Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pett and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Here to discuss one of the most anticipated podcasts we've
Speaker 1: recorded in the last ten minutes is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: What a wicked game you play to make me feel
Speaker 1: this way? Oh man, you had to use that one, yes,
Speaker 1: So hey, guys, you know you might remember from the
Speaker 1: fact that we had pre roll in front of every
Speaker 1: single podcast up to this point that Chris and I
Speaker 1: wanted to do a crowdsourced episode where we asked our
Speaker 1: listeners to submit to us the worst video game of
Speaker 1: all time. And uh, we didn't get of any real
Speaker 1: parameters about that. We said it could be on any platform,
Speaker 1: it just had to be a video game. And because
Speaker 1: of that, it meant that our listeners could literally, uh
Speaker 1: nominate any game ever made. So it's a miracle at
Speaker 1: all that we had enough votes for any particular title
Speaker 1: to have this this podcast, But we actually have the
Speaker 1: top ten or perhaps bottom ten worst video games, as
Speaker 1: voted on by you, the listener. So please keep in
Speaker 1: mind this is not the opinions of Jonathan and Chris,
Speaker 1: although maybe we'll talk about some of the bad games
Speaker 1: we've played in the past two This isn't our opinion.
Speaker 1: This is your opinion. We're just reporting it. Well, I
Speaker 1: have to say that one one person did right in
Speaker 1: and ask us why we would bother recording an episode
Speaker 1: on this, and uh, the simple answer is because it's fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for us, this was actually really a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of work because we had to
Speaker 1: collect votes from multiple sources. We collected votes from email, Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and people left votes on my Google Plus account too,
Speaker 1: So um, I actually did separate out all the votes
Speaker 1: in a big spreadsheet, so I knew how many votes
Speaker 1: came in from which, uh particular source and that that
Speaker 1: actually was kind of interesting too, just to see, you know,
Speaker 1: what our listeners prefer to use in order to get
Speaker 1: information to us. That was pretty fascinating. That was not
Speaker 1: my intent, by the way, when I came I came
Speaker 1: up with this idea on the spur of the moment
Speaker 1: and sprung it on Chris just before we started recording,
Speaker 1: and Chris was like, do I have to do I
Speaker 1: have to record all the votes? I said, no, it's
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it. So you know, I'm easy
Speaker 1: like that. Let's let's start off with what would be
Speaker 1: number ten. But actually it was a tie for ninth place.
Speaker 1: So the first two games we're gonna talk about received
Speaker 1: the same number of votes. And the first one that
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about is dragons Lair the arcade
Speaker 1: game specifically, So for those of you who, uh who
Speaker 1: missed out on the early eighties and the great arcade
Speaker 1: culture of the early eighties, you may not be too
Speaker 1: familiar with this game. But it was groundbreaking, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a an innovative way of presenting a video
Speaker 1: game that had not been attempted before Dragon's Layer. Yep. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Previously we were talking about the different the difference in
Speaker 1: in vector and raster graphics, and and you know there
Speaker 1: was there were blocky graphics for the most part at
Speaker 1: the time, and they had limited animation, limited sound, um.
Speaker 1: But but Dragon's Layer actually featured uh animation from one
Speaker 1: of the industry giant animators, Don Bluth, former Disney animator
Speaker 1: UM who has gone on to you know, with his
Speaker 1: own company to do many many other titles. In fact,
Speaker 1: I have Don Luth title on my iPad. Yeah, which one.
Speaker 1: The new version of Tapper features Don Bluth artwork, so yeah,
Speaker 1: because he also you may know some of his work
Speaker 1: from from movies like The Secrets from the Secret of
Speaker 1: Nim Yes, and Before Time series, Before Time it was
Speaker 1: was it the Five Old Movies too? Yes? Um, those
Speaker 1: were Don Blue films, so somewhere out there, yes, thank you.
Speaker 1: So Dragon's Lair was featured animation from Don Bluth and
Speaker 1: it was published by Cinematronics. Yeah. Yeah, But but but
Speaker 1: how you might say, exactly is this great leap in
Speaker 1: graphics and sound? Because the sound was awesome too. How
Speaker 1: how is that possible? Because you know, you're looking at
Speaker 1: other games like Donkey Kong, which you know I loved
Speaker 1: Donkey Kong, but you would not call the graphics advanced
Speaker 1: or state of the art. Well for the time, they were,
Speaker 1: but not now crazy. Yeah. Well they they accomplished this
Speaker 1: by using the laser disc vide format, which we've talked
Speaker 1: about before. So the entire game was on laser disc
Speaker 1: and there was an actual laser disc player inside the cabinet.
Speaker 1: Of this Arcade game. Now, the fact that there it
Speaker 1: was on laser disc was both it's its biggest strength
Speaker 1: and its biggest weakness. The weakness is that you couldn't
Speaker 1: create too much interactivity for the player and the game.
Speaker 1: The you know, you couldn't have complete control over the
Speaker 1: main character who do you remember? The guy's name Dirk
Speaker 1: the Daring, and he was rescuing a princess Daphne from
Speaker 1: a dragon named Singe. And so you couldn't just control
Speaker 1: Dirk the Daring, You couldn't just make him run around
Speaker 1: and jump and stuff. Instead, what you would do is
Speaker 1: you would initiate a video sequence, because again this is
Speaker 1: recorded on laser disc. There's only so many variations of
Speaker 1: Dirk's movements that can be recorded on a single laser disc.
Speaker 1: So what your input into the Cade machine would translate
Speaker 1: to is was that the correct button to press or
Speaker 1: direction on the joystick to push in order to trigger
Speaker 1: the next sequence to further the storyline. Yeah, So you,
Speaker 1: for example, you might be having to jump, and you
Speaker 1: did have to jump at one point, and if you,
Speaker 1: you know, move up, that might be the right thing
Speaker 1: to do. If you move left, you die. If you
Speaker 1: do nothing, you die if you if you push the
Speaker 1: sword button, you die if you push yeah. So in
Speaker 1: other words, there'll be one correct response to a particular
Speaker 1: moment in the story, and sometimes, uh there'd be like
Speaker 1: a little flash that would indicate this is when you
Speaker 1: do something. So for a lot of the game, you're
Speaker 1: you're just watching, You're just you're you're watching a movie.
Speaker 1: And then occasionally in the movie there's a moment where
Speaker 1: you have a chance to put in an input, and
Speaker 1: if you put in the wrong one, the movie's over.
Speaker 1: And so that was probably what costs a lot of
Speaker 1: people to vote for Dragons Layers, that it almost feels
Speaker 1: like less of a game and more of a film.
