The Video Game Industry is a multi-billion dollar market that churns out hundreds of entries every year. And some of them are too bizarre for our taste.
These games were built on concepts and ideas that would make us laugh and cry at the same time.
Panic!
While some games are not bizarre by choice, this game banks on being bizarre.
In fact, Sega CD’s ‘Panic!’ has an element of bizarre which some might claim is its greatest core strength. The game starts with the player being sucked into an apocalyptic world ruled by crazy machines.
You get sucked into this world after you push your Sega CD into the mainframe. The game then gives you certain buttons to push.
The player is not given prior information as to which button does what. Press the wrong button and you might turn into a gorilla, have all the colors sucked into a vacuum cleaner, or blow up the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty.
Sneak n Peek
Back in the old days, any video game development studio could make a game about anything if they had enough money and resources.
During today’s times, the Sneak n Peek would have been laughed at. The very idea behind the game was absurd and whimsical. Atari’s Sneak n Peek was a game about Hide and Seek!
You heard that right.
One player will be tasked with hiding in a room and the seeker will have the job of going through all the hiding spots and try to find the other person.
There was a timer for each round. The limited graphics made the game extremely cumbersome for the seeker and the game was heavily tilted in the favor of the Hider.
Michael Jackson’s Moon Walker
This game had some pretty powerful graphics for its time. Sega was showing off the abilities of its latest console – the Sega Genesis with their newest addition to the game library – Michael Jackson’s Moon Walker.
The game had a simple enough premise. Michael Jackson was supposed to save little children from being kidnapped by using his sick dance moves as a weapon.
Michael Jackson saving little kids is in itself a bad combination for a plot considering the controversies around him.
What was even more hilarious was that Michael Jackson had a special move that forced all his enemies to start dancing. The music was great but the gameplay was not.
Clay Fighter 63 1/3
Clay Fighter 63 1/3 was designed to be a parody of sorts for all the fighting games that were the rage during that time. It was supposed to take a jab at games like Starfox 64 and Mario 64.
Even though a parody, the game still had a very stupid plot and that is saying something. Clay Fighter 63 1/3 had characters like Earth Worm Jim. There was another character called Booger Man.
There were mutant rabbits and people using vomits, rubber chickens, burps, and farts as weapons. The designers intended for the game to have a wicked sense of humor. It became a joke. It was designed for the Nintendo 64.
Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
Oddworld Abe’s Oddysee is not your average two-dimensional video game! It was designed for the Playstation. With Sony’s Blessing, the game had a very smooth beginning when it released.
You play as Abe, a slave working at Rupture Farms, a meatpacking and processing factory controlled by Alien Warlords.
When news arrives that the slaves of Rupture Farms are about to be slaughtered, a floating head appears in front of Abe that states Abe is the destined savior of the slaves of the factory.
The game then descends into a raunchy set of deadly puzzles Abe has to solve. The gameplay is even stranger than the premise.
Cubivore
We don’t know what genre Cubivore is. Is it an adventure, simulation, or RPG?
Maybe it’s a mix of all these genres. Maybe it is an entirely new one?
In the animal kingdom, you are either the hunter or the prey. In Cubivore, you are neither. You basically play as a sentient cube with flimsy vestigial appendages.
Your job is to eat and mate as much as possible so that your species becomes the strongest and most populous in the wild.
In the end, you will become the Apex Predator, which in Game Cube’s Cubivore universe just means the biggest, most boring cube that ever lived and breathed.
Mister Mosquito
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. Nope, it’s a mosquito!! If you thought we meant Superman, well guess what’s the next best thing?
It is our very own Mister Mosquito. Back in those times, games that allowed you to role play as bugs and critters were the norm. Mister Mosquito was a product of that fad. You play a mosquito that is tasked with terrorizing a Japanese household.
You have to suck their blood, create distractions by switching off light switches (by flying into them OF COURSE) or get into actual fights with them.
To calm them down, you need to suck their blood at the right places or bump them hard enough for them to cool down.
The Curse of the Chocolate Fountain
Like Sega’s Panic, this game also banked on being strange and bizarre. The protagonist of the game is Icarus Proudbottom. Proudbottom has a peculiar power. He can crap so powerfully that he could launch himself into space with his excretory thrust.
Icarus would then meet an Owl that would become his spirit weapon and help him fight President Barack Obama.
Yeah, it gets even stranger than this. The game also has sequels – Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing and Icarus Proudbottom: Starship Captain. The game was developed for flash and has very unique but simple graphic designs.
No More Heroes
Wii Games generally tend to be a little on the insane side. But No More Heroes has a story that puts it at the very end of that curve.
The lead hero in this tale is Travis Touchdown, whose only goal in life is to play against opponents in an assassination deathmatch.
Touchdown has very cool swordsmanship skills and his most treasured secret is his porn collection. There are villains in these games that sing lounge music and use shopping carts as deadly weapons.
The game is also infamous for its blood and gore considering its childish plot. To add insult to injury, the game actually is rated very good by sites like Metacritic and IGN.
Samurai Zombie Nation
Samurai Zombie Nation was developed for NES. And it made the rounds in fan circles not just for its oddly satisfying gameplay but a very stupendous arc.
An alien meteorite crash lands in the United States of America. Called Darc Seed, this alien starts mutating Americans into zombies.
It even turns the Statue of Liberty into one of its henchmen. Darc Seed is after the legendary Samurai Sword Shura. The Great Head of the Samurai, Namakubi, is sent after Darc Seed and eliminate him.
Namakubi is called the Great Head of the Samurai because he has a giant head that spits acids and eats zombie corpses for gaining health points.
