler would be ideal, delivering what the audience is after.
The mysterious town of Nilbog is actually a good setting for P&C as well. I don’t even like P&C but i’d probably play such a thing.
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Roundabout has got silly plot with FMV cutscenes and mad gameplay - our car is rotating all the time 
Watch the movie Killing Shrews (1959) it’s the worst movie ever. With dogs playing the role of shrews. I love it.
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omg that looks fun lol. THANKS.
I have only played a handful of games on the 3DO but there are a lot that go down this route to some extent, the mediocre gameplay gets in the way, and a lot of them had annoying puzzles, sheer difficulty suprises and gotchas, and other things that i feel led to it’s unpopularity. A good example of a game like this was The Horde, which had some real B movie actors in it and some pretty clever cutscenes and is really a short film with a game on top. but the gameplay itself was a kind of managerial strategy. It wasn’t too terrible but really, it felt like it was just getting in the way of your reward (and a cheesy B movie cutscene is not a bad reward, but any means) but at some point i had to give up. Dead simple gameplay or mechanics that dont really get bogged down with balance issues it seems like it can be a gimmick that works well. Roundabout looks perfect for someone like me. A rediculous game but it’s easy, its short and designed to entertain. It will tell you the story and wont judge your shoddy lack of skills for itI MUST play it lol.
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