Did your family ever buy you any truly terrible games as a child?

[krae_man]

My family almost never bought me video games.

The only ones I was ever gifted were A SNES with Super Mario World and Super Star Wars for Christmas. And Axelay for my birthday one year. So games wise they batted 1.000.

I did get a shitty Third Party N64 controller once though.

 

[rycisko]

Not entirely on par with OPs standards but my mom used to buy tons of gifts based off reviews my entire life. Almost all things my sisters or I never asked for (luckily my old man was the softy who got us whatever we wanted)

She never got me a game until I was in High School and had stopped playing for the most part to focus on sports at the time.

Christmas morning one year I open up a present thinking it was a movie. It was the first Ratchet & Clank game for PS2. I was so mad! Some shitty kids game? She told me the reviews were very good and that once I beat the game she'd buy me whatever game I wanted after that.

We played it together, beat it, and I've proceeded to play every Ratchet game since! Turned out to be one of the best gifts she ever got me.

Thanks mom!

 

[The 8-Bit Raider]

Ghostbusters for NES

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This was my expieriance as well.

 

[ghostcrew]

Definitely not in the realms of 'truly terrible' here but I had the choice of which Zelda and Mega Man games I got with my new NES.

I chose Zelda 2 and Mega Man 4. Good work, ghostchild

 

[TrojanAg]

I got Friday the 13th for the NES on Christmas Day.

 

[QisTopTier]

Definitely not in the realms of 'truly terrible' here but I had the choice of which Zelda and Mega Man games I got with my new NES.

I chose Zelda 2 and Mega Man 4. Good work, ghostchild

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It's ok you picked the better zelda

 

[mrbogus]

Super Pitfall for the NES.

To be fair that was also my fault since I thought it would be good after enjoying Pitfall II for the Atari 2600.

I also had E.T. for the 2600 and other random bad games like Tiger Heli for the NES.

 

[Teenage Fansub]

If your childhood Game Boy library wasn't at least half terrible licensed crud like Hook and Home Alone, I can't relate to you.

 

[Herne]

My family never bought me games because they had no idea what to get me - I was the first in the family to get a computer. I do remember my mother buying me Mayhem in Monsterland as a Christmas present but that was at my direction.

 

[NeoSabin]

Batman Forever on SNES

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You want Diablo? I'll do you one better!

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I did it to myself and asked for this for Christmas(I really liked the show at the time). To this day I don't know if it was a bad game or not but I enjoyed it enough.

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These were good games :(

I'll contribute this

 

[Grimminski]

Closest I can think of is Sonic: Unleashed for the Playstation 2.

Even then, it honestly wasn't that bad.

 

[Dealer A]

If you grew up in the NES era, you probably played a lot of games that today are considered bad. But at the time I didn't know any better and loved almost all of them. Back to the Future, Jaws, Fester's Quest. Games like that.

 

[Huskman]

I wanted Megaman Battle Network 4: Blue Moon. I got Finding Nemo.

 

[ToughSoundingName]

James Pond. Nightmare fuel

 

[DeckardWintermute]

 

[Hilarious_Bearious]

We mostly picked our own games as kids. The only time I remember my parents picking games for us were Trog on NES for my sister (a staggeringly underrated game) and Bionic Commando for me. Bionic Commando is dope, but that game is hard AF for a 5 year old. I remember getting very frustrated with it at times.

Oh they also bought Gran Turismo for me when they surprised me with a PS1 for Christmas, but my dad and I had already spent time talking about how great it was after playing it in stores or at other people's houses.

 

[Yesterday]

Dinosaur for the Gameboy Color. Still beat it despite hating it since it was rare to get games back then

 

[Shoeless]

I was a child of the 80s, so...

 

[DeliciousSunnyD!]

Yes, but it only really happened once.

It was Rascal for the original PlayStation from the now lead development wing of Blizzard, Travelers Tales.

