What's your "so bad it's good" game

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
mmntech

mmntech

Lifer
Sep 20, 2007
17,504
12
0
Game Grumps are doing a series on Sonic Adventure. A game that I've heard nothing but positive things about. Completely forgot I owned it. Fired it up and my god is it bad. Cheesy dialogue that's badly dubbed, horrible camera, glitchy. Yet I can't stop laughing while playing it. It's such a hot mess that it's unintentionally hilarious.

What's your "The Room" of games?
 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
Double Dragon Neon. The only appealing thing about it is that it's double dragon.
 
Zenoth

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,190
185
106
To be honest I've never understood how a game can be "good" if it's that bad. If I dislike a game a lot I'll simply never think it's good "because it's bad". There are some games, however, that I have to sort of "tolerate" when I play them, but they're not so bad as to categorize them as "so bad it's good".

I suppose one game that immediately comes to mind is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (first one). The PC version's GUI is a travesty and an insult, it's just terribad (that means it's so terrible it's actually bad, probably is so for one's sanity). I had to Force myself (yeah... I'm trying with puns lately, not a bad one huh?) to play it (and to navigate through that nightmare of a GUI, that's excluding actually pretty bad controls overall) but I actually enjoyed it for its story, decent-to-excellent voice acting (Darth Vader's voice actor's performance is absolutely incredible), well done scripted scenes, and... dare I say it... Quick Time Events that I managed to appreciate.

It's the type of game that has just a couple of horribly-implemented elements and features that in and of themselves can definitely act like a solid wall you'd hit at a thousand miles an hour; you either stop right there when you notice it or you continue through it with the inevitable pain that must go with it. I chose to just "play it anyway", but not because the game itself (overall) was "bad", it was in fact good. But if I had to score the game I would actually have to isolate or simply ignore (or remove) the game's GUI and controls in order to even consider scoring it to begin with (but at the same time, it's "part of" the game, so the score would end up low, even if I actually enjoyed the "core" game).

I do believe, however, that there is one game that might fall into a category that I would have to name "I was so dumb at the time for actually liking it", namely The Peacekeepers on the SNES. In retrospect I have nothing but negatives for it, yet I must have rented it a good 5+ times back then and even enjoyed it (genuinely so) especially when I played co-op with my friends and cousin. It's not actually "good", it's just a horrible game, but at the time I was so blind about it... not sure why. I was young and dumb: the only possible explanation I can come up with.
 
B

BSim500

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2013
1,480
216
106
Zenoth said:
To be honest I've never understood how a game can be "good" if it's that bad.
Click to expand...
I think he's referring to that social effect of something gaining cult-like status for being so cheesy that people start to look it up later on purely for the unintentional comedy factor. Like some movies:-
http://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/25-movies-so-bad-theyre-unmissable/

I honestly can't think of many. Unlike a bad movie you can passively grimace through, some games are that bad in terms of broken gameplay they are literally unplayable beyond the first 10-15mins so they never really gain the comedy "cheese" factor. Other deliberately silly games (Jazzpunk, etc) don't really fit either. There's been a cluster of lame "horror" genre Indie's I thought might fit. Personally, The 11th Hour is reminiscent of how some 1990's FMV based "game" were cheesy even at the time. It was the sequel to the 7th Guest, and widely expected to be bigger and better. Instead it was like a 6hr game containing an unskippable 5hrs of cutscene (broken up in pieces) of the cheesiest 80's acting imaginable, a soundtrack that was dumbed down from original T7G's "creepy graveyeard" to "low budget 80's porno", an interface that sporadically locks up on ALT-TAB, game-breaking bugs such as solved puzzles not registering and gibberish nonsensical puzzle "hints" ("Artsy, excited, lecher" = complete a chess puzzle, "Liberation for an affectionate puppy named Sounder" = click on a bottle of champagne). Many cutscenes either accidentally repeated or the wrong scene was triggered if you do quests before finding clues to same quests. Dumbest head bob ever. It certainly gave me a chuckle as some form of proclaimed 7th Guest "sequel", and the one single Metacritic review ends with "This game is cheezy and deliberately B-rate, that it has that "crappy movie" charm to it. You know it's bad, but enjoyable kind of bad"... :D
 
DigDog

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,495
2,120
126
it's not gonna work with games as it does with film. in games, you have to actively participate, while in film you can just observe the filmmakes fail and laugh at them.
 
Sulaco

Sulaco

Diamond Member
Mar 28, 2003
3,860
44
91
We can all laugh at and enjoy bad translations, bad writing, bad voice acting, etc.


It's hard to laugh and enjoy bad gameplay. At least for more than a few minutes.

That's how The Angry Video Game Nerd rose to such prominence. We can passively watch him "endure" terrible, wretchedly bad games without having to deal with the frustration ourselves.

There's plenty of games that have a mess of a story, or bad voice acting (see almost any Japanese game ever), but the gameplay compensates.
If both are really bad, I just don't have the patience for it.
 
nakedfrog

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
58,152
12,327
136
cmdrdredd said:
Double Dragon Neon. The only appealing thing about it is that it's double dragon.
Click to expand...
:colbert:
Granted, I played it on PS3 and not PC. It definitely loses a bit in single player, my first 10 hours were strictly co-op, then I did a bunch of grinding in SP. But it's still a solid representative of the Double Dragon series, with some modern flair.
 
Skurge

Skurge

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2009
5,195
1
71
Well, I've played games that are so bad they are entertaining, but never good.

One would be boiling point: Road to hell.
 
SMOGZINN

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,202
4,401
136
Huniepop. I've been playing this with my girlfriend and the game is hilariously bad, although I think it is intentionally so. It seems that it was made as a parody of Japanese dating sims. Either way the dialog is groan worthy most of the time, and we have taken to calling one of the girls 'stroke victim'.
 
P

pathos

Senior member
Aug 12, 2009
461
0
0
I've played games that I love, and other people hate. But, I can't think of any so bad, it's good. But, then again, there are very few movies I'd rate that way either, and it would be much easier for a movie, then it would be for a game to do it.
 
S

Sniper82

Lifer
Feb 6, 2000
16,517
0
76
yeah never came across a game like that myself. If the game doesn't do something story or gameplay wise in a hour(give or take) I usually won't touch it again. I will sometimes read up on it before giving up to see if its one of those games that starts off slow and picks up.
 
F

futurefields

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2012
6,471
32
91
the only game like this i've played is one that is meant to be like Goat Simulator

usually if a game is bad, it's just bad and not fun at all to play
 
N

ninjasteak

Junior Member
Sep 9, 2015
3
0
0
Arcania.

Once you get past the goofy intro and first chapter the dodge-based gameplay is kind of addicting and the story is just good enough to keep you playing to see how it all turns out. The add on is a chance to mow down legions of enemies with your severely overpowered character but it's really cathartic. I finished both in less than two weeks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom