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Four Games With Aliens That Should Be Buried In A Landfill And Excavated In 30 Years
Today, plans culminated to unearth a collection of E.T. Atari cartridges from a New Mexico landfill. It was a game starring an alien that was absolutely terrible and had a hand in the collapse of the video game industry in the '80s.
Some games with aliens turn out fantastic. Some, as E.T. can attest to, turn out terrible and become long-term poster children for what makes a bad game. It’s not that these games should be thrown away or destroyed based on their quality – they would just benefit from going underground for awhile and laying low.
Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22
Review score – N/A
Metacritic – 25
The Dragon Ball television series follows the exploits of Goku, an alien from the planet Vegeta who has very tall hair and glows when he yells. The Dragon Ball games have had their ups and downs, but its lowest low is the PlayStation game Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22. The game released in Japan in 1995, and was re-released in North America when the show started to get popular in the west. It was universally panned by every reviewer and is easily the worst Dragon Ball game that has made it to the United States.
Predator: Concrete Jungle
Review score – 2.75
Predator: Concrete Jungle released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 1995. It puts the player in the shoes of a shamed Predator alien visiting Earth who must hunt humans in a 1930s city to retrieve his stolen weapons. The setting sounded amazing, but the game was weighed down heavily by bad controls, a terrible storyline, and bad graphics. It turns out if you want to play as a Predator, the Crysis series is still your best bet.
Bubsy 3D
Review score – 6.25
The highest reviewed game on this list is a game that has become a joke in the shadow of Super Mario 64. Bubsy is not an alien (I think), but his 3D adventure takes place on the alien planet Rayon. It was meant to be a showcase of what the future of 3D mascot platforming could be, but it ended up being a borderline unplayable mess. You can check out our own attempts at playing the game in the episode of Replay above.
Superman 64
Review score – 1.25
When people talk about terrible games, Superman 64 and E.T. go hand in hand. For all we know, they may have arrived on the same alien ship. Superman has never translated well to the world of video games, but 64 is easily his worst attempt. It has received numerous worst game awards, and is one of the few titles to dip below a two on our own review scale. You can watch us try to play it on an episode of Replay above.
What other games would you not mind seeing relegated to a landfill, only to be uncovered in 30 years?
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