 

[DeuceGamer]

I grew up on the NES so there were plenty of terrible games. We didn't have magazines to help us decide a lot of times and often we would ask for games based off the name, boxart, etc...

When that was the only new game you got though, you at least gave it a legit effort and probably even beat it even if it was bad. Especially bad by today's standards.

Festers Quest and Bill Laimbeers Basketball are 2 that immediately stick out in my head that I received as gifts.

Edit: btw, I still have my original copy of Fester's Quest complete, though Bill Laimbeer's was lost in a yard sale along with most of my SNES and TG16 games :(

 

[MetalKhaos]

Generally if I got games for Christmas or my birthday, they tended to be more of what I wanted. Be it the Sonic games or whatnot. The worst video game I did receive however, forget which relative even gifted it, was Shaq-Fu. Conversely, the best random game I got from family as Faxanadu as a kid. The only issue was not being able to understand what the hell to do at that age.

 

[MrBS]

Only the terrible games that I specifically asked for.

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Yep, games were too expensive to leave this to chance. For good or ill I got what I asked for.

Last Christmas I trolled a nephew buy printing off a copy of Everybody's Golf that opened to reveal the PSN card he asked for. The dissapointment was something lol. I spent some time on it and gave my brother some choices, I really wanted to go with Fifa 14, I thought being that old was a nice extra touch but the golf game won in the end.

 

[Valcrist]

 

[Het_Nkik]

Not really, my parents would only get us games we asked for/picked out. My mom bought a lot (as in a bundle, not "a lot," lol) of cheap Intellivision games at some point, though, and a lot of those were bad. But, like, most Intellivision games were bad so.

 

[bionic77]

My mom picked out games for me on the Atari. That was when I was 5. Getting a good game on the Atari was like winning the lottery. So much shit and garbage.

On the NES and afterwards I picked the games or got presents from friends and families (usually something I told them to get). The mistakes were mine and were usually some licensed crap. Back then me and my friends started to think that Japanese companies meant quality and anything licensed was total garbage (not 100% accurate but not that far off either).

 

[GlitchyDegree]

My mom got me Legacy of Goku on GBA, but that's the only terrible game my parents ever got me.

 

[Freshmaker]

I did it the other way. I sent my cousin Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for Christmas one year.

 

[Chakoo]

It was before my time (was born in 83) but growing up I know we had a copy of ET for the 2600....

Also yeah I did also own one of those bible games for the NES, my parents got it for me (I though it was ok but not the worse thing I played on the NES from a blockbuster rental).

 

[darkside]

I asked my parents to buy me Quest 64 cause it was the only JRPG for the console and I fell in love with the genre on the SNES.

I shortly asked my parents to buy me a PS1 shortly thereafter.

 

[Jaymageck]

Transbot is the worst offender.

Then Soldier of Fortune: Gold on PS2.

 

[ProtomanNeo]

X-Men for the NES
I can't blame them because I was really into comics at the time but damn did that game suck. Also, if I remember correctly my younger brother got Back to the Future as a gift which was another gem.

 

[mikehaggar]

My family was WAY out of their element, so I basically always got whatever games I asked for at Christmas and birthdays. However, one Christmas I had asked my sister and her husband for Diddy Kong Racing and I ended up getting Extreme-G Racing instead. I was pretty bummed out, but tried not to let it show. Extreme-G Racing was decent, actually. Not great, but OK. The worst part is that I've never played Diddy Kong Racing to this day.

 

[Duncan]

Wanted this instead of NFL Blitz 2000




Kids are dumbasses.

Also, I thought robots were cool so why not Robotica!?



This game was so fucking dark on my hand me down CRT back then. Pretty much unplayable and seeing that this is pretty much the ENTIRE game, is uhhh yeah. Not good.

Cool that the levels were apparently procedurally generated, I guess.

 

[noinspiration]

My childhood was the NES years, when most games were bad, so yes.