Speaker 1: It's just a film that you don't get to see
Speaker 1: the end of it unless you happen to shift in
Speaker 1: your seat at just the right moment so the film
Speaker 1: will continue. And also I would like to point out
Speaker 1: this was one of the first games I can remember
Speaker 1: that cost two credits or fifty cents to play. And
Speaker 1: also remember that a lot of them had two monitors
Speaker 1: because they were so popular that people would try and
Speaker 1: gather and cram around the system. Because if someone knew
Speaker 1: how to play it, if someone had memorized the sequence
Speaker 1: of movements they had to do to get through a
Speaker 1: particular part of the game. You know, most people didn't
Speaker 1: have the time or energy or change to learn all that,
Speaker 1: so they just like to watch the game because again
Speaker 1: it was like a movie. I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: our kids that would put a second monitor that was
Speaker 1: mounted on the top of the cabinet so that you
Speaker 1: could see what was going on without having to be
Speaker 1: right up on whoever is playing the game. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that was tied for ninth play uh. And the other
Speaker 1: one was a game on the Nintendo Entertainment System which
Speaker 1: was Back to the Future. And I have never played
Speaker 1: this because I didn't own an any s. From what
Speaker 1: I read, we're going from beautiful graphics and and and
Speaker 1: sort of poor gameplay too, horrible graphics and yeah, Back
Speaker 1: to the Future is just one example of a licensed title,
Speaker 1: and by licensed, I mean it's something that already existed
Speaker 1: that a video game publisher purchases a license from the
Speaker 1: license owner to be able to create a game based
Speaker 1: on that. And as far as Back to the Future goes,
Speaker 1: the basis was really pretty uh difficult to spot, especially
Speaker 1: in that first stage, like in the very first stage,
Speaker 1: you are going down a street and the way the
Speaker 1: view is it's an over the head view. UM. The
Speaker 1: street is laid out so that the top of the
Speaker 1: screen is where you're headed to the bottom of the
Speaker 1: screen is where you are, and you're moving your your
Speaker 1: character around Marty McFly. You're moving Marty McFly down the street.
Speaker 1: You're trying to avoid enemies and pick up little alarm clocks.
Speaker 1: And it's only by picking up enough alarm clocks that
Speaker 1: you're allowed to move to the next stage. And so
Speaker 1: you're also you also have a timer, so if you
Speaker 1: don't pick up enough alarm clocks within the time limit,
Speaker 1: then you lose. If you get hit by an enemy,
Speaker 1: you lose. If you run into an obstacle, you lose. UM.
Speaker 1: You would eventually be able to pick up a bowling ball,
Speaker 1: which would let you shoot enemies, because of course, you
Speaker 1: remember that great scene and back to the future where
Speaker 1: Marty McFly picked up a bowling ball and then shot
Speaker 1: someone with it. Um, who can forget that scene that
Speaker 1: never happened? Uh. And then you can also get a skateboard,
Speaker 1: which at least that was featured in the film. But
Speaker 1: with a skateboard what that would mean is that you
Speaker 1: would move through the the you would move through the
Speaker 1: level faster, which meant the poor gameplay became excruciatingly poor
Speaker 1: gameplay because you're going so fast you can't even react. Um.
Speaker 1: And then if you got through that, you would hit
Speaker 1: a mini game. And some of the mini games included
Speaker 1: a dinner stage where you're behind the counter and Biff
Speaker 1: and his bullies are coming in after you and you
Speaker 1: have to throw milkshakes at them to stop them. But
Speaker 1: it was really hard to line up your character so
Speaker 1: that you were throwing the milkshake at the right plane
Speaker 1: in order to hit the enemy. Like the enemy is
Speaker 1: coming at you from the left side of the screen.
Speaker 1: You're on the right side of the screen, and you've
Speaker 1: got a bar between you and the enemy. You just
Speaker 1: have to figure out exactly where, like vertically you need
Speaker 1: to align yourself, and you you'd be like, oh, that's clearly,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's that's the sweet spot, and you push
Speaker 1: the button and the milkshake flies like three ft over
Speaker 1: the bully's head and he reaches the bar and throws
Speaker 1: you against the wall. Um. It was a little rough.
Speaker 1: And then there was another stage where you had to
Speaker 1: block kisses that were sent to you from Lorraine because
Speaker 1: you're playing Marty McFly and his Marty's mother. You know,
Speaker 1: he's back in time and he's met the teenage version
Speaker 1: of his mom, and so you would have to block
Speaker 1: her kisses to you. And then there was another one
Speaker 1: where you had to position a guitar just right so
Speaker 1: that you were playing music so that Lorraine and George,
Speaker 1: your your mom and dad would actually kiss. And the
Speaker 1: very final stage involved driving the DeLorean, the time travel device,
Speaker 1: through the street at night, dodging enemies, dodging obstacles, trying
Speaker 1: to get up to eighty eight miles per hour. Um.
Speaker 1: It looked awful. Oh and Bob Gayle, who was a
Speaker 1: screenwriter for Back to the Future, called it one of
Speaker 1: the worst games ever made. Heavy Yeah, yeah, Why do
Speaker 1: people keep saying, is there some problem with gravity in
Speaker 1: the future? So that moves us up to our eighth
Speaker 1: worst game? Do you wanna unveil what this one is? Well,
Speaker 1: it certainly has a tough road to home, yes it does.
Speaker 1: But it is extremely popular. It's something you may have
Speaker 1: seen once or twice on Facebook, at least once or
Speaker 1: twice a minute on Facebook only if you follow people
Speaker 1: who play this, and how could you not. It's Farmville
Speaker 1: from Zinga. Farmville has had a lot of criticism directed
Speaker 1: toward it. It's one of those games. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a freemium game, yes it is, and that means that
Speaker 1: you can play the game for free. But if you
Speaker 1: want to have the most advantageous stuff in the game,
Speaker 1: you have to pay real money to get it. Um
Speaker 1: and say, which is a perfectly valid business plan. You know,
Speaker 1: there's no reason I'm not. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: that that's a bad thing to do. I mean, people
Speaker 1: should be compensated for the work they do in order
Speaker 1: for them to make more work. Otherwise, no one has
Speaker 1: any incentive to do anything. You know, well, you know
Speaker 1: it's it's got millions of fans, yes, um, something like.
Speaker 1: I once heard a statistic that something like ten of
Speaker 1: all people who use Facebook play this. And I have.
