9 Terrible Video Game Spin-Offs

Zach Ames

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People always trash TV spin-offs, but no one ever really goes after video game spin-offs. Sure there are some decent ones. I consider Mariokart to be the Fraser of video games. Unfortunately, there are way more Joeys than Frasers both in video games and television. Here are the worst video game spin-offs.

 

Sonic Spinball (GENESIS)

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I'll give the creators of Sonic Spinball some credit for trying to do something original with kind of a lame video game genre. In this game, you play as Sonic and then jump in to pinball levels. Unfortunately, there is way too much pinball and not nearly enough Sonic. If they had just made the Casino level from Sonic 2 in to a whole game, I wouldn't even be writing this article because I would be playing it right now.

 

Hotel Mario (CD-i)

mario unclogs toilet

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This might be the worst Mario game ever created. Luckily for Nintendo, they aren't to blame. Due to some legal issues, Nintendo gave a crappy company the rights to use the Mario character however they wanted. Instead of taking the opportunity to make something wonderful, they made a game where you walk around and shut doors. Mario usually holds the fate of the entire Mushroom Kingdom in his hands. It seems beneath him to just be trying to keep the air conditioning bill down in a bunch of hotels. If they were going to have him doing menial tasks, they should have at least had him unclogging toilets. He is a plumber.

 

Pokemon Snap (N64)

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This isn't even a real Pokemon game. The developers of this game made a zoo photography game and then just dumped a bunch of Pokemon in to the game in place of the zoo animals. That's why this game doesn't feel at all like a Pokemon game. When I play a Pokemon, I expect to be able to force my pets to fight each other in gladiator style combat.

 

Pac-Man Fever(Playstation 2, GameCube)

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This game is a mess. It combines Pac-Man with characters from Soulcalibur, Tekken, and Ridge Racer to make a repetitive rip-off of the Mario Party series. None of the levels have anything to do with the games that the characters came from. The game is so generic that they could have gotten any characters from any series, and it wouldn't have made any difference. It's a Pac-Man game, and they don't even have the ghosts. That would be like making a Halloween movie that doesn't have Michael Myers in it. I'm looking at you, Halloween 3.

 

Death By Degrees (Playstation 2)

nina williams from tekken movie

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Tekken is one of the greatest fighting games ever made. So when they decided to make a spin-off of the series, it seemed obvious to use the fighting engine that made the game so popular. Unfortunately, it wasn't obvious to this game's designers. Rather than use what everyone knew and loved, they made a whole new fighting system that relied solely on using the analong sticks. Since they wanted to be so innovative, they should have just dsigned a brand new control for this game that only has one button, a button to turn off the system.

 

Street Fighter: The Movie (Playstation)

slowpoke street fighter movie meme

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This is a game based on a movie based on a game. It is a masterpiece of redundancy. The might as well have made Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game: The Movie: The Backpack: The Breakfast Cereal: The Trapper Keeper: The Movie: The Bicycle: The Game: The Game: The Painting: The Game. It probably would have been better.

 

Link's Crossbow Training (Wii)

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This should have been a mini-game. It's fun, but not nearly enough to hold up as a game on it's own. Despite how lame this game is I heard that Nintendo has a few sequels in the works. They're called Link's Equestrian School and Link's Wall Bombing Academy.

 

Mortal Kombat: Special Forces (Playstation)

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Pretty much the entire Mortal Kombat staff quit during the making of the atrocity. After they left, the scabs who took over rushed to get this thing made. I think if the NFL Commish had played this game before this season started then we wouldn't have had any of this controversy about replacement refs. He would have just given them what they wanted so this season wouldn't start off as bad as this game.

 

Mario And Sonic At The Olympics (Wii)

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Mario is the King of spin-offs. There are so many awesome Nintendo game starring Mario that it's really sad when they release one that sucks. The controls are just not good. The worst part about this is that they have Mario and Sonic in the same game and use them to make a lame Olympics cash in. I WANT TO PLAY A MARIO VS. SONIC PLATFORMER NOW!

 

Can you think of any bad spin-offs for games you love? Let me know on twitter @zachlunch or in the comments below!

 

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