List Soup: 25 of the worst NES games ever

Like so many lists, this one is far from complete and has been attempted several times before. The NES had so many games, and so many of them were complete and utter nuclear dog shit, thrown together by some Soviet design team for a quick buck that 25 doesn’t even scratch the surface.

That’s also why I’m not declaring that these 25 are the absolute 25 worst, because they’re not, but they’re the ones that you picked from your gut reaction from this discussion topic exactly 30 days ago (after weeding out the truly bad from the just difficult). They’re also not listed in any order than alphabetical, because I’m not opening that can of worms. They’re all fucking awful.

You may also notice a trend throughout the list— licensed games. Games based on movies these days aren’t the best, but you kids don’t even fucking know. Movie games and other licensed properties on the NES were the absolute worst. I could do a list of 50 of the worst licensed NES games alone.

Back to the Future

What made it so bad: Awful graphics, pointless things that would kill you (jump roping girls and park benches?), almost nothing to do with the movie. The first one was bad, but the double game cart with BTTF 2 and 3 on it was the worst.

Bart vs. The World

What made it so bad: In the discussion, the game actually mentioned was Bart vs. The Space Mutants. But Space Mutants wasn’t really bad— it was actually pretty fun and unique, it was just hard as a fucking son of a bitch. Versus the World however was just total garbage.

Bible Adventures

What made it so bad: All games based on the Bible are awful, but this one stands out among a heap of shit to be one of the worst. Awful gameplay, completely nonsensical tasks and Bible stories.

Caveman Games

What made it so bad: You know how Olympics games are generally worthless? Take that and multiply the worthless factor by 10,000, add some really awful graphics, annoying sound and broken controls and you win the gold medal for suck.

Cheetahmen

What made it so bad: Not even good enough to stand on its own, Cheetahmen was part of the Action 52 cart, 52 games that combined were so bad they had to be sold as an unofficial NES cartridge. So what wasn’t broken in Cheetahmen? The graphics were hideous, game play was excruciating and the game was so glitchy and broken, in most levels you could just double jump to a fixed broken point in mid-air and walk 5 feet above the enemies to the end of the level. If I was numbering, this would definitely be #1.

Daydreamin’ Davey

What made it so bad: The awful graphics were just the tip of the iceberg. Even for a game about daydreams, it made absolutely no sense, had 2 or 3 levels that were repeated over and over and had dialogue you would have sworn was written by a 2nd grader.

Deadly Towers

What made it so bad:  When Deadly Towers first came out, it was a best-seller in both the US and Japan, but just because it initally was a best seller doesn’t mean it was good. While it had some innovative RPG features, the gameplay and combat was awful, annoying and repetitive, and if RPG combat makes you hate life, what else has it got?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

What made it so bad: While the whole day/night thing could have worked, everything about this game was piss poor and absolutely terrifying, but not in a good way.

Friday the 13th

What made it so bad: Oh I don’t know… what’s so awful about running through the exact same identical cabins over and over and over only to get killed repeatedly in one hit by Jason? The levels were uninspired and as boring as the whole thing was just a cheap hot mess.

Ghostbusters

What made it so bad: See the screenshot above? That was much of the game. Driving around (really badly, no matter what you did), catching ghosts from your car. They just didn’t even begin to try with this game.

Gyromite

What made it so bad: Nintendo advertised the shit out of this when it came out like it was the second coming of video game Jesus. In reality, it was a really shitty puzzle platformer that you paid extra for, for the privilege of having a non-working “robot” toy that killed you as much as he helped you.

Heroes of the Lance

What made it so bad: Why do the hero portraits have to take up half the screen? Why, if this was based on the Dragonlance books, was the story so shitty? Why was the gameplay so god awful and repetitive? Fuuuck.

Jaws

What made it so bad: Completely pointless, random levels and gameplay, you just drove your boat in circles so you could get sucked into the water and get killed by jellyfish. Over and over and over.

The Karate Kid

What made it so bad: Oh look, it’s not only a less than half-ass movie game, but it’s a less than half-ass movie game masquerading as a shitty NES fighting game. Just don’t. Ever.

MUSCLE

What made it so bad: Another game in which nothing went right. The MUSCLE toys were fucking awesome, but this got translated into a wrestling game with almost completely non-working controls and some of the worst graphics of any NES game.

The Rocketeer

What made it so bad: Based on a good movie, there should be a lot of fun to be had in a game where you’ve got a rocket pack and a gun. But that’s only if someone actually gave a flying fuck.

Silver Surfer

What made it so bad: In the comics, Silver Surfer can destroy entire planets, but in the NES game, he could be taken out in a single hit by clipping a park bench. Or a bush. Or a potted plant that can’t even be distinguished from the background.

Street Fighter 2010

What made it so bad: Street Fighter 2010 had nothing to do with Street Fighter, though it had potential. It’s too bad that they gave it completely broken controls and a whole lot of stupid, poorly designed single screen levels.

Tiger-Heli

What made it so bad: This game is “endless fun”, if only you count “endless fun” as playing the same awful fucking level over and over again.

Top Gun

What made it so bad: There were some good flight simulators for the NES, but this wasn’t one of them. Not even close. Forget trying to do anything fancy— you’ll be lucky as hell if you can even take off and land without dying.

Total Recall

What made it so bad: It’s a movie game for the NES, so it had that going against it. The levels were really poorly designed, the enemies were repetitive and generic, but fortunately you had your jump and your weak little girl punch at your disposal.

Wayne’s World

What made it so bad: I mean, if you can get past the awful graphics, the completely dull level design and the fact that it’s buggy as hell, with the hit detection about a mile off, and if you can actually stand to play it for more than five minutes without smashing your NES to bits, I guess it could be worse.

Where’s Waldo?

What made it so bad: It’s a game based on a book where you stare at the page for an hour to find a single person. Translated into a game, it requires you to stare at a static screen until you found the one ugly Waldo sprite. What sort of shit is that?

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

What made it so bad: Sure, you could punch the shit out of Roger, but that was pretty much all the fun that was to be had. It tried to be an action game, a driving game and a point and click adventure and failed ever so miserably on all fronts.

X-Men

What made it so bad: Much later X-Men games were pretty consistently good, but this first stinker for the NES was plagued by levels that were probably designed by a blind mutant with one arm and two fingers. Oh, I guess you could get away for playing it for about 10 minutes, hoping beyond hope that it would get better until your character got stuck permanently in a wall.