Speaker 1: I played, I played it in some of the other
Speaker 1: Zinga games, but I don't It's funny though, I don't
Speaker 1: think of it as a game. I think if it
Speaker 1: is more of a boy because there's no objective that
Speaker 1: you're trying to accomplish to win the game. Basically, you're
Speaker 1: trying to if you've never seen or or played it. Um,
Speaker 1: the point is to grow your farm. So you know,
Speaker 1: at some point you you uh add little plots of
Speaker 1: land on which you can grow your crops, and you
Speaker 1: can choose which crops to grow. Um. You know, each
Speaker 1: time you plant something, you have several choices to you know,
Speaker 1: you could say corn or tomatoes or you know, you know,
Speaker 1: potatoes or something else. Um. And each crop costs a
Speaker 1: certain amount of money and your you know, your fake
Speaker 1: gold money. Actually it's their their dollars. I think farm coins,
Speaker 1: farm coins and uh. You also it's been a while
Speaker 1: since I played. And each crop takes a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time to grow, and if you leave the game
Speaker 1: for more than that amount of time a reasonable amount
Speaker 1: of time, once it's grown, the crop will wither and die.
Speaker 1: So the point is to I mean, it's not just crops.
Speaker 1: You also add you know, a fence around your your garden,
Speaker 1: and you add a farmhouse and what kind do you want,
Speaker 1: and you know, bales of hay, and you basically you
Speaker 1: you add in size to the farm, and you add
Speaker 1: different plots, and you upgrade your stuff. And there's also
Speaker 1: a social factor where you can interact with your friends
Speaker 1: farms and they can interact with yours, which is why
Speaker 1: you see like all these notifications pop up on Facebook
Speaker 1: until you get fed up with it and block them.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean you can visit your friends farm
Speaker 1: and fertilizer crops so they grow faster or unwier them
Speaker 1: when they've gone bad and stuff help them. You can
Speaker 1: send them gifts and they can send you gifts, and
Speaker 1: that that can be kind of fun. But the thing is, it's,
Speaker 1: like Jonathan pointed out, uh, Zinga is really hoping that
Speaker 1: you'll invest some actual cash into this and you can
Speaker 1: get uh, certain kinds of crops or certain kinds of
Speaker 1: decorations for your farm if you fork over some real
Speaker 1: coin um. And that's kind of annoying for people like
Speaker 1: me who are cheap and don't want to give them
Speaker 1: any money. And the thing is, at a certain point,
Speaker 1: the game or software toy, it's like, like I said,
Speaker 1: you don't like to call it, it's sort of semi
Speaker 1: unplayable because there's a point at which everything to make
Speaker 1: it fun you really need to give them money for
Speaker 1: it really doesn't change, and it's the point of where
Speaker 1: you go, yeah, you know, I'm really don't want to
Speaker 1: do this, and the game also encourages you to try
Speaker 1: and loop your friends into the games. Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's probably I'm guessing that's why people voted for it,
Speaker 1: because it feels almost invasive, um when you're on Facebook,
Speaker 1: unless you you go so far as to block it.
Speaker 1: And we had other Facebook games, like games that are
Speaker 1: similar to this uh nominated as well, but Farmville was
Speaker 1: the one that actually got the most votes. And also
Speaker 1: I think has been accused of sort of copying earlier
Speaker 1: game called farm Town that had very similar game mechanics.
Speaker 1: Some people would say similarity to the point of identity.
Speaker 1: But well, this this model has uh has extended across
Speaker 1: Facebook and and other venues as well. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are some iPad games um that I've you know, tried
Speaker 1: out on my tablet that basically they're the same kinds
Speaker 1: of things at your friends Otherwise you're not going to
Speaker 1: get very far in this game. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: know anybody else who's playing this. Plus I don't want
Speaker 1: to spam everybody with email blasts saying join my game. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, if Jonathan's playing and I'm playing, then yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll send Jonathan a note, Hey, send me a free chicken.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to send that to everybody on
Speaker 1: my list because you know it's annoying. Yes, it would,
Speaker 1: So let's move on to our next nomination. Now, this,
Speaker 1: this next nomination is interesting because it's a terrible, terrible
Speaker 1: game that was designed to be a terrible, terrible game.
Speaker 1: And it's called Desert Bus. Now, Desert Bus was actually
Speaker 1: a mini game that was part of a larger package
Speaker 1: of games for a product that never saw full production.
Speaker 1: It was for the Sega c D system. Gosh, barely
Speaker 1: remember that the whole system was a failure. Not just
Speaker 1: this game, um, but it was a mini game that
Speaker 1: was included in Penn and Teller's Smoke and Mirrors. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of the stuff that was in Penn and
Speaker 1: Teller's Smoke and Mirrors ended up being used in other
Speaker 1: Penn and Teller products like Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends
Speaker 1: and things like that. But this one idea, which supposedly
Speaker 1: came from Eddie goad det Ski, who is a producer
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. Uh, this one idea is to create an
Speaker 1: and ultra realistic and by that I mean boring game
Speaker 1: in which you drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona, to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, Nevada, in real time, and the buses top
Speaker 1: speed is around forty five miles per hour. And there's
Speaker 1: no scenery, there's there's no traffic, there are no passengers
Speaker 1: on the bus. It's just you driving this bus to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. And in real time, that takes, by the way,
Speaker 1: about eight hours. And if you get all the way
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas, you get a point and then you
Speaker 1: have to drive back. Well, but what happens if you
Speaker 1: need to, you know, stop and eat dinner, go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Well, the game does not have a pause function,
Speaker 1: so the time would just keep going. I mean also
Speaker 1: the bus, you might say, why don't you just set
Speaker 1: it up so that the bus drives automatically, like, you know,
Speaker 1: just put something on the up arrow key on the pedal. Yeah. Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: the bus also has a problem with its suspension and
Speaker 1: it pulls to the right, so you have to constantly
Speaker 1: adjust the bus so that it will it will be
Speaker 1: on the road. Now, there is a port of this
Speaker 1: game on the web. You can play a web based
Speaker 1: version of Desert Bus if you want to. Now, you
Speaker 1: might ask, why would you want to, well, some of
Speaker 1: it's just kind of like grousing slash bragging rights that
Speaker 1: you know, you actually bothered to take eight hours of
Speaker 1: your life and get this virtual bus from Tucson to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. But another group called Loading Ready Run had
Speaker 1: an interesting idea. UM that's a four person comedy group,
Speaker 1: and they decided to hold a desert bus marathon session
Speaker 1: as a fundraising effort to raise money for the charity
Speaker 1: child Child's Play. Child's Plays a charity that gets a
Speaker 1: lot of attention particularly around Penny Arcade Expo or Packs
Speaker 1: because the Packs guys also hold um auctions for Child's
Speaker 1: Play and it's it's providing video games and other kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff like that to kids who are in hospitals
Speaker 1: and who are recovering or suffering from serious illnesses and
Speaker 1: conditions as a nice charity to do something nice for
Speaker 1: the kids. Right. So, these four members of Loading Ready
Speaker 1: Run took shifts at driving the desert bus UM they
Speaker 1: ended up driving for more than four and a half days.
