

December 26, 1994
The 3DO Best and Worst list- Part 2: The Worst List.
By Jason D'Aprile
I have to admit that by the end of the list, I was having some trouble- which is good. The first four were easy, they're really bad. But, after that, the titles are mainly really mediocre, boring, and/or out of date. 
Here they are, buyers beware:
1. SHADOW: the War of Succession, by TDS. If Ed Wood made a Mortal Kombat ripoff fighting game, it would probably be almost bad as SHADOW- the official "Finish Him! Wha?" game. It was supposed to a clone of the first Mortal Kombat, but turned into an unfinished cry for help on someone's part. It's as if Tribeca( who takes credit for this, ah, game) released the game before it was finished- long before. Win 2 rounds and the game tells you to "Finish Him," but there are no fatalities. There aren't enough regular moves either, with only one punch and one kick button used. Winning is more a matter of luck then skill and the digitized character graphics look like Pit-Fighter rejects. SHADOW's redeeming features? It actually has 2( Not that it matters.). The first is that special moves are easy to do and the second is the cool computer generated end boss. Too bad the rest of the game didn't look like him( Of course, the guy with the shotgun is kind of quaint.). Money to burn? Then start a fire, or buy Way of the Warrior. Oh, one other thing, that warning label on the box- the one that says, "May contain graphic violence, sexual situations, strong language, recreational drug or alcohol use." Yea, Tribeca, you wish. 
2. REAL Pinball, by Panasonic Software. REALLY BAD Pinball is more like it. Unbelievably sluggish, unresponsive game play and an awkward perspective that makes the ball keep going out of view make this game pretty worthless. Despite what you might have heard, however, graphically the game looks pretty nice and the mythological Japanese setting is neat as well- which is the only reason that it's below SHADOW for the #1 spot.
3. Rebel Assault, by LucasArts. Say it ain't so, George. 3DO owners rise up, we was robbed! I brought this one home, put it into the machine, turned my back for just a second and someone switched the real 3DO game with a really awful Sega CD game. Rebel Assault sounds terrible( it's low-fi mono with violent vocal distortion.), looks even worse and plays like a bad memory. You want space epic, stick with Super Wing Commander and Shock Wave, or just bring out your old action figures. This game is really just that bad.
4. Jurassic Park Interactive, by Universal Interactive Studios( and even they don't like it.). Despite the conspicuously suspicious good reviews this game got and even that it was actually a pack-in for a very short time, avoid this marketing mishap. JPI goes from deadly boring sequences to truly mediocre ones with virtually no redeeming qualities except that it has good sound. Stick to the video or the 16 bit versions, even. Or, for a real Jurassic delight, get the THX Laser Disc version, pump up the volume on the surround amp and have some real fun.
5. Supreme Warrior, by Digital Pictures. For one whole summer during my wasted youth, I lived and breathed bad martial arts movies with a friend of mine. Bad stuff, from China, Japan, Hong Kong and everywhere else. I found the origin of Chun Li over this summer and a couple of other famous gaming characters, and still love those Grade Z chop socky movies. That's the part of Supreme Warrior that I liked. It has all the awful acting, goofy dialogue and bad judgement during fights that I love to watch. Unfortunately, all the cool live action FMV keeps getting interrupted by a really bad game with obnoxious control. Think I'll just stick to videos and Street Fighter 2, thank you very much.
6. Who Shot Johnny Rock?, by American Laser Games. The worst of the ALG arcade collection with a completely senseless plot and video that takes place almost completely in the dark, which makes it very hard to see. If you really want a good shooting gallery game, then stick to Mad Dog 2, or, even better, the shooting gallery sequences in Virgin's Demolition Man.
7. The Software Toolworks Presents... series, by The Software Toolworks( now known as Mindscape.). Despite the fact that this series is very educational, has plenty of video and audio clips and covers a wide area of subject matter, it's also mindnumbingly dull. The Animals!, Oceans Below, the 20th Century Almanac and The Space Shuttle are the four titles and all are chock full of information making them, dull as they are, still more exciting an alternative for students then the old encylopedia. Mathemagics and EA's 3D Atlas proved that reference/ learning titles could be fun and interesting, but this series just isn't.
8. The Life Stage, by Panasonic Software. Sporting great graphics and a virtually pointless existence on a console unit, The Life Stage: Virtual House is really, really slow. Essentially, it's for designing a house, or structure of some kind, but who would want to do that on a console system? If they had taken the graphic quality of this one and turned it into a role playing game generator, then they would have had something( provided it moved faster.). But, as it is now, you'd be hard pressed to sit down with this title.
9. Night Trap, by Digital Pictures. I doubt Night Trap would have done nearly so well had Congress not made a fuss about it. Interactive in only the barest, most generous sense of the word, Night Trap is old and it's boring. For the late 80's, maybe this was a breakthru in game design of some sort, but, like the vampires in the story, I wish that someone would just put this corpse to rest.

