Games which probably shouldn't have been

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So, a week or two back, I made a post concerning great Snes games which were, unfortunately, never released. Y'know, I find it infuriating that such games went to waste, considering all the crappy shovelware which Did make it to shop shelves in the 16-bit era. So this week I'm doing the complete opposite of my last post, and will instead be looking into a handful of Snes games I personally wish had never been.
PS; Though I suggest you avoid the games listed below, some of these truly do have to be played to be believed. Besides- perhaps you'll like 'em if you give them a try. This here post is just my personal opinions on 'em.

Revolution X

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Revolution X was an arcade rail shooter game featuring Aerosmith. You've been chosen by the band to stop an evil organisation named NON, who're brainwashing kids, restricting media access, putting chemicals in our food, and all sorts of evil stuff like that. You'll fight them using "The Power of Music"- That is, lobbing CDs at them. You travel the world, fighting all sorts of enemies, such as some blokes in yellow costumes, Japanese Power Rangers and jungle natives.
In the arcade, the game was played using a light gun, so it would only make sense for it to be compatible with the Snes' own Light gun, right? Well, funnily enough, this light gun game isn't actually compatible with the Snes Light Gun, so you instead aim by moving a cursor around the screen with the D-Pad of your controller. Lazy, huh?. Now, the problem with this is that the cursor moves quite sluggishly, and you'll often find that your enemies attack too fast for you to shoot 'em all.
The game's very repetitive. For the first few stages, you only have one enemy type- some bloke in yellow uniform. It's difficult to tell when you're taking damage from them, due to lack of damage sounds or graphics, and it's also quite difficult to prevent damage from being dealt at times. As a result, game-overs are a common thing. Don't worry though 'cos you get unlimited credits, and since the cursor's so damn slow, you'll find yourself using lots of 'em.
Most of the music's just a five second long loop, so the music gets tiresome fast. Although the quality of some of the voice recordings are pretty good, the acting is pretty awful, and the graphics look all grainy. It's difficult to pick out any good points, really. Just get a good shooter instead, like Metal Combat, a game which is actually compatible with the Snes light Gun. 3/10

Pink Goes to Hollywood

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This game features the Pink Panther, who travels from film set to film set in Hollywood, each with a different theme but all with the exact same dull feeling. It's your basic hop'n bop game where you can either attack by jumping on your enemies, or by firing deadly air at them with your big bad bicycle pump. You'll be defending yourself against everything from cowboy boots to cameras, even dinosaurs. But don't get too excited, because all the enemies seem to follow the same behaviour, simply moving left and right, and many will be killed with one hit. Other than in appearance, there's little variety found here.
Leaps-of-faith are the name of the game it would seem, thanks to the teeny view you're given and the badly designed levels. Speaking of level design, many seem to lack in content, having you walking for ages between obstacles. And that gets boring fast. It's also difficult to tell where you're meant to go, since random objects seem to teleport you to different levels. These objects sometimes blend in with the rest of the scenery, such as a painting on the wall, so you're never sure what you're looking for, nor where it's going to take you. This means you'll be floating through levels with little to no objective, no aim, and the game seems to lack in direction.
The way Pink controls will certainly cause frustration. The Panther walks quite slowly, and jumping while walking won’t get you far. However, running seems to go a little too fast, and because of the small view the game gives you, I often found myself running into enemies. Many a cheap death was had.
The game does have a small feature which sets it out from the crowd a little. It has a Token system whereby you can collect coins which'll have certain effects when put in a Toll slot, such as creating a staircase, or summoning a gigantic hook to take you to a higher area of the level. Although this's a nice feature, I find it's not enough to save this poor game.
It's not the worst of Snes games, but it hasn't got much respect from me.
This is no gem, 4/10.

