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New Article: Shitty Board Games!

Today's article focuses in on five of the worst board games I've ever owned, a list that will shock and appall you to no end. It's a good mix of old favorites and old hated pieces of crap. We've got games based on He-Man and M.U.S.C.L.E., Tetris, 90210 and the game that broke the mold: "Full House." Are you ready to party? On another topic, I changed the main page a bit. Got rid of the title graphics on the article list, swapping 'em out for text. Probably won't kill your eyes as much anymore.

Posted by Matt on 01/22/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 295 comments

Got the Jurassic Park Board game floating around. It’s got really neat little dinosaur pieces. Only prob with it is that it is impossible to win when you play as anyone but the dinosaurs, so it’s a little one sided.

But there is something perversly satisfying about enicircling Newman with velociraptors…..

oh and invader norbet, if it’s too horrible for words please at least post some pictures somewhere i’m dying to know how the ebay board game worked. What was the goal? To rip off all the other players until you had all the money?

Chestnuts roasted by Damien @ 01/23/2004 12:01 PM

Rainbowfeet – I have always wondered about the mystical "make out party" as well. I know that Blossom went to one too (memories of her and Six and turtlenecks).

As for the Full House "orgy", Gia certainly looked as though she was enjoying herself! I remember thinking she was a lil slut and that Steph was tight with no tits.

Chestnuts roasted by Kristal @ 01/23/2004 12:02 PM

Haha Matt, I just like that you managed to mention "Charles In Charge". That show had one of teh worst theme songs ever, and I love it for that…Oh, for anyone who cares (Duck, I’m lookin at you,) the Bowie concert was awesome! I’ve now heard Rebel Rebel and Ziggy Stardust performed live, so my life is now complete.

Chestnuts roasted by Gabbylicious @ 01/23/2004 12:27 PM

The best game ever that wasn’t a video game was Baboon Ball. My brother had it and it actually didn’t break for a month or so :)

I hate Joey on Full House. His stupid jokes make me want to attack my ear drums with toothpicks. Worst is his stupid "cut-it-out" thing. Although it was kind of funny when him and jessie were doing advertising together and they did the cat food commercial with the cats coming out of a briefcase.

Our frickin heater broke tonight. It is 12:40 am and we have a man from the gas co. in our cellar fixing it and probably making $1,000 an hour. And my dog in his infinite wisdom and thinking he needs to protect the world is barking like a nutcase.

Chestnuts roasted by Killer Duck @ 01/23/2004 12:46 PM

90210 Entangler has got to be the most painful game in the world. Well, at least it would be painful if both one’s given name and one’s surname also coincidentally happen to be the names of major characters on that show. (I get so much 90210 crap if I do vanity searches for myself.)

About Full House: it’s a show I enjoyed as a young teenager, hated as an older teenager, but now, at 29, I find myself having an overall positive view of the series in retrospect, because, while the laugh track was indeed obnoxious, that was just par for the course for ABC sitcoms of the era besides The Wonder Years, and I recognize a sincerity a lot of other family-oriented sticoms lacked, including Step By Step, also from Miller/Boyett Productions. And I do respect that they only ever used the Olsen twins (whom, believe it or not, are fraternal twins, not identical twins as is widely assumed) to play Michelle from the first episode to the last episode. The baby didn’t magically age five-to-ten-years soon after it was born (hello, Andrew Keaton on Family Ties… or, for that matter, Molly O’Brien on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, though there may have been a wormhole incident involved there; I forget, and I know of no sort of computer network which might have limitless repositories of Star Trek information which I could easily check). And, yeah, I like the theme song. Coulier did ruin Venkman though.

Chestnuts roasted by Steve Brandon @ 01/23/2004 12:54 PM

Hey… The eBay board game is actually pretty good. It’s not good for many repeat playings, but it’s worth the $4 you can (could) get it for at Target or WalMart.

