Oct 28, 2017
6,007
l3lzz6ovlrX94Qe6H86G5.png


Socks the Cat, the game about Bill Clinton's cat, that someone seriously thought was a great idea.

The game got made and even reviewed in some magazines, but just before it hit selves someone had a moment of clarity and pulled it entirely. With 0 sales its a pretty good fit for biggest failure, I'd say.

The game has Socks fighting Nixon through, so maybe it was alright...
 

Killyoh

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,462
Paris, France
l3lzz6ovlrX94Qe6H86G5.png


Socks the Cat, the game about Bill Clinton's cat, that someone seriously thought was a great idea.

The game got made and even reviewed in some magazines, but just before it hit selves someone had a moment of clarity and pulled it entirely. With 0 sales its a pretty good fit for biggest failure, I'd say.

The game has Socks fighting Nixon through, so maybe it was alright...
How did I never hear of this game before
 

noinspiration

Member
Jun 22, 2020
2,240
I feel like all the Bubsy slanderers are failing to take into account the greatest contribution to culture of any of these characters, if not any video game character:



This was one of the best games on Amiga. Hardly a failure by any measure

I came across this recently and it was interesting! It's awkward, but the hook of having to maintain your dribble is a good one I think. If I had played it when I was a kid I would definitely have put some time into it.

Anyway, my answer is Captain Novolin.

captainnovolin_flyer.jpg
 

eso76

Prophet of Truth
Member
Dec 8, 2017
8,679

The art is atrocious but the in-game sprite was alright. And the game was quite good actually.
(I say quite good but I thought it was amazing and one of the best on Amiga).
Amiga had dozens ugly mascot characters, I should make a list sometimes.

I was going to say Rocky Rodent but man, mo-hawk is the worst.
 
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Hokey

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,164
Wow Bubsy's voice sounds so much like Anthony Bourdain, lmao

My vote has to go to that ugly ass Mohawk thing. I never played the game or anything but just looking at that naked yellow jacked fuck makes me ill.
 

Nightfall

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,157
Germany
Zool. Was supposed to be the bit mascot of the Amiga era. And while it was recognized at the time it got forgotten really quickly.

iu
 

Gaucho Power

alt account
Banned
Feb 10, 2021
873
I remember playing this on A500 and I have to be honest, it was rather good game.

The art is atrocious but the in-game sprite was alright. And the game was quite good actually.
(I say quite good but I thought it was amazing and one of the best on Amiga).
Amiga had dozens ugly mascot characters, I should make a list sometimes.

I was going to say Rocky Rodent but man, mo-hawk is the worst.
It's odd how Amiga games often managed to have terrible art but in-game art was most time very good. Something like Super Frog and Zool didn't really have appealing box art but the games themselves were good looking... Well, Zool was never for me, but at technical level it was good.

edit. also RoboCod was also great, I don't think it was Amiga exclusive (I kinda remember playing it on SEGA) but the game itself looked very good imo.
mReJ3sU.jpg
 
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neonxaos

Member
Oct 29, 2017
559
I don't even need to read any other posts. It's Skunny Hardnut (yes, you read that right - and the games describe his favorite food as "sticky nut puddings"). Star of a number of terrible games for the PC by Copysoft. A true shareware icon with some of the most primitive, derivative games you'll ever play. And yet I played them quite a lot back then, because they were so impressively janky.

Here's a look at some of his... questionable oeuvre:

 

eso76

Prophet of Truth
Member
Dec 8, 2017
8,679
I remember playing this on A500 and I have to be honest, it was rather good game.


It's odd how Amiga games often managed to have terrible art but in-game art was most time very good. Something like Super Frog and Zool didn't really have appealing box art but the games themselves were good looking... Well, Zool was never for me, but at technical level it was good.

edit. also RoboCod was also great, I don't think it was Amiga exclusive (I kinda remember playing it on SEGA) but the game itself looked very good imo.

Yeah Robocod was on everything. From Gameboy to Genesis.
Very good looking game on Amiga.

Soccer Kid was lovely

Soccer_Kid_(Amiga)_004.gif


Marko's magic football came out at around the same time and was...like the same game from a different developer? Always wondered how that happened.

Marko%27s_Magic_Football_(SMD)_27a.gif



Haha, yeah, it really does have that VERY AMIGA look about it, but wasn't it actually a pretty decent game? I seem to remember good reviews.

On that front, I feel like Sonic arriving really did ruin a whole bunch of games on Amiga which tried to ape it. Zool and Robocod especially trying to get in that "rollercoaster run fast" feel.

Zool and Robocod were among the first and most famous but the most blatant (and technically very successfull, I'd say) Sonic wannabees were definitely

Kid Chaos (speaking of ugly mascot characters)
vloy7m.gif


Mr. Nutz (which I absolutely loved back then)

Mr_Nutz_Hoppin_Mad_Amiga_016.gif
Mr_Nutz_Hoppin_Mad_Amiga_034.gif


One, if not the most impressive technical achievments on Amiga

Sorry, i'm derailing the thread into one about Amiga platformers, i'll stop.
 

8bit

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,390
Yeah Robocod was on everything. From Gameboy to Genesis.
Very good looking game on Amiga.