Speaker 1: The first time, which was in two thousand seven, they
Speaker 1: drove for around four and a half days and they
Speaker 1: scored six points that four and a half days driving
Speaker 1: the bus back and forth. Uh. And since then they've
Speaker 1: held the marathon several more times and have raised more
Speaker 1: than four hundred thousand dollars collectively. That's impressive. Yeah for
Speaker 1: child's play, which is pretty impressive. Um. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: game is online, so if you just do a search
Speaker 1: for Desert Bus, you can find a web based version
Speaker 1: of this game and play it yourself. Should you hate yourself?
Speaker 1: Apparently our number six game. It's also a game for
Speaker 1: people who are into really not happy driving experience. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, this game is probably it's amazing to me
Speaker 1: that this game was ever released, because it is. It
Speaker 1: is as unfinished a game as I have ever seen.
Speaker 1: And I've seen the reviews for this game, like I've
Speaker 1: seen video reviews of this and show the problems, and
Speaker 1: it's you can't believe that such a product was ever
Speaker 1: released to the public. I guess we should say what
Speaker 1: it is. Well, racing games are so popular, and you
Speaker 1: know that you can race just about anything in all
Speaker 1: kinds of video games, so you would imagine that one
Speaker 1: that would allow you to race tractor trailers would be fun.
Speaker 1: But big rigs over the road racing for the PC
Speaker 1: isn't It was a two thousand three third person racing game.
Speaker 1: So you're outside the truck, looking at the truck, and
Speaker 1: let's see if we can figure out where some of
Speaker 1: the problems of this game may reside. Shall we? What's
Speaker 1: a racing game in which you don't really race anyone else? Right? Well, first,
Speaker 1: the first problem is that it was build as a
Speaker 1: game where the object was that you were transporting illegal
Speaker 1: goods uh and you were being chased by police, So
Speaker 1: it was built as a game where you had to
Speaker 1: drive fast and evade the cops. What cops? Right, So
Speaker 1: when you actually get the game, it turns up there's
Speaker 1: nothing has nothing to do with any of that. Instead,
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be, at least once you've got
Speaker 1: the game going, it was supposed to be a racing
Speaker 1: game where you're racing against other competitors. But um, the
Speaker 1: game developer never actually bothered to put artificial intelligence competitors
Speaker 1: in there, so they they never leave the starting line.
Speaker 1: It's a race where all the other people racing don't
Speaker 1: do anything. They just sit there. So you're you're running
Speaker 1: and and they're behind you and they don't do anything. Um.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, though, it gets worse than that, well what
Speaker 1: about the realistic physics. Yeah, there weren't any Um you
Speaker 1: could drive over anything like driving on the road or
Speaker 1: driving off the road, or driving through a building. None
Speaker 1: of that made any difference. You You traveled at the
Speaker 1: same speed unless you were backing up, in which case
Speaker 1: you would accelerate infinitely until you let off the the
Speaker 1: reverse button. Yeah, I understand why. Again I didn't play
Speaker 1: this one, but I understand too that stopping was hyper
Speaker 1: realistic too, Like if you had perfect breaks, you just
Speaker 1: let up on the accelerator and you stop. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: you just go to go to antrust that. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there's no sense of momentum or inertia. You just the
Speaker 1: universe would would would halt around you. Um, you could
Speaker 1: drive off the edge of the map and into gray nothingness.
Speaker 1: So it made it kind of a metaphysical philosophical game
Speaker 1: at that point. Before and we've known plenty of metaphysical
Speaker 1: philosophical truck drivers and that's really not a dig. We
Speaker 1: really do know quite a few of them. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just you know, no collision detection to speak of. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were five tracks listed in the game, only four
Speaker 1: of them were playable. I don't know how that would
Speaker 1: be a disappointment considering how horrible the game was, Like,
Speaker 1: oh great, you mean I can't play this other terrible
Speaker 1: track that I would never love? And uh ex plays
Speaker 1: Morgan Webb she she refused to rate this game because
Speaker 1: Explay has a rating system of one to five stars.
Speaker 1: There's no zero, there's no zero, and she refused Steven
Speaker 1: give it one star, so she would not review it.
Speaker 1: She played it, she just wouldn't give it a review.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's pretty bad. So that was a
Speaker 1: that was a two thousand three game. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: go a little further back for the next one, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a a port of a very popular arcade game,
Speaker 1: um and for and this is when I've played back
Speaker 1: on when I had an atarit wack. I still have
Speaker 1: an atar when I had it hooked up TV, but
Speaker 1: I didn't actually own this one. Um so shall we? Yeah?
Speaker 1: This is fifth place, by the way, for those of
Speaker 1: you keeping cow so in fifth place is pac Man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pac Man, so reported the Namco Giant. It's often called
Speaker 1: the worst coin up port. Ever, Donkey Kong wasn't great.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I'm not. I don't disagree, but pac Man
Speaker 1: was Honestly, it was terrible. Yeah, at least Donkey Kong
Speaker 1: remoly resemble the game that it was based on, pac Man.
Speaker 1: Some people have said that if it had not been
Speaker 1: called pac Man, if it if it hadn't been referred
Speaker 1: to as that and it had a slightly different appearance
Speaker 1: for the character that you play, that people probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: be quite so hard on it because the puzzle, the
Speaker 1: mazes were a little challenging to get through, and you know,
Speaker 1: the gameplay worked properly, like you know, you'd press left
Speaker 1: on the joystick and pac Man would go left. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like you know, Big Rigs what we just
Speaker 1: talked about. That was a game that was just pure broken, right.
Speaker 1: There was no literally no way to play that game.
Speaker 1: It ended up being like a weird sandbox game, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't intended to be one. Pac Man played the
Speaker 1: way it was supposed to more or less. It's just
Speaker 1: that it was such a poor translation of what of
Speaker 1: a game that people were really familiar with that it was.
Speaker 1: It could be nothing more than a disappointment to anyone
Speaker 1: who bought it. And in fact, pac Man is one
Speaker 1: of the titles that people often will use as an
Speaker 1: example when they talked about the video game industry collapsed
Speaker 1: in nine in North America. Well, it made so many
Speaker 1: copies of this, anticipating that people would want to play
Speaker 1: it at home, but when they actually got their hands
Speaker 1: on it and moved, I mean, pac Man is a
Speaker 1: game where you actually need reflexes and you need to
Speaker 1: pay attention to what's going on in Pactman on the
Speaker 1: move so much more slowly, and the graphics were poor.
