The 30 dumbest videogame titles ever

By Nate Lanxon on 27 March 2008, 10:21am

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What were you smoking, and do you have any left?

Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender
DOS, Mac - 1992

Premise: Oh noes! A priceless vase is lost on a distant planet where men have been eliminated and women have invented the eponymous machine to let them mate. It's your job to bravely retrieve the trinket in this third-person action game.

Whoever came up with the plot for this game was clearly smoking something expensive, but it's undeniably creative. How many games have you seen in recent years with such an utterly ridiculous premise? Very few, we'd wager. Very few.

Princess Tomato in Salad Kingdom
NES - 1988

Premise: As one Sir Cucumber, you must win the hand of Princess Tomato -- daughter of King Broccoli -- by retrieving the stolen royal Turnip Emblem, in this first-person puzzle-solving adventure game.

This is the kind of manure our parents lettuce vegetate with in the 80s -- rotten concepts with leaf-thin plots and stupid carrotters. If this title sprouted these days, it'd be roasted within two seconds of leeking online.

Zombies Ate My Neighbors
SNES, Mega Drive - 1993

Premise: A horror shooter, in which you battle through over 50 levels of zombies, destroying them with an imaginative variety of weapons. Think Resident Evil meets Half Life 2.

This has to be one of the greats. Dozens of levels, all essentially the same, big bosses at the ends of stages, gallons of shooting and piles of mutants. The tongue-in-cheek title may have killed its chances of success, but it reflected the innocence with which the game approached mindless violence. Published by Konami, this genuine cult classic was the precursor of the amazing Silent Hill games.

Ninjabread Man
PC, PS2 - 2005; Wii - 2007

Premise: It's a ninja again, but this time it's a gingerbread man who needs to save the world from evil pastries. Oh goody.

This game was hated by everyone who reviewed it, yet it still managed to get a release on the Wii two years after first being launched. It was made by the same people who made Billy The Wizard, the kid who flew speedy broomsticks. Time for a good game, chaps.

Keith Courage in Alpha Zones
TurboGrafx-16 - 1989

Premise: In this side-scrolling action title, you play Keith Courage as he battles the aliens of BAD (Bad Alien Dudes). It doesn't get more retro than this.

You wouldn't want to meet a Bad Alien Dude out on the street. He'd make a mess of you, unless your surname is Courage, Extreme or Nukem. Unfortunately your character was clearly the dorky younger brother of the heroic Brad Courage, which put you -- and the game -- at a fatal disadvantage.

70's Robot Anime Geppy-X: The Super Boosted Armor
PlayStation - 1999