Superman 64

The passionate retro gamer inevitably seeks out mint condition copies of his or her favorite games. So too will he or she buy mint condition copies of the best games ever. Likely, there will be overlap between these two categories of “best” and “favorite”. But what about the games that aren't so good? What about the games that are classically awful? Not unlike great games, these too stand as singular monoliths in video game history, the most captivating curios of crap. To own the worst game ever should also be an abiding goal of the truly expansive collector. That game, I submit to you, is Superman 64.

Released by Titus in 1999, Superman 64 is indeed superlative, but only in the worst sense of the term. The gameplay is structured around recurrently flying the Last Son of Krypton through decagonal rings—according to the game’s “story”, this constitutes a “maze” devised by the ingenious Lex Luthor, though it amounts to little more than aimless busy work for the person holding the controller. Superman 64 persists at making you fly through these rings, all within the confines of a time limit. Graphically, Metropolis is reduced to a series of blocky rectangles representing buildings, the space between them shrouded in a level of fogginess unforgivable even for the N64. Animation is also horrible, and so when Superman takes to the ground, he runs with a stilted, uncanny gait that is neither human nor Kryptonian. Boss battles are cramped and cringe-inducing, allowing low-level villains to repeatedly hand Superman his Speedo-clad ass-halves. On top of all this, the game is ubiquitously glitch-riddled—unless of course walking through walls is a power of Superman's with which this reviewer is not familiar.

Is Superman 64 truly the worst video game ever? There are many solid contenders for that feculent crown, including Friday the 13th (1989), Shaq Fu (1994), and Simpsons Wrestling (2001), all of which are comparably unplayable. But Superman 64 feels like the worst because it stars Superman. Superman is supposed to be the pinnacle of superheroes, with insuperable speed, power, strength and precision. Playing as the Man of Steel should be empowering. Seeing him veer helplessly through the block-sundered fog is anything but. To witness Superman falter due to atrocious controls and inane game design is not only frustrating as per any other bad game, but it actually becomes a bit heartbreaking. In making the Man of Tomorrow unwieldy and rudderless, Superman 64 inverts the very nature of the hero it attempts to actualize. Where once there seemed to be hope for humanity, now there is only disappointment and dissatisfaction. Superman 64 is no less than a violent disruption of the human spirit and all its constructive potentialities.

Is Superman 64 worth playing once you buy it? Most certainly not, at least not for more than one brief, worst-fears-affirming session. Play too long, and you risk destroying whatever ironic value the game possesses. Bad video games are, after all, not like bad movies. While a terrible film can still be entertaining—and more than a few Superman-related movies come to mind—video games require interaction, and in that sense playing a bad game is like being forced to play a part in a bad movie. Can you imagine having to direct 2016’s Batman vs. Superman? Bad video games make you complicit in their wretchedness. So with Superman 64, try flying through the rings, give up, and then permanently encase the cartridge in its box, keeping it out of reach but not out of sight such that it may stand as a totem of just how wrong the development of licensed games can go. And if you really want to be Superman, play Injustice or Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

Friday the 13th: The Game

If you are like me, you spent the Saturday nights of your youth in your parents’ basement watching Friday the 13th movies, adoringly beholding Jason as he stalked sexually active teens, the kind of people who you could hear partying two houses down the block. To cancel the whoops and squalls of the partygoers, you would turn up the volume and whisper along with that disembodied voice of Jason’s mother as it alternated between heavily aspirated velar and nasal syllables that echoed chillingly in the surround-sound. You wanted to be at Crystal Lake, watching the carnage from afar, listening to the helpless screams of the beautiful people, because you knew that as long as you weren't having sex, you were safe. And when you went to sleep in your narrow little bed you dreamed, and in the dream you were in those woods and by that waterfront; sometimes you were even behind the hockey mask, stalking mightily towards a sex-sundered cabin.

Now, with Friday the 13th: The Game, you can take that dream vacation to Crystal Lake.* Depending on what personage the randomized character assignment offers you to at the onset of any given multiplayer death-match, you can be any of a number of fawn-eyed camp counselors ranging from lip-glossed jailbait to assertive jocks, or you can even become Jason Himself. Either way, you're finally invited to the party.

Of course, you're not really Jason, as the developers have elected for a third person view rather than the first person. This means you go behind the man-monster without going behind the mask, hulking and hoddering** after nubile teens to net-mind the confines of Camp Crystal Lake. In effect, you're more like Mrs. Voorhees, compelling Jason lovingly from beyond the grave. This is my only conceivable criticism of the game, and it's a minor one.

