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

[Sidewinder]

My parents gave us the Amiga 500, but never actually bought us any games on any platform. My bro and I always bought the consoles and games ourselves.

But sure would've been funny, as they didn't have a single clue about gaming ;)

 

[Benzychenz]

I enjoyed them as a kid but I can't imagine any of the licensed games I was gifted like Shrek 2 and Shark Tale were any good.
Can't fault anyone for buying them though, buying a known IP like that is an easier choice for a kid than buying them some weird gaming IP you've never heard of.

 

[toadkarter]

Oh, DEFINITELY lol, my video game library from when I was a kid consists of total garbage - Disney "Activity Centers", which were basically just loosely themed educational mini-games, licensed shovelware, all sorts of unplayable stuff. It was only around the time when the GBA came out, and when I started to use the internet, that I realised that you could look at reviews to see what games were considered good. I'd say from around the PSP onwards my library consists of stuff that was, at the very least, decent.

 

[Karlinel]

My mother bought me Greendog for the MegaDrive because of a magazine she saw. So I guess she deserved a mention for trying to get info. Probably should have read the review too.

 

[SixelAlexiS]

I was bought Bubsy 3D because it was confused for Crash Bandicoot.

Click to shrink...

My aunt got me Bubsy 3D probably because they tought the cover was cute, what a nightmare

 

[Kinketsu]

I dont really think so because I rarely got video games as presents and when I did, it was usually something I really begged for so I obviously wanted it. I think I can remember which games I got as presents for birthdays or Christmas as it was rare. Super Mario Bros, which came with my NES, Turtles for the NES, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis for the PC, X-Men for the Mega Drive and what must have been the last one I got, Tomb Raider 2 for the PS1, as I was about 14 by then.

I can remember a lot more games I begged for and didnt get such as The Running Man for the Spectrum! I finally saved up enough of my money to buy it from the shop in the end and the day I went to get it, the fucker sold it to someone else! (I believe it is gash though so no loss but I didnt know that!)

 

[Lulu]

The grinch on psx. The kids would call him big daddy or weird shit. Wtf

 

[Deleted member 1570]

And it was the worst fighting game I have ever played.

 

[alphacat]

My mom bought me bubsy games

 

[ROMASS]

There was a console+3 games offer at the store, my aim was to get enough money for a Mario 64 bundle and DK 64, Majora's Mask and Smash.

Family wanted to surprise me and got swindled into buying a N64 Star Wars Episode 1 Racer bundle, Fighters Destiny, Hexen and Pokémon Puzzle League.

Not bad BAD games but not exactly my jam.

 

[Mikch85]

I got Excalibur 2555 for Christmas '97. I mean, I also got FFVII, but still, this one was really bad.

 

[Slacker247]

I picked my own games, like Goemon GB over Link's Awakening GB. Or Mortal Kombat I&II GB over _anything_ else on the Gameboy - to be fair to little me, I just loved fighting games the most and it was the best I could do without owning a SNES or Megadrive. Just wasn't allowed them.

 

[Redcrayon]

My folks were mad keen on my brother and I playing co-op games as it stopped us fighting, and so each Christmas they'd usually get us one of those. Zombies (Zombies Ate My Neighbors in the US?) was one I remember, but that was great. There was at least one two-player NES shooter that was awful that I can't remember the name of though.

I can't imagine they were impressed when the scrolling co-op fighters we loved like Double Dragon and Streets of Rage were replaced with Street Fighter and then Mortal Kombat's fatalities :D I remember that in the mid-80s they were really impressed with how we'd always play older microcomputer games like Dizzy with one of us drawing maps, taking notes and solving puzzles while the other one controlled a character. The games were so bloody hard though that having a co-pilot was the only way we made progress!

 

[zoodoo]

My brother bought me broken Helix on ps1

 

[KDash]

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Fairly sure it never happened because I've never been gifted a videogame as a child, period.

 

[THErest]

It was the 90s, so yeah, duh.

NES:
Bart vs The Space Mutants

Game Gear:
Batman Forever
Taz Mania
Sonic Blast
Aladdin

N64:
Mission Impossible


I actually liked and beat Sonic 2 on Game Gear. Only took a few years.

 

[BasilZero]

Quest 64...

Granted I asked for it but still

 

[Springy]

And it was the worst fighting game I have ever played.

Click to shrink...

Ah, I liked Ballz. But then again, my parents got me

 

[The Albatross]

My aunt got me this collection of pirated Playstation games when she went to Manilla. She knew she was buying sketchy shit but she was like, fuck it they're like $5 USD for 100 games. I didn't have a modded playstation and so I couldn't play them, but some of them weren't even videogames... they were literally plastic discs with silver tape on them to make them look like CDs. She knew what she was getting and honestly in retrospect I appreciated it more than if she bought me a real game because some of the games/CD art/jewel box art was so laughably bad.

Literally one was "Play Statyon," with a plastic disc with silver sticker on it to look like a CD, and it just had pictures of all of the popular videogame characters at the time ... Crash Bandicoot, Tekken guys, but also like N64 characters like James Bond and Banjo. I knew it wouldn't work but honestly got a huge laugh for years at the quality of that. I really wish I still had that.

 

[Chief Malik]

 

[Powerofthecloud]

I didn't get alot of games as a kid so the only ones I got were selected by me one way or another. The only time I recall getting one that I did not specifically ask for was UN Squadron for the SNES which my dad picked up for me when I had the flu, which was cool as I wanted it anyhow.