Two bad games: Fetch The Ink!, where you play as a dude working in a publishing company (similar to Candy Land).

and

Bee-Safe or Bee-Sorry, a game designed for kids aged 6-8, but the game cards talk about the dangers of pornography, strangers who want to kill you, adult movies on tv, and so on. And this game was made in the ’70s!!

Chestnuts roasted by Justin @ 01/23/2004 1:15 AM

I had the He-Man game and it was a blast. I don’t know if Matt didn’t read all the directions or what but the coolest feature was th
at some of the spaces made the whole board spin. It’s hard to explain but you could be closing in on the victory when WOOSH the board spins and your way out there. THen again you could be suffering with all these penalties and then woosh up to the front. It added a whole wacky kink to the game.

Chestnuts roasted by Joe in ATX @ 01/23/2004 1:18 AM

Cameron… that train game you talked about, was that Double Crossing? My dad has it.

Worst game I ever got was the Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego game. I tried to play it once, couldn’t figure it out, and tossed it on the shelf where it’s been sitting for the last 13 years. I seem to remember tons of game pieces and a novel-like instruction manual.

A friend of mine actually has the Dr. Laura game. I refused to actually be in the same room when she opened the box. She also has the board game based on the "For Dummies" books. I forget the name of it, anybody know? The game is absolutely stupid. They should have replaced the word "Dummies" with "Retards." My friend’s grandma is one of those creepy old ladies with lots of cats who goes to every freakin yard sale in the city. She buys almost every board game and pair of shoes she sees. Kinda creeps me out…

Chestnuts roasted by xtacy @ 01/23/2004 1:20 AM

Joe, you’re sure it’s the same game? I’ve got it right here in front of me, can’t find whatcha talking about. :)

Though calling this article the "worst five" may have been a bit too promotional: only three of the games are really bad — M.U.S.C.L.E. and He-Man was just things I wanted to fit on the site somewhere.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/23/2004 1:22 AM

Any crappy game fans here want the Carmen Sandiego game? Up for grabs!

Chestnuts roasted by xtacy @ 01/23/2004 1:24 AM

Now as for a really cool game that I could never finish- Shot Glass Checkers. I think you’re supposed to use beer, not whiskey and vodka. Tried to play it with my friend twice and we never could finish it. It was pretty damn fun though!

Chestnuts roasted by xtacy @ 01/23/2004 1:26 AM

I remember getting some cheap board games for Christmas. One was called Acrobat. It is like a barrel of monkeys. You had an arch and you hung bats from other bats. The goal was not to make all the bats fall.

Another game I got was spider wars. Each player had his or her side of the vertical board. Your goal was to knock off the other spiders. I also had a Dinosaurs card game. I have no idea what that one was about. “Not the mamma!”

I had the Turtles board game. The dice flipper became a catapult.

Chestnuts roasted by Fk27 @ 01/23/2004 1:43 AM

"Crossfire! You’ll get caught up in the…Cross-FIYAAAA!!" That game rocked.

Anywhoo, with all this recent fish talk, I began a reminiscin’ and a ponderin’ …what ever happened to that chinchilla? Is it dead or just boring?

Chestnuts roasted by D-d-dave-some @ 01/23/2004 1:52 AM

D-D-Dave, it’s d-d-dead. :(

The crabs, Siamese fish, cats, GloFish and parrot fishies all live on, though.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 01/23/2004 1:56 AM

xtacy: Yes, that was Double Crossing. One of my favorite games, actually. Made by Lionel. I don’t know what happened to it, though :( Maybe in the attic?

Chestnuts roasted by Cameron @ 01/23/2004 1:57 AM

I remember playing that Tetris game at 2am at a friends house way back when it first came out. We couldn’t figure out how to play it either.

That’s not why I’m posting, though.

