30. Pac-Man

Pac-Man
Atari 2600
1981



This is a shitty port. This port is so bad it is blamed as one of the key reasons for the video game industry’s 1983 total crash and burn. And as someone who has played it ever, I see their point. The real Pac-Man’s brilliance is based in an elegant simplicity, so you’d think the jerkholes porting the game wouldn’t be able to screw up the game as badly as they did. To have a game this bad named after something so good and pure should be a criminal act. 



How bad does this port suck? True Story: When I was seven I liked to play Trivial Pursuit with the grown-ups in my family. Since Trivial Pursuit questions are written for Baby Boomers and I was a seven-year in 1990, these games were pretty frustrating ordeals. God, being seven sucked. 

At any rate, though, one night my team got the big question: “How many points is a dot worth in Pac-Man?” This was my big seven year old moment. This was my chance to meaningfully contribute to the team. “one point!” I confidently declared. 

“Wrong,” I was told. “The correct answer is ten points.” The card wanted the point value from the real Pac-Man, not the still-birth of a port I played on my Atari. 

That’s how worthless this game is. Pac-Man 2600 sucks so bad it makes you lose other games.