Speaker 1: The sound wasn't as good. I remember when it came
Speaker 1: out for the R and it looked so much better
Speaker 1: except a non centering joystick, which makes playing in a
Speaker 1: four direction mays very very difficult. So that just didn't
Speaker 1: help anything. It was just such a huge flop at home, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a terrible, terrible game. And uh,
Speaker 1: I completely agree with this being on on a list
Speaker 1: for bad video games because it you know, even if
Speaker 1: you even if you say that the game play was okay,
Speaker 1: the effect it had in the industry was so terrible
Speaker 1: that by definition it's a bad video game because it
Speaker 1: helped bring the industry to its knees in Night three,
Speaker 1: and it wouldn't be until Nintendo launched the NES in
Speaker 1: North America that we would see a recovery of that market. Um.
Speaker 1: So now next we have a tie for third place.
Speaker 1: You know, normally we go from fifth to fourth, but
Speaker 1: we have the same number of votes came in for
Speaker 1: our our third and fourth place, so tie for third
Speaker 1: and these two are more modern. Yeah. Uh. We we
Speaker 1: did an entire episode about one of these, Duke newkembe Forever. Now,
Speaker 1: we did do a full episode about Duke Nukem Forever.
Speaker 1: So we're not going to spend too much time right
Speaker 1: now talking about it because now granted when we did
Speaker 1: the episode, it was before the game had come out
Speaker 1: hotly anticipated for a decade, more than a decade. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was originally announced as a title for the PC.
Speaker 1: It was a a a sequel to Duke NUKEMB three
Speaker 1: d um. It was originally announced in nine seven, but
Speaker 1: it didn't launch until twenty eleven. Yeah, that's a long
Speaker 1: time for to wait for a video game, right. I
Speaker 1: got vaporware awards right up there with Dao Sex. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wired gave it the Vaporware of the Year award multiple
Speaker 1: years in a row. In fact that it got discontinued
Speaker 1: from the voting because and then it was brought back
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just that it was vaporware. It was
Speaker 1: that just when you were prepared to say Duke Nukem
Speaker 1: Forever was never going to come out, there would be
Speaker 1: some sort of rumble from Three D Realms that would
Speaker 1: say no, no, no, no, no, it's really gonna come out.
Speaker 1: And then you'd have to say, well, now we have
Speaker 1: to put it back on the list, because you know,
Speaker 1: we were ready to write it off forever, but they
Speaker 1: say it's coming out, So of course they the rights
Speaker 1: to the game passed into other people's hands. Three D
Speaker 1: Realms collapsed. Yeah, and they did. Yeah, they they finished it. Um.
Speaker 1: They did not receive wide acclaim when it launched, a
Speaker 1: lot of people panned this game, which of course explains
Speaker 1: why it it's on our list and how many people
Speaker 1: vote did for it. Um. A lot of the criticisms
Speaker 1: about the game said that it was it just looked dated.
Speaker 1: It was it was like a first person shooter designed
Speaker 1: for the late nineties. You know, it didn't have the
Speaker 1: elements that you expect in the first person shooter today.
Speaker 1: And uh that even even for one in the nineties.
Speaker 1: It would have been great because, like in the nineties,
Speaker 1: you would have a lot of fast paced action and
Speaker 1: you would have a ton of different weapons at your disposal.
Speaker 1: Duke knukem Forever was more plodding and uh, well, there's
Speaker 1: no way for me to word this in a way
Speaker 1: that's not negative. It was a slow, slow game. It
Speaker 1: could be boring at ties, it could be ages between
Speaker 1: one encounter with an enemy and another, and you could
Speaker 1: only carry two weapons at a time. So it took
Speaker 1: away some of the stuff that made those games in
Speaker 1: the nineties so much fun and uh, and didn't replace
Speaker 1: it with anything better. And also the juvenile humor in
Speaker 1: the Duke nukemb series, I think it may have worn
Speaker 1: a little thin. It's just people don't find it as
Speaker 1: amusing as you is to be, partially because we've had
Speaker 1: other games come out that have much more biting satire
Speaker 1: and uh, and you know, they're they're just as edgy
Speaker 1: as Duke Newcomb was, but they are more relevant. Like
Speaker 1: the Grand Theft Auto series is known for its dark humor.
Speaker 1: The Fallout three series or the Fallout series in general
Speaker 1: is known for its dark humor, and so you get
Speaker 1: to do Newcomb and you're just like, well, this feels
Speaker 1: like you're in a uh, you know, you're in a
Speaker 1: locker room with a bunch of really really immature guys,
Speaker 1: and that that's the level of humor and it just
Speaker 1: never gets above that. And so I think all of
Speaker 1: those things contributed to it being ranked on our list.
Speaker 1: But what about our next game that's also tied for
Speaker 1: third place? You think that a game written by um
Speaker 1: an Oxford professor of bioethics might actually rank up there,
Speaker 1: But Bennett Foddy's game Q W O P or wop
Speaker 1: um got a lot of negative votes. Actually, I saw
Speaker 1: this profiled and wired before I ever tried to play it. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a neat little article about him. Uh, and I
Speaker 1: do mean little. It's very short, um, But basically, in
Speaker 1: this game, you are using the keys Q W O
Speaker 1: P hence the name, to move the legs of a
Speaker 1: runner on a track. Yeah, runner named quop for a
Speaker 1: hundred meter dash. And that's important to know. It's not
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be Olympic runner on the hundred meter dash,
Speaker 1: and the Q and W keys control the runners thighs
Speaker 1: and the O n P keys control the runners calves.
Speaker 1: And you're supposed to try and coordinate these movements in
Speaker 1: such a way as to propel the runner down the
Speaker 1: hundred meters. By the way, this runner has apparently no
Speaker 1: upper body control whatsoever, And if if the runner gets
Speaker 1: even a little bit off balance, it's time to tip over.
Speaker 1: And I have seen so many people play this game
Speaker 1: and get negative scores because they would just start tip
Speaker 1: backwards almost instantaneously. And as soon as you touch the ground,
Speaker 1: that's where you're that's that's your score. And uh, and
Speaker 1: we keep in mind it's a hundred meter dash. Um.
Speaker 1: I've never seen anyone complete this in fewer than twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: But the furthest I've gotten is twelve point eight ms.
Speaker 1: Didn't you send me a video of somebody who had
Speaker 1: finished in about four minutes. I think they sped it up.
Speaker 1: What they what they ended up doing was they used
Speaker 1: it so that they made Quop do a split, and
Speaker 1: then they just kind of jimmied it till he finally
Speaker 1: like he literally inched down a hundred meters. And and
Speaker 1: at fifty, by the way, you are you aren't you
Speaker 1: encounter your first obstacle, a hurdle, And at a hundred meters.
