Valentina’s Adventures in Bad Gaming – April 2011

A long while back, a friend entered me in an Xbox 360 game contest where first prize was a shiny new Xbox 360 gaming console and a gaming bundle and the second place was just a gaming bundle and – for reasons I didn’t know at the time – a certificate for some tasty burgers. My friend told me she was in the running for one of these prizes and since she was not a gamer that the prize package would be all mine.

Well, sure enough, I won second place. I never won anything in my entire life … except for some tickets to see some lame reunion for a band called Men At Work. I was excited about receiving this “gaming bundle” only to be in for the surprise of my life. Instead of expecting a Halo game or something cooler, the “gaming bundle” consisted of games created specifically for the sponsor … Burger King.

Oh yeah, the games were horrible whether it’s a “stealth” game where the object is to hand somebody a Whopper or a racing game where the karts feature that creepy King, the games were just magnificently atrocious.

I began to think that maybe I did something to piss my friend off but the truth was that my destiny was to be surrounded by bad games. And I’m not talking about those bad games with some redeemable feature or a single fun level but games so bad that you wonder if the names at the end credits have been changed so nobody would know the real named of those who worked on such a crap game.

Ah, but I won’t trade this job for anything either way.

Spider-Man 3 (PS2)

Ah, Sam Raimi, you managed to craft two brilliant comic book movies based on the Spider-Man mythos but when it came to the third film you turned Spidey into a jazz-dancing-crybaby and why oh why did you cast that annoying guy from “That 70s Show” as Venom? When it came to the games based on this sorry excuse for a movie, it’s the PS2 that got the short end of the stick in terms of quality … not that the Xbox 360 or PS3 version fared any better.

This must be Spidey's new "Grass Feet" costume

Forget the graphics that look like they were made by high school kid using his dad’s old Mac, the gameplay made swinging around this bland version of New York City feel boring enough that you’d much rather take on the even more boring story-based missions. You know a game is really boring when you have more fun exploiting the glitches. Did you know you Spidey can fly? Neither did I until a glitch send him flying across Manhattan after I landed on a car. Ah, good times!

Transformers: Rise of the Fallen (Wii)

Ok, so I was an infant when The Transformers was a cartoon entertaining kids everywhere as a 25-minute animated infomercial for the Hasbro toys so I don’t know the joys of being an older kid finally getting the chance to play as Optimus Prime in a video game. What I do know is that wish fulfillment is only good when the wish being fulfilled is actually good but Rise of the Fallen for the Nintendo Wii is not just bad but downright hurtful. Aiming alone will give you Carpel tunnel.

Game Tip #2: Pretend all the bad guys are Michael Bay

On top of the ridiculous button-mashing and wrist-flicking motions, the missions are repetitive and bland and the level design doesn’t leave much room for enjoying the fact that your Transformer can turn into a vehicle. Even my 6-year old nephew thought that his crayon pictures are better-looking than the graphics in this game. At least they left out the robot-humping mini-bot and the two “gangsta” Autobots.

Autobots, transform and roll out … of this bargain bin disaster.

 

Damnation (PS3)

Speaking of bargain bin disasters, I know Damnation was found in the bottom crevices of some bargain bin. I’m told that our Editor-in-Chief got a funny look from the sales clerk at Game Stop when he bought this dust-covered gem. I looked at the box and thought this might be some awesome western but the description led me to believe it was a steam punk action game that will revolution the genre.

If you reach this level you must really hate yourself

After two minutes of playing the game, I began to believe that it really is possible to make a game so horrible that even a bad game will look like Grand Theft Auto 4 in comparison. I will no longer speak ill of games many of the bad games I made fun of in this column in the past. I apologize to you because clearly, Damnation set out to prove that there are games that can do a lot worst than you.