Everygamegoing features 'Like' and 'Loathe' buttons on every game and, once a clear consensus as to what the worst games ever are for that particular format, I put together my considered opinion as to what makes those chosen games so incredibly bad.
Here I present the worst games ever for the Acorn Electron, as chosen by you, the users of the site.
You're the lord of the jungle on a quest for sacred stones.
It's like the programmer gave up before he even started... He couldn't be bothered to design graphics for any of the collectable objects, whilst the monochrome screens are ridiculously overcomplicated. Everything moves sluggishly; your death is a welcome relief in a game that is more arrrrggggh than ahahahahahaa.
You're the Man Of Steel in a comic-book themed adventure of epic proportions.
A classic case of a company concentrating on the licence and trying to compete with the graphics of modern machines... and forgetting to make the game actually enjoyable. If the overlong, boring, silent, missions don't kill your enthusiasm, the multiload surely will.
A cowboy-themed game set in the fictional village of Kane, which has been overrun by bad 'uns.
In a totally incongruous masterpiece, your cowboy looks like Charlie Chaplin. Baddies are nothing more than a few black blobs and the whole game speed varies wildly according to how many blobs are on-screen at the same time. A stupid idea which actually sold in large numbers to unsuspecting buyers because it was only £2.
A serial 'beat the screen' game, in which you must get from extreme left to extreme right, jumping over gaps in a wall and dodging missiles flung at you.
Jerky movement, a bizarrely redefined character set and screen after screen of identical boredom. You can't really play this, it's more of an endurance test.
Brrrrm, take control of a top range sports car and go on a cross-country race reminiscent of the classic Out-Run.
All you can say for this shocker is it was a brave attempt to make a new racing game. But the perspective is all wrong, with the car frequently obscuring the twists and turns of the road ahead. It's all about mowing down policemen too which doesn't seem to fit with the racing theme at all.
A grid-based puzzle game in which pieces of pipe are dropped pseudo-randomly and you must piece them together to create 'loopz' within the time limit.
The presentation of Loopz is actually a straight 10/10. The problem is that the game itself is just so boring! You get the feeling that its author really thought he'd written the next Tetris, and the whole gaming industry engaged in some big conspiracy to market it as such. A single game blows all the lies apart.
This is meant to be a text adventure based on the movie of the same name, and uses the famous Scott Adams engine.
It's bugged. Only about five locations are actually accessible before you find your character completely stuck. And that goes for both the BBC and Electron versions. Some people collect the Scott Adams games as classics of early day text adventuring, so it's doubly disappointing that this very last one is completely unplayable.
An overhead football match, which was reasonably sophisticated for its day but has aged fantastically badly.
This is a hard one to justly criticize. On the one hand, it is categorically awful, adhering to little of the rules of football and moving at sloth-like speed. On the other, you can get some fun out of it if you don't take it seriously.
An overhead 'scrolling' adventure in which you are tasked with exploring a Robin Hood style forest and castle.
Kourtyard came in a great big box promising the Earth and on the back of Skirmish, a brilliant game by the same company. To say it didn't deliver would be the understatement of the decade. Most of the screen is filled with sludge, whilst the tiny playable window features the worst scroller ever. What you are meant to do isn't really explained, and trying to do it is unrewarding.
A shocking professional release best compared to a very basic version of Tron.
One of those games that is so bad, you honestly cannot believe anyone dared to charge actual money for it. The enemy AI is laughable, there are typos all over the place and the colours are so garish that it's impossible to play. You'd get more fun out of actually cutting the grass than playing this thing.