Speaker 1: There's a long jump, but you can go through the
Speaker 1: hurdle like you don't have to. You don't have to
Speaker 1: actually jump the hurdle. You can keep going as long
Speaker 1: as you're able to land on your feet or however
Speaker 1: you're getting across. Um, you can. You can pretty much
Speaker 1: ignore the hurdle and the long jump is completely uh optional. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you just have to cross that finish line. If
Speaker 1: you're if your experience with video game running is track
Speaker 1: and field from the nineties, where you just had to
Speaker 1: pound buttons as fast as you could. Um, you will
Speaker 1: not win at this game. This game is This game
Speaker 1: is really, really, really hard, which I think is why
Speaker 1: it got a lot of votes. It's it's frustrating and
Speaker 1: it seems it seems after you've played it for about
Speaker 1: a minute, it seems completely pointless. Oh, we should say
Speaker 1: it's web based. It's a web based game, so you
Speaker 1: can find it on Foddy's side. He wrote this in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight and it's still up, so if
Speaker 1: you want to give it a shot, go ahead. It's
Speaker 1: it's kind of and it's kind of funny. It also
Speaker 1: gives you an idea of how well your brain is
Speaker 1: controlling your walking movements, because if you were trying to
Speaker 1: walk with your you know, control your own legs with
Speaker 1: your fingers. You I don't know that I would do
Speaker 1: any better, but it takes a lot of coordination to
Speaker 1: be able to Like, even when I got twelve point
Speaker 1: eight meters, it was mostly luck. I was timing it
Speaker 1: just right. But even as I was playing, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I should have I should have let up on the
Speaker 1: calf muscle and continued on the thigh muscle for a
Speaker 1: split second longer, and I would have been able to
Speaker 1: get a little further. I can never do that when
Speaker 1: I'm actually playing. Like, when I'm actually playing, I'm like,
Speaker 1: press these two buttons, now, switch through these two buttons,
Speaker 1: now switch back to those two buttons. And that's that's
Speaker 1: my tactic. It's probably why I have only gotten twelve
Speaker 1: in Maybe you should get onto a girp Oh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've played that one too, which is his mountain climbing game,
Speaker 1: and apparently it's very very similar. It's actually that one
Speaker 1: I can play really well. I've gotten pretty far in
Speaker 1: girp Um. That one makes more sense to me, and
Speaker 1: I've got better coordination with that one. But the but yeah,
Speaker 1: quop is really hard. So um, you know who's really
Speaker 1: good at controlling their legs? Who's the but someone who
Speaker 1: doesn't have to use them? Is this going into our
Speaker 1: second place? Yes, because I mean, you know, if you
Speaker 1: can fly, yeah, then why would you need to use
Speaker 1: your legs? Yes, I'm talking about our second place. Superman
Speaker 1: the New Superman Adventures yea, also known as Superman sixty four.
Speaker 1: It's good that it wasn't Superman the New Batman Adventures
Speaker 1: that are like Superman NI Little Pony, that it would
Speaker 1: be weird. It might have been a better game than though.
Speaker 1: This was released in for the Nintendo sixty four and
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have been. And again this we're talking about
Speaker 1: licensed character you know all we talked about with Back
Speaker 1: to the Future. Then we're gonna make some money. The
Speaker 1: history of licensed characters, Actually, we're gonna get to that
Speaker 1: again very shortly. The history of licensed characters in video
Speaker 1: games is a pretty ugly one. There are a few
Speaker 1: games that stand out as being remarkable, like truly good
Speaker 1: games that use licensed characters, but the general rule of
Speaker 1: thumb is that if it's a licensed character game, it's
Speaker 1: it's gott a good the odds are against it, right,
Speaker 1: just based on the number of bad games that use
Speaker 1: licensed characters. Now, there are other games like you know,
Speaker 1: Arkham Asylum, which are fun. I mean, that's a Batman
Speaker 1: game and a lot of fun. I thought you were
Speaker 1: going to bring up Golden Eye. Golden Eye fantastic one
Speaker 1: of the best games ever made, also made for the
Speaker 1: Nintendo sixty four, one of the top first person shooter
Speaker 1: games of that era. Fantastic games. Superman not so much so.
Speaker 1: The story behind this game, the actual story in the game,
Speaker 1: that is, is that you play the part of Superman
Speaker 1: who has been tricked, as he often is, by Lex
Speaker 1: Luthor to enter into a virtual representation of Metropolis, and
Speaker 1: you have to complete these different tasks and puzzles that
Speaker 1: Lex sets up for you in order to escape and
Speaker 1: beat the tar out of him. Tank I needed exit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the first test of your skills involves flying through
Speaker 1: a series of hoops because span Yeah, I remember his
Speaker 1: topic battle with Doomsday where he had to lie through
Speaker 1: about fourteen hoops before to No, that doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: and I jumped through hoops every day after that. You
Speaker 1: might have to pick up a car and throw it
Speaker 1: because again, that's what Superman would do in Metropolis. Is
Speaker 1: that you know, you're thinking, like you're driving down with
Speaker 1: your family, You're having a nice day out. You might
Speaker 1: be gonna go see the Metropolis Museum of Art, and
Speaker 1: the next thing you know, some jerk has just flown over,
Speaker 1: picked up your car and thrown at forty blocks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that will ruin your whole day. But anyway, so
Speaker 1: you would also have to do things like fight famous
Speaker 1: Superman villains. But the controls were really sluggish, the gameplay
Speaker 1: was incredibly repetitive, and it has been ranked as one
Speaker 1: of the worst video games of all time, not just
Speaker 1: by our listeners, but by other publications. I mean it
Speaker 1: has multiple I hesitate to use the word awards, but
Speaker 1: multiple notifications of it being the worst, one of the
Speaker 1: worst video games. And in fact, in one ranking I
Speaker 1: saw it was ranked as the number one and our
Speaker 1: number one was number two. So now I guess we
Speaker 1: should move on to what our listeners have voted. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've already guessed it based upon what has
Speaker 1: already been listed, but what yourur listeners have voted as
Speaker 1: the worst video game of all time? And I should
Speaker 1: point out this received twenty nine percent of the overall
Speaker 1: votes we received. And keep in mind, you could nominate
Speaker 1: any title at all. And and I'm I have a
Speaker 1: small concern. That's because we've mentioned it as a terrible game,
Speaker 1: that that you all thought that we were coaching you
Speaker 1: to vote for this time. We did. We have talked
Speaker 1: about this game being a terrible game before, but when
Speaker 1: when we actually asked for votes, I made sure we
Speaker 1: didn't mention any particular title. I didn't want to change
Speaker 1: anyone's mind or put in a suggestion. I'm sure that
Speaker 1: happened anyway, based upon some of the comments and everything.