Some have condemned the randomized role assignment, stating that in a standard eight-player game one only has a 12.5% chance of drawing Jason, only a 12.5% chance of having any fun by way of a murderous rampage. This is immaterial. Let me remind the reader that there is no Jason Voorhees without the lascivious teens; the prey constitutes the predator, so even as a callipygian camp counselor you are playing, in your near-futile scrabble to escape Crystal Lake, a role equally as crucial as that of Jason in creating this cherished horror imaginary. It is the urge to make love that renders death essential. Play Friday the 13th in multiples of eight death-matches at a time and, over the long term, you'll eventually realize by the force of sheer statistics how it truly feels to personify the opposite of life.

If you are like me—and if you have read this far, you probably are—then even a 12.5% chance of being Jason is hope enough for a better Saturday night. In due time, the single-player will be released and it'll be Jason time, all the time. In a few short months, a dream—never a nightmare—will come true in full.

NOTES:

*Technically, Friday the 13th for the Nintendo Entertainment System also gave you the chance to take said dream vacation to Crystal Lake, but the game is not only primitive but also awful. Additionally, you can play as Jason in Mortal Kombat XL, but alas, your only potential victims are characters from the MK universe (and Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, compellingly enough).

**Thanks to Stephen Graham Jones for attesting this verb form. For all of you literate lovers of horror violence—and there are dozens of you—I'd recommend his novel The Last Final Girl, an uncompromisingly post-modern send-up of slasher films.

Clock Tower

In 1996, Human Entertainment released Clock Tower, a point-and-click horror adventure for the Sony PlayStation. While Capcom’s contemporaneous Resident Evil had cornered the market for zombie-movie gaming, Clock Tower aimed toward something of a hybrid between an Italian giallo film and a cheap slasher flick. While the game is slower-paced and more heavily dialogue-based Resident Evil, Clock Tower markedly surpasses Capcom's eventual classic when it comes to the most crucial element of horror cinematography—that is, atmosphere. The whodunit plot takes multiple characters through dank dungeons, spider-webbed libraries, and labyrinthine castle halls, settings which altogether apotheosize foreboding. Moreover, Clock Tower is well-written and well-voiced, at least relative to Resident Evil. This contributes to an immersiveness that produces legitimate chills, none greater than the experience of encountering the villain: a gaunt, cretinous hunchback wielding an exaggeratedly long pair of pruning shears as his trademark weapon.  He goes by the baroque sobriquet of Scissorman.

Scissorman: Worse than Weinstein

Scissorman inherits a ghastly horror legacy, as he represents a bloodcurdling copy of a copy. He was quite obviously inspired by Cropsey, nemesis in the 1981 slasher-cycle feature The Burning, a bandage-faced summer camp caretaker-cum-burn-victim out to avenge his first-degree misadventure by slaughtering camp-goers with gardening shears. While The Burning is a blatant carpetbagger clone of Friday the 13th, it actually outdoes that film as far as lakeside slashing goes, and though it failed at the box-office, it stands as one of the higher-end slice-em-up films. Its canoe scene is legendary in cult cinema circles—when Cropsey springs up, a silhouette of a ragged, carbuncular man with gaping shears raised above him, he reduces Jason Voorhees to a sluggish, silver-medal serial-killer. The Burning marks the feature film debut of George Costanza; or, if you prefer, Jason Alexander. The Burning is also notable for being among the first production credits for acclaimed Hollywood producer and recently-outed serial-groper Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein wrote the original story and thereby had a hand in conceiving the character of Cropsey. Given the violent sexual angst that seems to motivate most slasher villains, one can only imagine what nascent erotic compulsions Weinstein sublimated into Cropsey. Perhaps some of those dark inspirations filtered down to Scissorman. Could it be that when Scissorman chases us in Clock Tower, it is some faint, transmuted vestige of Harvey Weinstein's burning libido that impels the pursuit?

But we've drifted somewhat far afield here. Regardless of the psychic source of the spookiness it delivers, the Clock Tower experience is evidently one for which dedicated horror gamers are willing to shell out exorbitant sums of cash. Indeed, copies in decent condition will fetch over $100 on EBay, and with good cause. Like any good slasher baddie, the game's terror has proven unkillable. And if you can't afford the game, you should at least check out The Burning.