9. Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles
Atari 2600
1984

In Crystal Castles you play a Teddy Bear collecting power pellets while trying not to be killed by trees. That is the only good thing about this game. The rest of it is an exercise in frustrating unplayablility. Once, years ago, somebody took a look at Q*Bert and decided that the problem with the game was that it needed to be crappy.  That person made Crystal Castles.  Then they ported it to the Atari. 

There is a mindstate you can slip into when playing a certain type of game, wherein you refuse to quit playing because you know you could blow through these simple stages if only you could overcome the incredibly awkward controls. This is a textbook example of such.  Crystal Castles has painfully simple mazes that kill you because successfully jumping is a taxing challenge. This game also makes an often fatal challenge out of the mere act of successfully spotting the pellets that you are supposed to collect.  

This is the worst video game that this project has caused me to play, so far.