Speaker 1: But our worst video game is of all time, Chris
Speaker 1: do the honors e T. The Extraterrestrial for the R
Speaker 1: N two game published by Atari in about ten minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so keep in mind that Atari went the route where
Speaker 1: they were allowing all sorts of developers to create games
Speaker 1: for they they didn't have to be vetted through Atari.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, Nintendo had the whole certification process. Atari did not.
Speaker 1: But this there's no excuse here because Atari was the
Speaker 1: publisher behind this game in the first place. Yes, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: So then this game, you take the role of e T.
Speaker 1: The Extraterrestrial from the beloved Steven Spielberg documentary of the
Speaker 1: same name, And your task was to locate three pieces
Speaker 1: of an interstellar telephone so that you could assemble them
Speaker 1: and phone home, which would summon a spaceship that would
Speaker 1: rescue you. Uh. You did this just like in the movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all remember that scene in the movie
Speaker 1: where Et had to walk into a field of pits,
Speaker 1: raise his head up, look for the flash, and descend
Speaker 1: into the pit to retrieve a piece of the interstellar phone.
Speaker 1: I mean you remember that scene right as probably no,
Speaker 1: that scene did not exist. But in the game, you
Speaker 1: would walk into one of the screens, actually a couple
Speaker 1: of the screens would have several pits on the screen.
Speaker 1: You push a button which would raise ET's head and
Speaker 1: he would do a sound like this wrong. And then one,
Speaker 1: if you were lucky, one of the pits would flash,
Speaker 1: which would indicate that one of the pieces of the
Speaker 1: phone was in that pit, and you would walk over
Speaker 1: to the pit, fall in, pick up the piece of phone,
Speaker 1: and then you would press the button which would raise
Speaker 1: ET's head warm and you would levitate up the pit. Now,
Speaker 1: most of the game is an overhead view but when
Speaker 1: you were in a pit, it was a side view
Speaker 1: like a cut, and you would you would levitate to
Speaker 1: the top of the pit and then immediately fall in
Speaker 1: again because it was really hard that once you got
Speaker 1: to the top of the pit, the screen would change
Speaker 1: so that you were looking at the overhead view again,
Speaker 1: and you had to manipulate et all over to the
Speaker 1: edge of the pit so that you were on the
Speaker 1: ground again. Right, so you're on you go from a
Speaker 1: side view to an overhead view. And I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how many times I fell down a pit over
Speaker 1: and over and over again because I thought it was clear.
Speaker 1: But and every time you fall, and every time you
Speaker 1: use your powers, you use up energy. You have a
Speaker 1: limited amount of energy, and after you use it all up,
Speaker 1: you die. Yeah, well, you have to find dots, mean
Speaker 1: pieces pieces. He had a little square pixel which would
Speaker 1: be represent one Reese's pieces, and you would eat that
Speaker 1: and that would give you a little more energy. They
Speaker 1: would also had doctors who would walk around and if
Speaker 1: they found you, they'd pick you up and move you
Speaker 1: to a different screen and you would lose a little time.
Speaker 1: Or worse, you would find an FBI guy and he
Speaker 1: would chase you down, and if he touched you, he
Speaker 1: would take away your phone and he had to start
Speaker 1: over again. And so you would do this over and
Speaker 1: over again til you had the three pieces of phone.
Speaker 1: Then you could go to one part of the game,
Speaker 1: the one section where there's an icon on the screen
Speaker 1: that tells you you can make your phone call here,
Speaker 1: and you had to find it because it wasn't always
Speaker 1: in the same place. You would make your phone call,
Speaker 1: and then you had to make it to a different
Speaker 1: screen where the spaceship would actually land because apparently you
Speaker 1: can't make a phone call at the landing site. Oh no,
Speaker 1: that'd be too easy. So then you have to make
Speaker 1: your way to the other screen and get in the
Speaker 1: little spaceship and you would then start the game over
Speaker 1: at the same difficulty level immediately. And this game was awful, terrible,
Speaker 1: terrible game, so bad that people the word got out
Speaker 1: about how disappointed this game was that people stopped buying it.
Speaker 1: And uh Attari had produced thousands of cartridges because the
Speaker 1: movie was so successful. So Attari goes out and makes
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of copies of ET. The reviews come in,
Speaker 1: people hate it, copies go unsold. Eventually, store start to
Speaker 1: send their unsold copies of ET back to Atari, and
Speaker 1: Atari grinds them up and then trucks them out into
Speaker 1: New Mexico and buries them. You know, um, you know
Speaker 1: what they did with that? What's up? They used it
Speaker 1: to pave a road and then you drive this bus
Speaker 1: right across the desert and you get one point every
Speaker 1: time you run over ET. Yeah, it was, and then
Speaker 1: you fall in a pit and then physics in that
Speaker 1: game are terrible. But anyway, Yeah, so that was. This
Speaker 1: was again just like pac Man. This is another one
Speaker 1: of those games that was pointed to as being one
Speaker 1: of the reasons the video game industry crashed in Now.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the games that came out
Speaker 1: for the AD were these games made by independent developers
Speaker 1: that were just terrible. But it was because, you know,
Speaker 1: the market was flooded with terrible games and Attari was
Speaker 1: not helping itself out by publishing some of them itself. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had some of those games too, And I had
Speaker 1: and you know, I've mentioned it before. I was actually
Speaker 1: a surprise that nobody voted for the sword Quest series.
Speaker 1: But my guess is that a Torii was in such
Speaker 1: decline that none of our listeners actually bought that, but
Speaker 1: me since they didn't even finish the last game on
Speaker 1: the series. But we didn't. A couple of people did
Speaker 1: vote for some games that were patently offensive. We didn't
Speaker 1: mention that before, and we didn't we weren't including those
Speaker 1: specifically because we were talking about games that were just
Speaker 1: horrible games now that were offensive, and these were games
Speaker 1: that were meant to be enjoyable. They didn't have an
Speaker 1: ulterior motive, right, there are some of those two. But
Speaker 1: the games that had an ulterior motive where the whole
Speaker 1: purpose was to perpetuate hatred or to make a joke
Speaker 1: out of uh, inhumane acts, we didn't include those because really,
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, I refused to give them
Speaker 1: any more publicity than they've already had. And second of all,
Speaker 1: I I was the spirit of the thing was to
Speaker 1: think of games that were meant to be enjoyable, fun
Speaker 1: games that just weren't for one reason or another. Um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the really quickly, because we're
Speaker 1: we've we're already getting pretty far up there, but we
Speaker 1: have to talk about some of the other games that
Speaker 1: got on got some votes that I was surprised didn't
Speaker 1: get more votes, but again, since you had every single
Speaker 1: game open to you, you know, one of those was
Speaker 1: Aquaman Battle for Atlantis. This game is nigh unplayable. It
Speaker 1: again had one of the worst reviews ever. Explay did
Speaker 1: an amazing hysterical review of this game. Um I think
Speaker 1: they called it like Power of the Mullet or something
Speaker 1: like that in their in their review, but it was terrible.
