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The Official Bandai and LJN Thread; Two entities of pure sucktitude.
Topic Started: Jun 6 2009, 10:22 PM (236 Views)
Crazy the Clown
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Throughout the history of bad home console gaming, there were no bigger offenders than Bandai and LJN. The sheer sucktitude of these two factions was so great, many gamers had lost faith in both of the game makers.

Sure, T&E Soft had Hydlide, ok, Kemco had Superman, and yeah, Irem had Deadly Towers, but no one, and I mean NO ONE, fucked gamers over worse than Bandai, who you can't spell "Bad" without, and LJN, which apparently stands for "Laughing Joking Numbnuts." Both were involved in making popular toys, and both made a hell of a lot of shitty games.

Without further ado, The Cream of the Crap:

LJN's worst game would probably have to be X-Men. Think about it. They took Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Iceman, and put them in an inexcusably bad game where Wolverine can't even use his claws, Nightcrawler can't even teleport, and Colossus' ass always ends up getting killed when he's being controlled by the shit-for-brains AI. If you end up losing all 6 X-Men, it's a welcome excuse to quit playing. Seriously, one person would have to wonder what Stan Lee was thinking when he decided to give this project the green-light.

Bandai's worst game would probably have to be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. First off, everyone in all of Merry Olde England wants your ass dead for some reason or other. Secondly, your cane doesn't do shit against the enemy. Yeah, give the protagonist a weapon that is completely fucking useless. Third, when you do turn into Mr. Hyde, you gotta find a way to get back to normal before you get to the start of the stage, which is as difficult as trying to get into a sexy celebrity's panties, i.e. too fucking impossible for your average Joe. Finally, there are two endings you can get, neither of which are worth the effort.

There are many bad games for each, but I thought that by stating the worst ahead of time, I could lay the foundation for this thread. Which other games from these labels did you want to cram into a garbage disposal?
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DestronPrime
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Deadly Towers isn't that bad.
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Sgraff
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DestronPrime,Jun 6 2009
10:54 PM
Deadly Towers isn't that bad.

Agreed, one of the games I enjoy on my NES. I also enjoy Hylide.
Bandai brought some treasures such as Monster Party as well.
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Crazy the Clown
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Granted, there are exceptions to every rule. For instance, T&C Surf Designs for the NES wasn't bad at all for an LJN title. Sure, the surfing took a lot of getting used to, but the skateboarding parts were pretty damn good.

Incidentally, I didn't say ALL their titles sucked. Monster Party was ok in my book, too, and I have little negative to say about Bandai's Frankenstein, either. I'm just saying that most of what they produced were cow puckies shaped like NES games. Speaking of which....

Back to the Future trilogy.
How can you fuck up a great concept like time travel? LJN found a way. Wonky perspectives, Biff apparently had a much bigger army than the movie led us to believe, giant killer bees, girls with 357 magnum hula hoops, and that fucking annoying song that keeps playing time and again. And if you think that's bad, they made a sequel that takes many liberties with parts 2 and 3. I thought Marty was supposed to stop Biff from taking over Hill Valley, not fight Goombas and spiky turtles stolen from Mario's games. I didn't even get to the part 3, because any sane person would give up after getting his ass stomped in the dust.

Dragon Power.
In Japan, this Bandai game was based off of Akira Toriyama's crown jewel, Dragon Ball. They took quite a few liberties with the American version, though. How they went so wrong with it is beyond me. Goku apparently is suffering from the Gauntlet Syndrome, which means that over time, his health depletes on its own. And to make matters worse, when he's hit, he has barely noticeable recovery time. And while I can forgive the former, don't fucking get me started on the changes made to the original script due to the puritan FCC during Nintendo's early days. It was, "Show your panties," not, "Give me a sandwich." Fuck you for insulting my intelligence, you overly-moral bastards!
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Dire 51
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It seems to me that if LJN and Bandai were guilty of anything, it was licensing a bunch of shitty Fami titles and distributing them here. Oh sure, every so often they coughed up a gem (Monster Party and pretty much anything by Namco in Bandai's case), but for the most part they just spewed out a massive torrent of suck. And releasing sub-par games by Rare and Beam Software (among others) did nothing to help their case.