Bebe's Kids

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Oh goodness, this game. Where to start.
This was a US exclusive game based on a flop of a film of the same name, and in it you play as one of two kids, a girl and a boy, and beat up staff in a theme park. Not sure why you're beating up the park staff, since there's bugger all storyline, but let’s just go with it.
So, the two enemies you'll encounter at the start of the game barely even attack you, simply walking around, or if you're lucky, standing around while you repeatedly punch them in the you-know-where's. They both take a hell of a lot of punching to defeat, so you'll find it gets dull fast. There never seems to be any more than two enemies on screen, either, and the enemies which do appear are the same mascots and agents, with the same behaviour and Health points. The music is nothing but an irritating four second loop, and the animation looks choppy. Oh, and the walking animation for the boy is so stereotypical-black-kid it's almost racist. (I haven't played as the girl yet.)
After you beat up a few staff members (just 'cos), it's to an oddly placed pottery shelf, which has some baby crawling around on it and knocking the pottery off. It's not overly clear what you've gotta do here- Do you have to catch the pottery? Nope- In fact, it'll smash on your head if you try. Do you walk away? Invisible walls say nope. Try and grab the baby before the pottery all smashes? Nah. You've actually got to smash the pottery as it falls by punching it. It sounds just about as fun as it is. Fail to do it in time? It'll actually place you All the way back to the beginning of the game, in the Theme park scene.
And if you do do it in time? It's back to the Theme park scene anyway, where bugger all has changed other than that stuff is being thrown at you now.
Bebe's kids is repetitive, unresponsive and a generally painful experience. Just writing about it's draining my energy. Just avoid.

Captain Novolin

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An educational game developed to teach American kiddies (it wasn't released outside the US) about diabetes. It was developed by Sculptured Software, the same company who made Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon, another US exclusive educational game.
You play as diabetic superhero Captain Novolin, a man with no actual super powers. You're mission; To survive a walk down a weird-as path, eating “healthy” food (The sort that sprouts legs and walks about) such as toast and carrots, while avoiding dangerous alien food, such as gigantic cookies and sugary cereals. Not the sort of action likely to bring your arse to the end of your seat.
The game begins with our hero practising the only skill he has by walking, on a treadmill. Midway through your hardcore practice session, you're interrupted by a News report, which notifies you that sugary food aliens are attacking Earth from outer space. Off you walk to save the day.
But hold your Horses! Before every stage, you're forced (by an imaginary woman) to check your Blood glucose. This's literally as simple as matching the colour green with the colour green, but don't worry if you somehow make a mistake- You have unlimited retries. Aww, they're so kind. After that, you must inject yourself with the correct dosage of insulin.
Thankfully, imaginary woman will then bugger off, but some other bloke (with a misshaped neck) comes along for a quick chat about what you should and shouldn't eat. So much for freedom.
After that, you're finally released for your stroll. You walk constantly to the right, picking up the food your made-up mate told you to eat, and avoiding the food he told you to avoid. Watch out though- One glass of milk too many, and you just might keel over and die. Throughout the levels you'll also be thrown a diabetes-related question, but they're pretty easy to figure out- If you're stuck, just find the answer which doesn't look dumb. They seem to give no reward though, so eh.
After each level, you'll have to check your glucose levels again, before receiving an update from your imaginary friends on what you can and can't eat.
And then it's all repeated. That's basically the entire game.

I personally found myself bored of the game midway through the second level. The repetitive gameplay's enough to evoke drowsiness and the deaths often seem somewhat cheap, especially when the cookies rear their ugly faces at lunch time. But otherwise, the questions are stupid and the match-the-colour minigames were actually more entertaining than the sugar-dodging main game. Don't worry though- there's only Five levels on the entire game anyway, so you won’t suffer for long.
All I've learnt from this ordeal is that fast food beats you up, green is the same as green, and that Nintendo made a gigantic mistake licensing this title. But at least they sorta made up for it by not letting it travel any further than North America- And may America keep it forever. 3/10

Space Ace

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Space Ace is far from forgiving, so much so that it's barely playable. It's the sort of game which doesn't depend on skill, nor reaction time. It depends solely on one thing- Memory. From the start you're given five lives, and everything is on a set path. Borf moves around the screen firing lasers about the place, while you have to walk out of the way. If a laser touches you, it's insta-death. Thing is... Borf moves so fast... And you move so slow. The only way of succeeding is to actually memorise the movement patterns, and that's never a good formula for a game. After that, you're attacked by laser-robots, who fire lasers. Dodging these guys is a pain in the arse, since you have to jump to another platform, then when the robots leave, jump back. This's difficult though, because the robots just don't leave you enough bloody space.
And throughout the game, your success will depend on nought but trial and error. What happens if you lose all your lives though? Well, you gotta start all over.
The frustrating thing is, the graphics and music seem sound to me. The only area of the game which the developers got lazy with is the Gameplay- the most important part of any game.
I don't even want to talk about this game anymore. It's really not worth playing. 2/10

Race Drivin'

