Mike Hodder

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 25

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Angel of Darkness on PS2 (2003)

The first Tomb Raider game on the PS2 should’ve been an absolute smash, but it ended up being the worst of the series. Poor gameplay, controls and gameplay glitches plagued the game.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 24

Spirit of Speed 1937 on the Dreamcast (1999)

For a game called Spirit of Speed, it’s ironic that the load times on this game are unforgivable. The historic context is nice, but with jerky graphics and sluggish controls, the waiting to play is awful.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 23

Friday the 13th on the NES (1989)

Friday the 13th has doesn’t have a good reputation in video games. The 1986 home computer version was poor and this is no better. A drab colour palette and frustratingly difficult gameplay killed the series for years

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 22

Highlander on the C64 (1986)

As embarrassing as the original, brilliant, films sequels were, they are nothing compared to the video game, which had horrible graphics, unresponsive controls and terrible collision detection.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 21

Bubsy 3D on the PS1 (1996)

Not a terrible game in an of itself, but being the first 3D platformer, it has the problem that literally ever game that came after it did what it was trying to do far better than it did.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 20

Sqij! on the ZX Spectrum (1987)

A game that is truly unplayable, as a programming error meant that you were incapable of moving your character in any way without hacking into the game. Plus, it looks about 5 years out of date. Shocking.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 19

Night Trap on the Sega CD (1992)

Worthy of note for being one of the first interactive movies, beyond that Night Trap doesn’t have much going for it, with grainy footage, poor acting, limited gameplay and a rather creepy voyeuristic setting.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 18

JFK Reloaded on PC (2004)

Not as completely abhorrent as Custer’s Revenge, this is still a game that really shouldn’t been made in the first place, as you try to replicate the JFK assassination as closely as possible.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 17

Street Fighter: The Movie in the Arcade (1995)

The film was rubbish, and this game version with digitised characters from the movie doesn’t fare much better. The real problem is why play this poor relation when there were already great versions of SF

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 16

Crazy Frog Racer on the PS2 (2005)

Yes the annoying ringtone frog got a video game. And it’s just as bad and as irritating as the character himself. A poor Mario Kart / Wipeout knock off that has the frog spout his annoying sounds.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 15

Super Trolley on the C64 (1988)

Super Trolley as a game is fine, as you play a supermarket worker who has to carry out various tasks. The fact that the game was part of Jim’ll Fix It, and has Jimmy Saville himself on the cover is reason to avoid.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 14

Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis on the GameCube (2003)

Aquaman may, harshly, be seen as a bit of a joke, but this repetitive beat em up does him no favours at all by being dull, uninspired, and far too short, with half arsed presentation.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 13

Street Hawk - Subscribers Edition on the ZX Spectrum (1985)

Based on the short lived TV series, this was a hastily programmed shooter thrown out to meet catalogue orders, the game was eventually given away to Crash subscribers.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 12

Link: The Faces of Evil on the Philips CD-i (1993)

The one time Nintendo allowed another developer to work on one of the premiere titles, and what they got was an unresponsive platformer with atrocious and laughable cut scenes.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 11

Pit Fighter in the Arcade (1990)

It might have looked impressive at the time, with large digitised fighters, but the animation was lacking, the controls shonky and the game was just a dog to play. Mortal Kombat did digital fighters better.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 10

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing on PC (2003)

Some games need patches to iron out a few bugs. This game needed to actually be finished being programmed in the first place, because the sheer number of problems made it unplayable.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 9

Custer’s Revenge on the Atari 2600 (1982)

I’m not gonna post boxart or screenshots of this game, and will simply state that it’s a abhorrent game that never should’ve been made in the first place.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 8

Don’t Buy This on the ZX Spectrum (1985)

The only title in history to intentionally release five terrible games in this mocking budget package. Each of the games might give five minutes of enjoyment, but not much beyond that. Oddly, it still sold well

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 7

Batman: Dark Tomorrow on the GameCube (2003)

If you’re going to make a 3D game, get the camera right. If you can’t get the camera right, get the controls right. Don’t do what the creators of this game did, and screw up both.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 6

Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero on the N64 (1997)

A poor conceived branching out into the side scrolling beat em up genre, starring popular ninja Sub-Zero, was made worse by terrible and unresponsive controls and terrible and unfair level design.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 5

Shaq-Fu on the Megadrive (1994)

Taking one of the all time greats of the NBA and shoving him into a third rate Street Fighter rip off may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but the result is both a waste of players time and money.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 4

Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 (1982)

Pac-Man in the arcade is a classic. Pac-Man on the 2600 is a garbled mess of cut corners and poor programming choices that bears little resemblance to the game that bears its name. The worst arcade conversion ever.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 3

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on the NES (1988)

Having only a passing link to the 1886 short story, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a practically unplayable mess of a game that has unresponsive controls and deals out frustrating random events. Awful.

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 2

Little Britain: The Video Game on the PS2 (2007)

If the tv show that this is based on has aged like month old mayo left in the sun, it didn’t even take this version of mini games based on various sketches from the show that long. Shocking all round.

February is a rubbish month, so here’s…

28 Days of Rubbish - Video Game Edition

Day 1

World Cup Carnival on the ZX Spectrum (1986)

US Gold’s officially licensed World Cup game, the first of its kind was a travesty, in that they bought up a two year old game and released it for a tenner.

31 Days of Shmups - Video Game Edition

Day 31

Galaga in the Arcade (1981)

The game that inspired this months theme is our final game of the month. A follow up to 1979s Galaxian, the game is essentially the same, a fixed screen shooter, but with improved gameplay and features.

31 Days of Shmups - Video Game Edition

Day 30

Xenon 2 on the Amiga (1989)

The last great shoot em up of the 80s was a great looking shooter, with a vast array of weapons and a sound track that is an absolute banger, sampled from Megablast by Bomb the Bass.

31 Days of Shmups - Video Game Edition

Day 29

Star Soldier on the NES (1986)

The original game in the Star Solider series may look basic to modern eyes, but it’s still a solid vertically scrolling shooter that takes place across sixteen levels and isn’t overly complicated with its power ups.

31 Days of Shmups - Video Game Edition

Day 28

Radiant Silvergun on the Sega Saturn (1998)

The inspirational game that was the forerunner to Ikaruga, and a game that single handedly reinvigorated the shooter genre, Radiant Silvergun has great effects, weapons and a unique bonus scoring system.

31 Days of Shmups - Video Game Edition

Day 27

Lightforce on the ZX Spectrum (1986)

A very impressive vertically scrolling shooter that uses bucket loads of colour with little or no colour clash, a difficult programming feat on the Speccy. Challenging without being frustrating, it’s a great play.