Don't forget Activision in this list. When it came to releasing shitty games, they were just as guilty as LJN and Bandai during the NES era.
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Crazy the Clown
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Dire 51,Jun 7 2009
12:54 AM
Don't forget Activision in this list. When it came to releasing shitty games, they were just as guilty as LJN and Bandai during the NES era.

Ain't that the truth? Super Pitfall was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, one of the worst games ever made AND one of the grossest misuses of the word, "Super," ever conceived. And don't fucking get me started on the Ghostbusters games. Archon and the Three Stooges, though, I thought were ok.

A couple more from LJN and Bandai that I thought sucked

Bill & Ted's Excellent Videogame Adventure.
"Excellent!" *Air guitar* Sadly, it's far from excellent. It's a flawed LJN game with an interesting story line. What happened was that time rebels went back in time, put various historical figures in other timelines, and if that isn't fixed, the world's history will be forever changed, and Wyld Stallyns won't be able to perform. To find "Good Stuff" and "Historical Bait," you have to jump into various background objects, landing hard on your ass, looking like a total spaz. You can also get good stuff by talking to some people just standing there. Try that with someone walking, they'll extort a quarter from you. Some of them, though, will run at you to kick your ass and throw you in the clink. You have keys to help you with that, but if you run out, it's game over. The levels are very big, asking stupid questions get your ass beaten ruthlessly, and the ending isn't even fucking worth it.

Chubby Cherub.
Another Bandai flop, in this game, you play a naked fairy (In both senses of the word) who eats like there's no fucking tomorrow, and is hated by dogs. The good news is that you're not completely defenseless. Eating all-day suckers gives you the ability to use the Gau attack, which makes short work of the dogs. The bad news is that the gameplay, graphics, and music are absolutely terrible, and most gamers have actually let the dogs kill them, giving them a welcome excuse to quit playing this mess.
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DestronPrime
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Archon is fucking-tastic.
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Crazy the Clown
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A couple more. This time, it's a double-dose.

Beetlejuice.
Remember the scene in the movie where Beetlejuice shouts, "NICE FUCKIN' MODELS!!!" then proceeds to honk his crotch? Well, that scene also describes what I thought of the LJN game. This game is fucking hard, but for all the wrong reasons. You have to stomp bugs to get points for buying "Scares." That, I can understand. But background items, which normally wouldn't hurt a character, can fucking kill you. A kick to the balls with a size-12 Wolverine work boot sounds more inviting, and less sadistic, than this game.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
The movie combined the best of Universal, WB, and Disney, and it was excellent. Guess what? LJN just felt they had to ruin it for everyone. And while I can forgive the lack of outside cartoon characters, I can't forgive poor gameplay, stupid cheap deaths, and, worst of all, bad jokes. That's right. This game is loaded with groaners which you'll have to tell if Roger Rabbit is being held by the Weasels. Tell it right, you get bonus points and the Weasels fuck off. Tell it wrong, and they off Roger, costing you a life. In addition, the drivers in 1940's L.A. apparently never fucking heard of pedestrian right-of-way. Either that, or they want you dead, because if they mow you down, you lose a life and they don't stop to see if you're ok.

Gilligan's Island.
The TV show was one of my favorite things to watch. Unfortunately, the Bandai game was the polar opposite of the show. While I can forgive the fact that Ginger Grant was a fucking no-show, what I can't forgive is poor gameplay, horrific hit detection, repetitive music, and piss poor graphics. Since when does Mary Ann Summers have five-o'clock shadow? But the worst thing I hate about this game is the fact that Gilligan and the Skipper won't shut the fuck up. That dumbass Gilligan happily offers his unwelcomed POV while the Skipper is getting mauled by a fucking monkey. It's funny when it's on the TV show, but in the game, it's nerve-racking.

M.U.S.C.L.E. (Kinnikuman in Japan.)
Remember when you were a kid and you collected a bunch of little pink wrestler toys? Well, Bandai made a wrestling game based off of that, and to this very day, I regret renting it. My video store had a strict "No refunds" policy, but I digress. This game had pathetic graphics, atrocious gameplay, and the only decent thing about it was the music, what little there was about it. I was so pissed off at this piece of shit, I slipped a piece of paper into the game I returned, reading, "For the most enjoyment, take a sledgehammer to me repeatedly."
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Dire 51
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Beetlejuice were both programmed by Rare (one of the sub-par Rare games I mentioned earlier). LJN deserves a kick in the balls for bringing it to us, but at least it was them doing the dirty work. Rare's good games were released here by much better licensees (and the big bosses, of course).
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Crazy the Clown
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Another double whammy of detestable gaming from LJN and Bandai.

Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six.
Being a Spider-Man fan, I must say that this game was a total fucking wash-out, all thanks to LJN. I tried not to hate it, but despite the interesting story-line, it still flopped. Spider-Man fights off six of his worst enemies, including Electro, Hobgoblin, and Dr. Octopus. How can this go wrong? Well, LJN found a way. Cheap enemies, horrible controls, piss-poor level design, and only one life have made this a flop of biblical proportions.

The Incredible Crash Dummies.
You should all remember those commercials that said, "You can learn a lot from a dummy. Buckle your safety belt." Well, LJN made a game based off those PSA commercials, and despite the concept of playing as a robot that can survive cringeworthy dismemberment to a certain degree, this game's poor controls and horrendous hit detection are a one-two punch of suckiness that this game will fucking hit you with, should you try to play it. And worse yet, they made games of the same title for various platforms besides the NES.

Dynowarz-Destruction of Spondylus. (Or just "Dynowarz.")
In this Bandai game, you play as Professor Proteus, who is one of the most generically-named scientists ever born, as he runs various gauntlets set by his former friend and current enemy, Dr. Brainius, who is another one of the most generically-named scientists ever born. And once you finish the taxing hallways of death, then Proteus can board a giant robotic T-Rex and try to kick some serious dinosaur-robot ass. While I can forgive cheesy generic names and B-movie plots, which I have actually grown to respect, I can't respect poor control, horrible hit detection, or wonky weaponry.

Dick Tracy.
The late-80's to early-90's movie was pretty good, but Bandai made it into a shitty game with bad controls, bad gameplay, and a bullshit rule that disables you from feeding unarmed thugs bullets. You shoot a thug who relies on his knuckles, you end up taking damage, too. As for the bad controls, the walking scenes aren't too bad, but the driving scenes....*Cringe*....I'm sorry. I need a good belt of whiskey just to tell you how bad they are. *Gulp.* Driving is pretty tough to figure out, you can't shoot diagonally, which is a problem, because most of your foes are positioned at corners where you can't hit them, but they can hit you, which is a load of bull-the fuck shit!
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Dual
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I liked LJN's Silver Surfer game quite a bit. It also had really cool music.
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Crazy the Clown
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Dual,Jun 11 2009
10:00 PM
I liked LJN's Silver Surfer game quite a bit. It also had really cool music.

LJN had nothing to do with that project, fortunately. I believe it was Arcadia.
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Dual
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Oh, hey, yeah, you're right!
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Crazy the Clown
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Since I'm running a little low on crap from these two brands to shovel, I'm gonna make this just one for each.

Jaws-How can you fuck up a concept about a giant shark wreaking havoc on the ocean? Well, LJN found a way. Jaws is damn tough, but for all the wrong reasons. Your character can't swim worth a crap, Jaws takes too many hits, and you end up getting offed for various other bullshit reasons. In fact, I don't even want to think of it, anymore.

Bandai Golf: Challenge Pebble Beach-It's golf. It's boring. It's Bandai. 'Nuff said.
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Crazy the Clown,Jun 6 2009
11:22 PM
LJN's worst game would probably have to be X-Men. Think about it. They took Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler, and Iceman, and put them in an inexcusably bad game where Wolverine can't even use his claws, Nightcrawler can't even teleport, and Colossus' ass always ends up getting killed when he's being controlled by the shit-for-brains AI. If you end up losing all 6 X-Men, it's a welcome excuse to quit playing. Seriously, one person would have to wonder what Stan Lee was thinking when he decided to give this project the green-light.

I rant against that game every chance I get. I still can't believe they had Boomerang in there even though he wasn't an X-Men villain or even a mutant.

If you wonder how stuff like that got approved, it's usually corporate people who don't know anything about the games. I've even seen jokes about this from Marvel employees talking about how Marvel took the fighting game license from Capcom and gave it to EA.

BTW: That Silver Surfer game by Arcadia was great except for how he dies when coming into contact with everything. Even a duck. The music is epic and almost sounds like great C-64 music.