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Race Driving was originally a 3-Dimensional Arcade game, where players drive cars, doing a few cool stunts with 'em. It was later ported to home console, the packaging printed with the line “brings screaming-fast car racing to your home!” What it does bring to your home is a pretty terrible experience.
The game offers three cars to the player. They're all set to Manual, bar from the “Sportster”, which is also available in Automatic. You can then choose from three tracks. The first track is the Autocross, a dull track with a flat road, no features and a disgusting grey-brown colour for the grass. The Second track is a Stunt Track which splits off into two routes, both offering different obstacles, such as Loop-de-loops and ramps. Watch out for ramps though- If you go just one MPH over 80, you'll go flying through the air, landing with your face smashed in the tarmac. This track also has traffic which you'll have to dodge, which makes the stage a little more interesting. The third track is the “Super” Stunt track, which features stunts impossible in real life, such as driving up a vertical wall. It also sees you driving around a cliff edge, which would be fun, if not for the unresponsive controls.
The first thing you'll notice when you start the game up will be the awful frame rate. It must be running at about five frames per second, no exaggeration, and as a result the game feels sluggish and the graphics look bad. But the frame rate also has a devastating effect on the gameplay- it often takes a second for the game to respond to your commands, meaning that the car can be quite difficult to keep control over. I even had occasional difficulty with simply pausing the game, because it just didn't want to respond. The frame rate is probably due to the game not using the Super FX chip, which had not been created by the time Race Drivin' was released. Had the game been released a little later, it might have been much more playable.
I dislike how the top of the Loop-De-Loops are, for some reason, invisible. As a result, it can be difficult knowing where the road is- I've occasionally found myself loosing time over a cheap crash caused by not being able to see anything but sky. One of the most irritating things about the gameplay, however, is that there is seemingly no reward for your efforts. In fact, it feels more like a punishment, because every time you reach the Finish line, instead of ending the race, you'll be rewarded “Extended Play”- That is, about a minute more on the clock and another lap around the track. The difficulty is never ramped up to keep the game interesting, and as a result, you could end up going around that track forever. I got bored around about my Eighth lap though, and just ended it there.

It's kinda sad. Had the developers waited a few years, they'd have had the Super FX chip to play around with, and it's possible this could have been an okay game. But instead, it ended up an almost unplayable mess. Think about this- Some poor kid might have gotten this for Christmas one year.
3/10


Other Bad Games not worth Mentioning

Super 3d Noah's Ark


This unlicensed Christian game was developed to teach kiddies in the United States (Europe luckily never saw a release) about Noah's Ark. You play as Noah, who has to shoot food at unsettled animals on board the ark with his slingshot, to make them go to sleep- Y'know, just like in the actual story.
The games a complete Wolvenstein Re-skin, and feels all cheap and tacky and bleck. It's not right to make religious First person Shooters, y'know. The graphics are as boring as the game- You'll be seeing nothing but brown, brown, and ore brown.
Y'know, it's funny, I thought that only two of each animal were put on the Ark, but there're just hundreds of goats. They must've mated like rabbits.

Mario is Missing!


Most of the educational "Mario's Early Years" rubbish never made it outside the United States, thank goodness, but unfortunately, we weren't to be shielded from this game.
Mario is Missing! is a game which teaches kids Geography, or was intended to, at least. You play as Luigi, and must gather clues around cities to find and rescue Mario. The problem with the game is that the cities are quite generic, making it difficult to navigate properly.
There're koopa Troopas scattered around the entire city who you have to stomp, in order to find these three artefacts, but there're so many of 'em, and only three actually carry an artefact. Eventually, it just feels like a chore travelling around the boring maze-like city, jumping on the koopas you find. The koopas never fight back mind. They just walk up and down the road, on a constant path.
Mario's missing simply because he didn't want to be in this game, and that truly is understandable. It's pretty bad, although Mario is Missing! did bring us le Weegee maymay.

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I skipped a few games I wanted to review, such as Pit Fighter. Pit Fighter's the sort of game which's so awful, I can't even bring myself to write about it. So, go emulate it or something, and you'll probably find out why it's among the worst of Snes games.
Writing reviews for bad games, however, is tiresome for me. I'm sorry if it seems that some of my reviews got somewhat lazy, but this sorta thing just sucks the life out of me.
I'm gonna go ahead and hunt out a good game to write about next week. I quite enjoyed writing about unreleased gems last week. perhaps I'll go back to doing that.

Anyway, see ya next week.