Soccer Kid was lovely

Soccer_Kid_(Amiga)_004.gif


Marko's magic football came out at around the same time and was...like the same game from a different developer? Always wondered how that happened.

Marko%27s_Magic_Football_(SMD)_27a.gif

I *think* it was the same designer for both games. Anyway, it's a bit more than a reskin.
 

kaleii

Member
Nov 21, 2017
66
For me it's always been Alfred Chicken. The game was mediocre at best, but the soundtrack is just so aggressively bad and repetitive that I keep coming back to it, year after year. Imagine playing a slow platformer and being forced to listen to this drivel, over and over again.
 

danmaku

Member
Nov 5, 2017
3,288
edit. also RoboCod was also great, I don't think it was Amiga exclusive (I kinda remember playing it on SEGA) but the game itself looked very good imo.
mReJ3sU.jpg

"He's mean, he's green, he's part machine" but... he's not green. He's orange. Nobody noticed?

Soccer Kid was lovely

Soccer_Kid_(Amiga)_004.gif


Marko's magic football came out at around the same time and was...like the same game from a different developer? Always wondered how that happened.

Marko%27s_Magic_Football_(SMD)_27a.gif

Afaik they're not related at all. Socced Kid was made by Krisalis and Marko was made by Domark. Even back then people were surprised by the similarities but it's just a weird coincidence or maybe one studio heard rumors about an upcoming game and liked the idea.
 

elbageluno

Alt Account
Banned
Feb 4, 2022
933
bug, from bug:

Bug-cover.jpg


i'm not even sure where to start with this.

he was the stand-in sega mascot to placate sega saturn fans until sonic games finally started coming out on that system.

i'd also nominate his fellow sega saturn mascot brethren that released around the same time for the same purpose. they helped sega survive until it threw em in the bin to be forgotten forever.

sega literally set them all up to fail no matter what

rest in pizza

Not to mention that this game sucks.
 

degauss

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
4,631
I don't even like vaguely popular ones like Rayman or Crash Bandicoot (the ugly orange triangle in jeans).
 
Oct 28, 2017
292
Zool. Was supposed to be the bit mascot of the Amiga era. And while it was recognized at the time it got forgotten really quickly.

iu
That was my initial answer too. I know some Amiga fans off in Europaland will yell about how great it actually is, but they tried really hard to make the games a thing on other consoles in the rest of the world and it was just a flop. I still remember the endless months of Zool ads in magazines.
 

s_mirage

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,876
Birmingham, UK
Probably not the worst but Johnny Bazookatone:



A weird fusion of a cartoon Elvis with '90s 'tude. US Gold obviously had some faith in it too considering it came out on the 3DO, Playstation, Saturn, and PC.
 
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Hoggle

Member
Mar 25, 2021
6,294
All I know is I rented most of these games and hated James Pond the most. Damn game sounded so cool but it was awful.
 

Nightfall

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,157
Germany
That was my initial answer too. I know some Amiga fans off in Europaland will yell about how great it actually is, but they tried really hard to make the games a thing on other consoles in the rest of the world and it was just a flop. I still remember the endless months of Zool ads in magazines.
Absolutely! In hindsight it was really cringeworthy how desperately they tried to make Zool a thing. They really tried so so hard but the failure was enormous.
 

IrishNinja

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
10,310
Vice City
i got a free copy of aero the acrobat in the day from some ad promo, was all excited cause he was on the cover of EGM and other mags

that game wasn't worth the postage
 

Rolento

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,731
I don't even need to read any other posts. It's Skunny Hardnut (yes, you read that right - and the games describe his favorite food as "sticky nut puddings"). Star of a number of terrible games for the PC by Copysoft. A true shareware icon with some of the most primitive, derivative games you'll ever play. And yet I played them quite a lot back then, because they were so impressively janky.

Here's a look at some of his... questionable oeuvre:



Oh shit I use to play this on my PC as a kid and never knew the name! Thanks!

All I remember from it was the squirrel and pizza.
 

SwampBastard

The Fallen
Nov 1, 2017
12,050
Many of the examples people posted I can actually remember the names of, mainly because they keep being brought up in bad mascot threads everywhere. I then had to think very fucking hard at remembering a really bad mascot that is so bad I don't ever recall it being brought up anywhere else. I actually had to type the description of the character to find traces of it. Then I finally did and I was like "Oh GOD IT'S LIKE OPENING A COFFIN"

Behold:

RockyRodentJPBoxArtSNES.jpg

Kid: Can we get Sonic the Hedgehog?
Mom: We have Sonic the Hedgehog at home.
 

mclem

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,044
I don't think any character reeks of 90s wannabe cool more than...

juKMRX0.png


Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude!

It's just... so bad. And that's even ignoring the uncomfortable stereotypes of the location.
 

Griffith

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,585
What are we considering the worst? Worst as in they're obscure mascots who got maybe a game or do we consider the worst to be mascots that got a lot of money and effort put behind their promotion that just ended up not "sticking" or gaining much, if any, popularity at all?

If it's the former, there's plenty of those to go around, and most have been mentioned already. If it's the latter, my vote would be Bubsy. I can't think of another mascot that got promoted in as much as some of the others and failed at gaining notoriety, miserably and repeatedly.