Speaker 1: And games that, um, we're specifically designed to be marketing
Speaker 1: tools for for brands, so stuff like I actually had
Speaker 1: the kool Aid game for the Yeah oh no, and
Speaker 1: then they had the Avoid the Annoyed game for Dominoes.
Speaker 1: There were all the Burger kaing games that came out
Speaker 1: for the Xbox. There was a McDonald's game as well.
Speaker 1: We got we got votes for those, but they were
Speaker 1: it was usually one like one vote for one of
Speaker 1: those titles, so there wasn't a lot of but I
Speaker 1: think that that deserves mentioned. Games that are specifically just
Speaker 1: marketing ploys tend to get hate hated by gamers, which
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of makes sense, like gamers won
Speaker 1: a game that was designed just to create enjoyment, be
Speaker 1: fun and challenging, not a game that's designed to make
Speaker 1: you want to go out and buy a pizza. Teenager
Speaker 1: Ninja Turtles also falls into that category. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: So and then there were some of the games that
Speaker 1: were on the list that we we were a little
Speaker 1: surprised to see votes for. Uh. And in some cases,
Speaker 1: I think it's what people were voting on games that
Speaker 1: either they're just tired of seeing or they don't they
Speaker 1: are not particularly good at that game and they find
Speaker 1: it frustrating, and other people like it, and that's why
Speaker 1: they hate it, because it's a game that they personally
Speaker 1: just don't get. Um. But some of those titles include
Speaker 1: things like Angry Birds, which I think probably that's a
Speaker 1: saturation thing, right, it's just because it's everywhere, people are
Speaker 1: going to be tired of it. Yeah, Uh, we fit,
Speaker 1: we fit. I don't even think if we fit as
Speaker 1: a game, you know. That's why I didn't really like that.
Speaker 1: That's not really a game so much. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a game element to it, but it's not I don't
Speaker 1: call the game Halo, which I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people would argue is one of the better first person
Speaker 1: shooters for a console system, keeping in mind that PC
Speaker 1: based first person shooters are much more sophisticated and require
Speaker 1: a totally different skill set than a console one. I've
Speaker 1: heard computer first person shooter players refer to console first
Speaker 1: person shooters as kind of dumbing down the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and I kind of get that, but it's it's a different,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of different mode. And I personally love
Speaker 1: the Halo series. I can see your Halo Thank you.
Speaker 1: Pitfall for the at that was like a classic title
Speaker 1: like that, along with River Raid or two of my
Speaker 1: favorite titles. But there were people who didn't like it
Speaker 1: because it had a repetitive gameplay early days there Super
Speaker 1: Mario sixty four another game that got great reviews. But
Speaker 1: we got some votes for that Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator,
Speaker 1: which again I don't really think of as a game
Speaker 1: a flight simulator, and flight simulators, by their very nature
Speaker 1: tend to be very very complex, and sometimes overwhelmingly so,
Speaker 1: because they are trying to be so true to life,
Speaker 1: and yet you're using a different interface to control that
Speaker 1: vehicle than you would if you were in the cockpit,
Speaker 1: so there's an extra layer of complexity, you know. So
Speaker 1: that got the votes. Also, we got some votes for
Speaker 1: a Call of Duty and Modern Warfare which that was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. Um so not everybody agrees obviously on
Speaker 1: what is the worst game of all time? Although overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: ET ran away with this like it was there wasn't
Speaker 1: even close. ET have way any more votes than all
Speaker 1: the others combined. But like I said, of all the
Speaker 1: votes that were we received for everything went to ET.
Speaker 1: He galloped everywhere he walked. Did you yes, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Did you have any game? Well? You mentioned
Speaker 1: the what was the series? That was a pretty There
Speaker 1: was supposed to be a contest if he solved all
Speaker 1: four parts of it, and the fourth part never came out.
Speaker 1: In the third one got limited distribution. But I couldn't
Speaker 1: see the point of doing what you were supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing, right, I mean, I just really couldn't follow
Speaker 1: the sequence. Yeah, I think I have to say that
Speaker 1: out of all the ones I've I've mentioned, e T
Speaker 1: is probably the the one I think of as the
Speaker 1: worst that I've ever personally played. I played a lot
Speaker 1: of really bad games, but I tend to forget them
Speaker 1: because I have access to more games now, So if
Speaker 1: I play a really bad one, I just switch and
Speaker 1: go to a good one so it doesn't leave as
Speaker 1: big an impression on me. Back when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: my options were somewhat limited, and so I would play
Speaker 1: a add game over and over because it's what I had. Ah.
Speaker 1: I know here I am complaining about video games. Poor me,
Speaker 1: You play a game. Um, yeah, don't cry for me, Argentina.
Speaker 1: Al Right, guys, well this wraps up our first crowdsourced
Speaker 1: episode of tech Stup. We'll probably do more of these
Speaker 1: in the future. Maybe we'll do one in the best
Speaker 1: video Game of All Time, but we'll also probably look
Speaker 1: at other elements, things that have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: video games at all. Will ask your opinion and we'll
Speaker 1: report the results. We might actually guide it a little
Speaker 1: more in the future, just so that way. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have such a wide field to choose from
Speaker 1: because with with with such a huge number of options,
Speaker 1: it is hard to tabulate votes. We had a lot
Speaker 1: of things that only had one vote because you know,
Speaker 1: it was an obscure game that one person knew about
Speaker 1: and it's a truly terrible game, so it had merit
Speaker 1: for this list, but not enough people knew about to
Speaker 1: vote for it. So we might narrow it down a
Speaker 1: little bit next time, just to make things easier on
Speaker 1: everybody me. If you have suggestions for any episodes you
Speaker 1: would like to hear as a crowd sourced episode, something
Speaker 1: that you think would be really interesting and you kind
Speaker 1: of you're curious what other tech stuff listeners have to
Speaker 1: say about it. Let us know. Send us an email.
Speaker 1: Our address is text stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled,
Speaker 1: There is text stuff H. S W and Chris and
Speaker 1: I will tell you again really soon. Be sure to
Speaker 1: check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
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