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Dual
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Hahaha, looking at screenshots of that X-Men game, I actually remember playing and enjoying it when I was really young. Of course, I enjoyed pretty much any game I played, back then.
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Crazy the Clown
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Just a couple more, for now.

Terminator 2-Judgement Day.
One of Governor Schwarzenegger's best films, action, explosions, and it even looks like it would make a good game, right? Well, it did, but only the arcade game, and the SNES and Genesis ports of the arcade game, both manufactured by Midway through LJN, which was one of the few things they actually got right. The NES version, designed by LJN, was, well, not that good. Granted, I've played worse LJN games than this, but I've even played a couple that were actually better. Yeah, I said it, and you read it. Limited ammo with no chance in hell of getting more, the motorcycle scene is ridiculously ill-conceived, only one continue in the entire game that must be found if you want to use it, killing after a certain period of time is considered a major league no-no, and let's not go into detail about the anal-retentive Skynet Bombing mission.

Ninja Kid.
Take ninjas, throw in countless enemies, a few bonuses here and there, and you got a pretty solid title, it seems. But, as typical as with other Bandai titles for the NES, there are a few hidden catches. Four, to be precise. First, your ninja runs like a spastic, hyperactive kid with a diet consiting of too damn much sugar and is suffering from autism.* Second, one hit kills you. Third, it's pretty tough to avoid the enemies, as they like to jump right at you. And finally, the background music is pretty repetitive. Personally, I wasn't too fond of this title.

*-To anyone with autistic kids who has taken exception to my comment about autism, I do offer my sincerest apologies. I may not speak for everyone on T3M, but personally, I've dealt with autistic kids, before, and I mean absolutely no offense.
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Scion238
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PrimeOp,Jun 15 2009
02:46 AM
The music is epic and almost sounds like great C-64 music.

So is that damning the game with faint praise, or am I totally missing something?
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Dire 51
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The C64 had some great music. The SID chip was capable of some really cool sounding tunes.
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DestronPrime
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SID chip is fantastic, yupyup.

I love it, personally. MOD was great as well (that was the tracker for Amiga)
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PrimeOp
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The mix of both original material and license adaptations goes to show that all of the horror can't be blamed on license-lazy.

Scion238,Jun 16 2009
05:04 PM
PrimeOp,Jun 15 2009
02:46 AM
The music is epic and almost sounds like great C-64 music.

So is that damning the game with faint praise, or am I totally missing something?


You'd have to hear it coming through a real 80's or 90's TV speaker to do it justice, but this is why I respect C-64 sound:

Skate or Die

Something about the Silver Surfer soundtrack reminds me of the good C-64 music.
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Crazy the Clown
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This time, I'm taking a trip to the Realm of 16-Bit Suckiness.

Spider-Man Animated.
When Spidey got his own cartoon, I thought, "Schweet!" When LJN made it into a video-game, I thought, "Maximum Carnage was fucking awesome. Let's hope they can repeat their success." When I played it, I thought....something that would probably short out the Sweat Filter, and I couldn't, in good conscience, do that to T3M. Granted, this game wasn't anywhere near as bad as the NES Spider-Man game, but it still had its share of problems. Controls were decent, hit detection was decent, but barely noticeable recovery time and cheap-as-fuck enemies, as well as some of the most repetitive music, not to mention the barely noticeable "Spider-Sense" kinda made me want to ask Stan Lee to quit green-lighting LJN's ideas. The good news is that the next game, Separation Anxiety, actually was pretty good for a poor man's Maximum Carnage.

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie.
The original MMPR game for the SNES showed great promise. It played pretty well, had awesome music, and even gave me a choice of five characters, who can not only take large amounts of punishment, they can dish it out, too. I actually felt like saluting Bandai for that one. The game based on the movie, however, offered very little in the way of impressive content. Sure, you get six characters to choose from, including White Ranger Tommy, but each of them can only take about 5 hits before they die. And trust me, with the cheapness of your foes, it's a fairly safe bet that you will read the words, "Game Over," quite a bit as you play this monstrosity. When I played that, I said, "What the fuck happened, Bandai? Seriously, you were on a roll, and now, this? Jesus!" I guess while they can lay a golden egg every now and then, they just decide to take shits for the most part.
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