 

[Neoxon]

The worst game they got me was some Corvette racing game for the Game Boy Advance. Otherwise, nothing overtly awful. My dad in particular had surprisingly-solid taste, buying Rogue Squadron for N64 on his own accord.

 

[Chopchop]

My parents got me this once.

Disney/Pixar Toy Story Mania!

In Toy Story Mania!, players experience the fast-paced, zany fun of the Toy Story Mania! theme park attraction, which is an interactive experience requiring 3D glasses and involving rapid or quick-firing shooting galleries. In addition to galleries adapted from the attraction, the game includes...

www.metacritic.com

Yeah, they tried, and we gave the game a try, but It really fucking sucks lol.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

I was always the one who picked the games. Even technically terrible games were fun to me. Zoop, Cool Spot, Ultra Man, Harley's Humongous Adventure, all fun and wacky.

Cyberia
Cyber Speed
Battle Arena Toshinden
Criticom

These should be terrible, maybe not B.A.T. at the time, but I still played the heck out of them. Kids right?

 

[smurfx]

no never as i was always the one to pick out the games i wanted and i guess i had good taste in games since i don't remember buying bad ones when i was a kid.

 

[Deleted member 5127]

Mario is Missing is a mario game, what could go wrong ?

Apparently everything if you are a children who has an almost nonexistent knowledge of english

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I don't remember if my mother bought it for me, or I asked for it. But as a kid, looking at the boxart and sprites of the game, I thought it was some sort of sequel to SMW.

What was Nintendo thinking.

 

[Merc_]

I was lucky in that all the terrible games I played as a kid were all rentals. I pretty much only got the good stuff as far as Chirstmas and birthdays were concerned.

 

[Zingela]

I was lucky in that all the terrible games I played as a kid were all rentals. I pretty much only got the good stuff as far as Chirstmas and birthdays were concerned.

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Pretty much the same thing here. Most of the terrible stuff was blind rentals, the games they would actually purchase as gifts were things I actually asked for.

The truly terrible stuff came from random cheap garage sale console lots, but weren't really counted as a specific gifts. Seemed like every 2600 we found had an E.T. cart with it!

 

[Ayirek]

Only a couple. Mario is Missing (mom didn't know it was edutainment), Super Putty and Batman Forever are the only three actually bad games I can think of.

 

[Cure Save Exit]

Ghostbusters II with my Atari STe. First stage was so frustrating.

 

[Dinjooh]

My mom bought me Mischief Makers, which wasn't exactly horrible, but not quite good either.

 

[P-Tux7]

My Dad bought me this for Christmas for the NES one year....I never forgave him.

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But Jesus Christ forgave you

 

[Sneaky Gato]

A truly awful DS animr tank combat game called Tank Brat. So obscure that I can find barely anything about it today.

 

[Rimpim]

I got this game called Vagrant Story, I almost cried while playing it. Put me off JRPG's and turn based games for life.

( Got Tomb Raider later for my birthday, so it was all good in the end)

 

[Hello Snake]

It was super rare that my parents ever bought us kids a game without us asking for a specific one. I think the only time it happned was Driver for PS1. They saw it mentioned in a game review in the newspaper. I recall not particularly loving the game, I don't remember much but there was this trial you had to pass in a parking garage that I got stuck on, I think? And I think it was at the start of the game.

 

[Paroni]

It was a rental game, but I think it counts. My dad rented it as a surprise and had specifically asked for "a Batman game". However, it was so bad that my dad actually went back and returned it almost right away, and brought us Overboard (or Shipwreckers for you Americans) for the weekend instead as just a random pick, which was quite fortunate since I had such a good time with it we later bought it.

 

[Sword Familiar]

I didn't get THAT many games as a kid, but among the ones I did get the quality was fairly high I would say. Only games I can kinda say were on the lower end were Trojan and Wizards & Warriors 2: Ironsword for the NES, but I did enjoy and played through those games multiple times, so idk.