Great games that were otherwise failures

Tornadoboy

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Someone talking about Omega Race got me thinking of this topic, which is what games were considered commercial failures that otherwise were terrific games?

I've heard from the few accounts of people whom had a chance to play it that Bouncer was really good. The story as to why it never made it was because the hardware design was very exotic and extremely expensive to produce, and the company went bankrupt before it had a chance to come to market. The same goes with a personal favorite of mine called Turbo Sub by the same company, although that did make it to the market but only just barely.

Others:

Victory - Awesome Defender-like game, but poor hardware design prone to failure and extremely difficult to fix.

Teeter Torture - Great game IMHO, but nobody knows why it was abandoned in prototype stage.
 
My choices would be Slither and Snakepit...

I would almost put Slither up there with Centipede! Very underrated game! And Snakepit is just full of awesome! Wondered why these two never really took off... Especially since Slither had a port on the Colecovision.
 
My choices would be Slither and Snakepit...

I would almost put Slither up there with Centipede! Very underrated game! And Snakepit is just full of awesome! Wondered why these two never really took off... Especially since Slither had a port on the Colecovision.

Ditto on Slither, Colecovision seemed to pick up a lot of good misfit games, Victory was one of them too, Side Trak and Rip Cord would have been good ports too if they didn't end up as vaporware.
 
Yes i will second Quantam and i am sure it will get alot of support on this thread.

Of course never saw one or heard of it until MAME. Played it on MAME while trying the set and was impressed by it alot - before i knew about its collectability / rarity. Good game, can be intense, i had alot of fun with it.

Further research and i found out how rare it was, which makes perfect sense - it was sure a sleeper. Was also surprised to see it was an Atari!
 
I' Robot

First of it's kind. Not many people understood it. Difficult to repair.
 
Perhaps Major Havok. I think most laserdisc games after the first year (IE. later sales were hurt because the first games were unreliable).

Scott C.
 
My votes:
- XyBots - a very fun game, especially with two players. Think two player Wolfenstein with robots instead of Nazis.
- Black Widow - an insanely complex color vector game. I never saw one until 2 years ago.
- Varkon - pinball in a video game cabinet. Like most hybrids it sunk without a trace.
- Splat! - I don't even know if any were ever produced for release. Definitely more fun with 2 players.


ken
 
For me, the classic example is Space Dungeon. A GREAT game, but that is if you play it with the focus of visiting each room, not to get treasures. The goal of the game is to get treasures which really is not a fun way to play at all -- IMO, of course. But visiting each room is very challenging and extremely fun. It raises to the level of Robotron in many cases as far as frantic action is concerned.
 
Rampart 3P. One of the greatest arcade multiplayer experiences bar none for those willing to committ to learning the games strategies to victory...that plus having good people to play against. It's curse was being released too late and missing the golden era of gaming...and too early to incorporate online multiplayer options.

Tom
 
The most obvious choice I can think of would be the grand-daddy of all video games, Computer Space. It was a neat little game for two people to play, it pioneered the anatomy of an arcade game, and set forth the wheel of motion for others to come.

...all that aside, the game flopped upon it's release. Too ahead of it's time I guess.
 
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