The 25 Most Unnecessary Games of All Time

I love a great video game collection; being able to select from a bunch of classic games without changing the disc is one of the best feelings in the world. But is there anything worse than playing through a video game collection full of bad games? Actually, there is. You could be Sega Classic Collection, a compilation of great games that have been remade with different graphics, sound and levels. Sega Classic Collection takes everything you love about classic video games and throws it right out the window, instead what you get are completely broken games that kind of resemble some of the greatest 8- and 16-bit games in Sega's vault. I'm afraid the word "unnecessary" just isn't strong enough for this collection.

On paper the Sega Classic Collection sounds like a fun little compilation, full of ten mostly worthwhile games for a mere $20. You get such classics as Virtua Racer, Space Harrier, Outrun, Columns, Golden Axe and Alien Syndrome. But instead of getting the original console (or arcade) versions of the games we have to put up with shoddy remakes. At their best some of the remakes (like Columns and Space Harrier) are just ugly. However, a majority of the games are broken by the redone graphics and play control. Take Golden Axe as an example, this beat-em-up is rendered completely useless thanks to attacks that aren't long enough to hit the enemies. Worse yet, the brand new levels and backgrounds are so laughably bad that they wouldn't even cut it in a first year game design class.

Sega Classic Collection is more than unnecessary; it's downright confusing on every level. It's hard to tell just who this collection is aimed at - if you're a fan of these classic games then you're going to be appalled by what Sega has done to them, while everybody seeing these titles for the first time will wonder why anybody liked them in the first place. It would be one thing if Sega actually gave you the option of playing the new remixed version or the original game, that would at least give them some room to experiment. But as it is these updates are completely useless and no fun to play, which makes this mess of a compilation completely unnecessary in my book.

As an arcade game (and even a 16-bit console game) NBA Jam was one of the best multiplayer games of the 1990s. The game was full of fast action, over-the-top dunks, larger than life characters, and even celebrities. But as the 90s grew to a close and the 21st century began, other video game companies started to discover that they could also create compelling arcade basketball games that were (shock) actually better than NBA Jam. Games like NBA Street and Ballerz introduced new elements to the pick up and play nature of NBA Jam while also carving out their own unique spin on the genre.

But apparently Acclaim wasn't interested in letting their once-popular sports franchise go so quickly, back in 2003 the company decided to resurrect NBA Jam and give PlayStation 2 and Xbox owners a real treat. Unfortunately the NBA Jam of 2003 was almost exactly like the NBA Jam of 1996, a fast action game that was barely in three dimensions. The gameplay felt dated and it was clear that Acclaim hadn't learned a thing from their competition. It wasn't enough to just release a classic game with new graphics; if you're going to resurrect the series then it's important that you improve it in every way.

But the problem with the new NBA Jam isn't that it's just a graphical update, but rather that there's so many other games out there that are doing the same thing better. Games like NBA Street and Ballerz have managed to take everything that was good about NBA Jam (fast action, easy scoring, and massive dunks) and improve on the theme. By the time NBA Jam came back to town it just felt old and unnecessary, as far as most fans were concerned NBA Street was the new NBA Jam. It was a noble attempt to salvage a great franchise, but at the end of the day it's clear that this is one series that deserves to be left in the 20th century.

In this world we live in there are games that are constantly trying to push the envelope and do something nobody else is doing. Just look at Rockstar, with games like Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt this is one company that wants to show that you can have mature content and still be a successful video game. But not every envelope-pushing game is as expertly crafted as Grand Theft Auto, just look at the likes of BMX XXX. Or better yet, check out The Guy Game, the trivia game show brought to us from (and I'm not kidding) Top Heavy Studios.