I have an incredibly old board game called "Exploration" that is based around (I swear) purchasing land drilling rights from around the world and drilling for oil. You put these giant plastic tectonic plates under the board and push a pin through the board to see if you strike a plate. There are magnets in some of the plates, which you can find by doing surveys with iron filings. I have no idea where it came from, but it’s so horrible I can’t help but love it.

Chestnuts roasted by BulletRiddled @ 01/23/2004 2:06 AM

Wow. 90210: Twister. Full House: The Board Game. You could get away with that kinda stuff in the 80′s, but during the 90′s, you threw everything out the window. The early 90′s was too weird a time for me to talk about. These games are perfect examples. I used to play the Tetris Board Game a lot, though never knowing what I was doing. I crushed the Game Boy version, but I’d just end up throwing my pieces on the floor and crying into my pillow with said board game. I couldn’t play my Game Boy for days on end. Thanks, Matt, you’ve brought back some harsh memories….

Chestnuts roasted by Armagideon Time @ 01/23/2004 2:07 AM

i semi recently aquired some strangee games from my friends yard sale one was BIBLEOPOLY the unholy game where you played with human sacrifices and bought bible chapters with those lives. Whoever had the most worshipers won. The other one was called DINO-MITE and you used cool little dino figures to manuver around the board and avoid tarpits without becoming EXTINCT.

Chestnuts roasted by reso @ 01/23/2004 2:08 AM

also i need to know what cross fire was the game is so familiar but i cant remember it would someone post what it was.

Chestnuts roasted by reso @ 01/23/2004 2:14 AM

Kristal- thanks! I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking about that. I brought it up at a friend’s house and they brought up the Blossom example as well. I wouldn’t know, I never watched that show. I swear some other shows dealt with make-out parties, too, but it’s late and I can’t think of anything.

Man, Crossfire. I never came into contact with the game, but I remember the commercial well. I probably could have gone the rest of my life without ever thinking of it again. Thanks, D-d-dave. :)

Chestnuts roasted by Rainbowfeet @ 01/23/2004 2:25 AM

Crossfire involved shooting little metal balls ("BB’s?") into a battle arena. That, by default, makes it the coolest game this side of Thunderdome.

Chestnuts roasted by D-d-dave-some @ 01/23/2004 2:29 AM

Your description of Steph it´s the most near-to-truth.
DJ looks a little like Nadine Janssen

Chestnuts roasted by Erasmo @ 01/23/2004 2:34 AM

Dont feel like goin through the whole list of posts here…just had to chime in.

The only bad thing I see about the Full House game is the fact its Jesse and Joey sans mullets.

I’m tryin to remember a board game the neighbor kid had when i was young…ya built a castle or a mansion, there were hidden passages maybe? I dunno, i can tell ya it was pretty fun, any game you have to build always rocked. Maybe the game itself was nothing but spin and move, but you got to build.

Chestnuts roasted by JimCognito @ 01/23/2004 2:50 AM

Crossfire was an OK game. I realize it is pretty popular with the "reminiscing" crowd but I have to wonder how many of those people actually played it. You have the guns, the balls and the little rolly target things. You need to use the balls to get the targets to the opponent’s side. Not as simple as it sounds. Especially after you inevitably start losing the little balls. Pretty soon you have one left and have to take turns with it…

I was watching the tube a bit ago and was reminded of another old game we had. The Hawaiian Punch game. You made little clay dudes (with the included mold) in different colors and that was your playing piece. There was a plastic piece that was the Punchy guy and if you landed on certain spaces Punchy would flatten your dude. You’d have to go back to start and remold.

Chestnuts roasted by Killer Duck @ 01/23/2004 2:59 AM

The worst board game I ever had the misfortune of owning was some stupid sailing game which came complete with cryptic instructions ordering you to throw the dices over and over for like a million times every turn to get authentic wind conditions or something.. and the most boring time ever was had by all. I think we played it only once and that was more than enough..

Chestnuts roasted by Iivuli @ 01/23/2004 3:00 AM

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2004 at 3:55 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.