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15. Elevator Action (Arcade)
 

 
Pac-Man is a simple game and its one of the greatest games of all time.  Donkey Kong and the Original Super Mario Brothers are also simple games that rank as some of the best video gaming experiences of all time.  Elevator action is also a very simple game, and is one of the worst games of all time, proving that simplicity doesn't always equal genius.  This game gets repetitive quick.  Climb down stairs shooting the same fucking sleuth enemies over and over again.  Once in awhile, take an elevator down and shoot the same enemies over and over again.  The music is deeply irritating and completely uninspired.  It's easy to fall asleep to this music (not in a good Coastal Mario Kart level), which should not be the case for an action thriller that tries to be "edgy".  There’s really nothing more to be said about this game.  You will fall asleep 2 minutes into playing Elevator Action or you will be angry it's so fucking boring.  There's a line between sheer boredom and sheer genius when it comes to overtly simple games like those listed previously.  Pac Man you can play for hours and hours on end with a levels that barely change and enemy's that only gradually increase in speed and difficulty level.  Elevator Action on the other hand you know almost immediately to be tired and uninspired.
 
 
14. Total Recall (NES)
 
 
 
Sometimes when a video game is based on a movie, it seems as though the video game maker was so confident that the movie’s name would sell the game that they would have to put no work into actually making the game good.  This is what happened with Total Recall for the NES.  Its utterly amazing to me that a video game console as great as the NES, with so many great games, many of which were based on movies, like Star Wars, for instance, could release this crap.   Add to it that the game was actually released by Acclaim, and its even more amazing.  Everything about this game just feels awkward.  The controls are unresponsive, the graphics are atrocious...not to mention just plain confusing, and the storyline and characters fail to even resemble the movie.  Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, as I didn't really like the movie either.  
 
13. Smurf Rescue (ColecoVision)
 

 
Back in 1982 many people thought that video games had hit an all time low with Smurf Rescue for the ColecoVision.  While things may have changed slightly since then, the fact remains that this is simply a horrible game.  While the Hanna Barbera cartoon was great fun for little children across the United States, the video game version was nearly impossible, even for adults.  Each side-scrolling screen presented various obstacles that the player must precisely jump over such as fences and stalagmites, or land on top of, like ledges. Failure to execute any jump resulted in instant death. To make matter worse, higher difficulty levels introduced flying bats and spiders that the player must also avoid.  Really, the only cool part of this game is a barely hidden Easter egg, where upon reaching Smurfette's screen, the player can return to the previous screen. Just before the screen changes, it will appear as though the top of Smurfette's dress comes off, although this was well before they had pixelatted cleavage, so there’s not really too much to see anyway.  Softcore cartoon porn aside, this is just a bad game, but if you’re one of those kids who always imagined what Smurfette would look like topless, you still might want to pick it up, just to satisfy your curiousity.  
 
12. The Three Stooges (NES) 
 

 
While most games are bad because the idea of the actual game being played is terrible, or because it is so difficult you can't get by the first level, "Three Stooges" introduces a new reason why a game can be awful. Three Stooges is basically incomprehensible to play. For the most part you have no idea what you’re doing when you’re playing this game. You press start and you're taken to an outside street with the three stooges where a Wheel of Fortune wheel comes out of thin air that ostensibly picks what you're supposed to do in the game. Next you notice you're in another random place where you have no idea what you're supposed to do. You're at a bowl of soup with a spoon in it.  There are also what looks like pieces of cat excretion in the soup that you have to eat. Trying to control your spoon proves to be one of the more difficult tasks you will take on in this life. After a couple of minutes of throwing your controller at the screen you hear a sound that sounds like a box fan breaking down which I think is supposed to be one of the 3 stooges getting angry that you didn't pass a test that you couldn't control and knew nothing about, and had no idea how you got there, and why your eating soup with ambiguous objects inside. You next may randomly find yourself in a hospital flying down an operating room with a nurse picking up things she's dropping. You have no idea what you're picking up though. Once again, trying to control this fiasco proves excessively enigmatic, and once again you will be throwing your controller at the screen.
This game is so bad, it's difficult to review any longer. This is a perfect example of what happens when you try to take something from the TV or movie screen and apply it to video gamedom. Creators who want to cash in on screen success pay no attention to the garbage they're putting out for the video game.
 
 
11. Superman: The New Superman Adventures (N64)
 

 
Superman: The New Superman Adventures, released for the Nintendo 64, is by far the worst thing to happen to the Superman franchise since Richard Pryor. The game has been almost univerally panned for its ridiculous plot, and bad graphics and poor gameplay.  The plot line is that Lex Luthor has trapped the Man of Steel's best friends, i.e. Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Professor Hamilton, in some virtual world, and you must enter it and save them.  My first thoughts upon hearing this plot were, "Okay, sounds stupid so far, but most Superman plots are.  I still can't wait to play as Superman on the N64.  This is going to be great.  Besides, anything with Superman can't be that bad."  Boy was I wrong.  The gameplay and missions themselves are just plain boring and stupid.  For some reason, Lex Luthor has suspended some hoops in the air, which you must fly through in order to complete you mission objectives.  Okay, this can still be cool.  I like flying anyway.  Nope.  The controls are so unresponsive that you'll usually just assume that you've pushed the wrong button and begin mashing on all of them just to get some sort of response, all the while the weird perspective routinely manages to confuse you.  Not only that, but you barely get to use your other powers, as  you pretty much just fly around through some boring backgrounds that look more like they belong on SNES than the N64, and you  only occasionally get  to fight a virtual copy of one of Superman's archenemies.   The only reason to play this game is to see how bad it is, and only then if you can find a friend who has it and hasn't sold it back or burned it.
 
 
 




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