The Guy Game is the combination of You Don't Know Jack and Girls Gone Wild, except without all of the fun of either of those two products. You answer questions in hope that every day girls (including pornstar Ashley Blue) will take off their tops and jump around. Oddly enough the problem with this game isn't that it's fundamentally broken or in bad taste, I'll leave those judgments up to the people that decide to play the game (if you can even find it anymore). The reason The Guy Game is completely unnecessary is because there's no reason for anybody to have to buy a $50 video game just to look at topless girls.

Thanks to the invention of the internet, dateless men (and women) around the world can check out both topless and bottomless people of any age group, race, religion, or sex. And best of all, finding these pictures and videos is free and easy. You don't even have to try to find porn to find porn, try typing any seemingly benign word into a Google Image search and chances are you'll find more mammaries than your little heart can handle. Heck, most people don't even need to search for them; these days just open up an email account and you'll have topless girls emailed to you in the form of spam. And again, all this is free. With The Guy Game you have to work for the nudity, and to make things even worse you have to spend money on it. Forget that, if you're one of the millions of people who have internet access, then The Guy Game is easily one of the most useless games of all time.

Resident Evil 4 proves that not every unnecessary game is bad. Make no mistake about it, Resident Evil 4 on the Wii is not a bad game, it's still the amazing action/adventure game that GameCube owners played two years ago. With its intriguing story, amazing graphics, cool backdrops, and exciting boss battles, Resident Evil 4 belongs in everybody's game collection ... even if you've never been a fan of Capcom's survival horror series before.

But what it comes down to is that there is no reason for anybody to pick this game up. Sure it's still a fun game, but the Wii was able to play Resident Evil 4 long before Capcom decided to remake it for Nintendo's newest console. Because the Wii is able to play GameCube games, Resident Evil 4 has been playable on the Wii since day one ... and at a fraction of the asking price. While you don't get the motion control, the GameCube version does still offer the same exciting story and great characters. What's more, this Wii port doesn't even improve on the existing game. While it's true that you get the extra PlayStation 2 content, Capcom decided against improving the graphics or adding any length to the game.

This is a shining example of Capcom realizing that the Wii is a huge success and wanting to get something (anything) to the store shelves to capitalize on the popularity of Nintendo's console. But instead of releasing what is essentially a cash cow, Capcom should have spent the time and money developing a brand new Resident Evil game for the system ... and no, I'm not talking about their upcoming rail shooter, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles. Resident Evil 4 is still an amazing game, but there was no reason for it to be released on the Wii.

Now I know what you're going to say: "Isn't Tetris one of the greatest games of all time? How could Tetris possibly be on the list of the most unnecessary games of all time?" Well you're right, Tetris is one of the best games ever made, a solid concept that influenced an entire generation of fast-action, block-falling puzzlers. But just because it's one of the greatest games of all time that doesn't mean it gets a pass, because the Nintendo Entertainment System version of Alexey Pajitnov's masterpiece was wholly unnecessary. It is still a fantastic game, but there's no reason this Nintendo-released game should have existed!

When comes right down to it I have nothing against the Nintendo published version of Tetris, I would even go as far as to say that Bullet Proof Software did an excellent job of porting this classic game to the NES. The problem is that there was no reason to port Tetris to the NES since Tengen had gone to that trouble of doing that. While the Tengen version of Tetris wasn't nearly as polished as what Bullet Proof Software came up with, many gamers actually preferred the challenge of the Tengen game over the "official" Nintendo release. Regardless of how good the game was, at the end of the day most people would agree that there is no reason to have two versions of the same game on one console.

Of course Nintendo would argue that the Tengen version of the game was not licensed and gamers shouldn't spend their money on this unofficial port. But to the average game player it didn't matter if the title was official or not, just as long as the Tengen version played on your NES who cares if there's a seal of "quality" on the box? Although they didn't know it at the time, but people that picked up the Tengen version were not only rewarded with a better version of Tetris, but also scored one of the most valuable 8-bit games of all time. It's okay to still love Tetris, but when you have two versions of the exact same game on your console one of them belongs on the list of the most unnecessary games of all time.