 

[EarlGreyHot]

Mission Impossible on N64.

What a turd.

 

[Cross-Section]

Never before has a game so betrayed its cover art

 

[Ryuun]

My brother bought me SotN and Shadow Man, both of which I considered bad games because I was like 12 at the time and an idiot.

 

[Skiptastic]

Got Klax and Vindicators on NES for Christmas one year. Klax was cool, Vindicators was just awful.

 

[Ribbon]

I got Austin Powers: Welcome to My Underground Lair! For the Gameboy Color one year and was very disappointed. For those who don't know it is basically meant to be a computer simulation of Dr. Evil's computer. Apparently there's another Austin Powers game that actually had games in it. But, I never knew of it.

 

[atomsk eater]

My mom asked for lists and would only add things like relevant strategy guides, so any stinkers I got were my fault. Once I begged her to buy me Animorphs for GB and she was like "Weren't you just telling me the other day you read a review in one of your magazines that said it wasn't good?"

 

[Agamon]

My little brother got 3-D Worldrunner for NES for his birthday one year. I, however, knew what to ask for, as a tween with impeccable tastes.

 

[TransEuropaExpress]

Ah, I liked Ballz. But then again, my parents got me

Click to shrink...

My crappy absentee father once got my sister and I this stupid fucking game for Xmas clearly because it turned out there was a big bin full of them on deep sale at the town Electronics store lol

My aunt got me Bubsy 3D probably because they tought the cover was cute, what a nightmare

Click to shrink...

Man, I've heard read about this game a lot over the years but never actually saw it in motion. Even with all the bad game hype, this is shockingly terrible.

 

[OnePointZero]

All the bad games I ever got (usually licensed crap), either I asked for them or bought them myself so can't really complain.

This is probably be the worst one:

My mom asked for lists and would only add things like relevant strategy guides, so any stinkers I got were my fault. Once I begged her to buy me Animorphs for GB and she was like "Weren't you just telling me the other day you read a review in one of your magazines that said it wasn't good?"

Click to shrink...

Always trust your mom's words of wisdom.

 

[Jimbojim]

Quite the contrary! They only bought me cool games when I was a kid

 

[Dark Mantonio]

Click to shrink...

I got Yo Noid! for my birthday.

Click to shrink...

I had these too. Looking back I can definitely tell when my parents were digging through the bargain bins for something to just shut me up between birthdays & major holidays.

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

I had an Atari 2600 and the NES as a kid, so of course I got awful games. Buying games back them was like playing russian roulette only with a gun loaded with disappointment.

 

[breander]

Everybody I know got that stupid dragon game based on the Hollywood movie one year for Christmas on the Ps2/GameCube/Xbox.

 

[Fabtacular]

The Uncanny X-Men for NES. An awful, awful game.

 

[theLusitanian]

I hear people like Gauntlet, but when I got Gauntlet 2 for NES as a kid, I hated everything about it. Never heard of it, the game was all sorts of irritating, but I tried to play and enjoy it. I am haunted to this day about getting it from my Aunt and the absolutely shitty reaction I had. I mean, I still don't like Gauntlet 2, but I was a little asshole about it.

 

[Siggy-P]

When my dad first got us a 360 as a surprise, somehow the first game he got for us was Sonic 06.

 

[willacb90]

A Bug's Life for Gameboy Color. So bad but I was only 8 or 9 and still played the hell out of it.

 

[mhayes86]

Not that I recall.

They bought random games on occasion, but typically only got me or my siblings something if we asked for it. If it was a bad game, it wasn't their fault since we likely asked for it.

 

[verygooster]

My older sister bought us a PS1 in 1998 but while I was excited to try out stuff like RE1/2 and Tomb Raider, at that time she had a knack for picking up some awful games (probably on the cheap):

-Small Soldiers

-Hexen: Beyond Heretic

-Dragonheart: Fire & Steel

 

[hikarutilmitt]

... When I was a child... she got me Mario Sunshine, Zelda minish Cap, Metroid fusion, Pokemon games.

Click to shrink...

Ow, my age...

Plenty of times I would buy a cheap game for $10 or something from AMES or on base. Or maybe when Children's Palace was blowing out stock, but I was usually fairly happy with what I got or at least made it a point to play it enough to have at least some sort of good time with it. It's probably why I ended up having some nostalgia for Friday the 13th on NES, it's objectively not good (licensed LJN game? check!) but there's something about it that ended up clicking with me and enjoying the hell out of it enough to actually beat it.

To be honest, I think the times I got a stinker were when I rented one, since I didn't always have money to buy games. My then-local place would have some games to rent for a buck, so I could try out nearly anything they had easily and would end up with some turds like BTTF or BTTF2&3 (which is arguably worse than the first game). Oh look, it's LJN again...

 

[srtrestre]

Funnily enough, my parents avoided buying bad games for us by asking the clerks what were the hot sellers at the time. That's how I ended up getting stuff like SMB3, Super Street Fighter II, Donkey Kong Country, Mega Man X, and Super Mario All Stars.

 

[SpoonyBob]

Click to shrink...

Ouch man... I RENTED this thing and felt ripped off.

 

[Joseph Merrick]

I remember getting the street fighter 2 pc port. lol.

My older sister bought us a PS1 in 1998 but while I was excited to try out stuff like RE1/2 and Tomb Raider, at that time she had a knack for picking up some awful games (probably on the cheap):

-Hexen: Beyond Heretic

Click to shrink...

your sister is a saint. hexen is an all time great.