In case you don't recognize it, this is supposed to be Pac-Man.
In the arcades, Pac-Man was more than a game; it was a craze, a phenomenon, an obsession. The public clamored for a home version to feed its insatiable Pac-addiction, and Atari scored the most valuable license imaginable when they secured the home video rights to Namco's smash hit. So they proceeded to churn out a vulgar abomination that was an affront to both the eyes and the ears. Most of the coin-op's elements are here, but they're misshapen and wrong. The "dots" are huge rectangles. Pac-Man is a blocky blob with strangely robotic movements. The ghosts flicker so much that they're practically invisible. The sound is a god-awful series of shrill touch-tone phone beeps and flats. Atari obviously rushed a product out the door without a care for quality, but what is perhaps more sad is that at the time, nobody seemed to care. So desperate were people for Pac-Man at home that they snapped up the cartridge in huge numbers and happily played it, apparently oblivious to the travesty they'd brought into their homes. Now, admitting that you once enjoyed Atari 2600 Pac-Man might be considered a mark of shame, but despite it all, you wouldn't be alone.
3. Superman (Nintendo 64)
Enjoy this N64 Superman box. It's far more entertaining than the game.
I know this game is bad, but I wanted some testimonials to back me up. So I took a quick look around the 'Net, and here's a sampling of the kind of comments I found:
"Horrible, horrible game""
"Non-existent controls""
"Truly appalling""
"Butchers Superman's reputation""
"CRAP!! ""
"One of the worst games EVER made"
Ugh. This is the kind of thing that makes you just want to apologize to comic book lovers throughout the world. Superman is one of the most beloved characters in American pop culture, a real hero who stands for justice and good. So what nefarious kind of Kryptonite were the developers exposed to that caused them to turn the Man of Steel into the Man of Suck? Gameplay is so terrible, the controls so unresponsive, and the graphics so foggy that the developer had to spin some silly backstory about Lex Luthor creating a "virtual reality" Metropolis, since nothing this bad could possibly exist in the real world. Unfortunately, in the cold, hard reality of bad game design, N64 Superman traveled faster than a speeding bullet… into the trash cans of N64 owners everywhere.
2. Super Pitfall (Nintendo Entertainment System)
It's Pitfall Harry with a glandular condition!
In the Atari 2600 days, Pitfall! had been perhaps the hottest home console game franchise around, one that delighted gamers everywhere. After the NES began to dominate the market, Activision made the wise decision to bring the series to Nintendo's hot new platform. Unfortunately, they made the unwise decision to let notoriously inept developer Pony Canyon handle the job. Pony Canyon took all of the elements that had made Pitfall! a rollicking jungle adventure and bludgeoned them mercilessly until all that was left was an unrecognizable, joyless mess. Our hero has gone from a slender athletic adventurer to a squat bastardization of Mario dressed in ugly purple clothes. The jungles and caverns of previous Pitfalls have been replaced by bland and crudely drawn surroundings. And the already atrocious gameplay is further hampered by bad scrolling, pointless randomness and just plain bugginess. Playing this game is like playing a parody of Pitfall! written by a mentally challenged first grader. How Activision saw fit to release this trash is anybody's guess.
