Games With Misleading Names

[nosweargamer]

Over on my YouTube thread, @RickR mentioned how he bought a loose copy of Shanghai for the Master System expecting a fighting game based on the name, but got mahjong instead.

This got me thinking about games with misleading titles. Are there any games you can think whose title mislead you?

Here's some of mine:

Double Dragon NES

The whole point of Double Dragon is the DOUBLE part, you know, being able to hit the streets with a buddy. But in this version you can't do that in the main game.

Motor Psycho - Atari 7800

With Psycho in the title, I was expecting some more action, perhaps like Road Rash. But no. It's just a standard motorcycle racing game. It's good, but there is nothing psycho about it.

Sentinel - Atari 2600 (also 7800)

 

The words sentinel means a powerful guard of sorts and conjures up the giant robots from X-Men in my mind. What its doesn't make me think of is a giant marble floating through the air that mostly does nothing.

Edited September 25, 2020 by nosweargamer

[RickR]

How about all those Master System sports games with "Great" in the title?  I do not think they know what that word means. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by RickR

[HDN]

I've got a few:

Pinball Challenge on Fairchild Channel F

This "pinball challenge" game is just your average Breakout clone.

Here's another pinball game-- Thunderball on Magnavox Odyssey 2

This pinball game is not based on the James Bond movie of the same name.

 

[RickR]

Or how about 2600 "Maze Craze" that boasts 256 variations but really just has a confusing mess of a grid in the manual?  "Let's play variation 6-3-2!" 

 

[HDN]

2 minutes ago, RickR said:

Or how about 2600 "Maze Craze" that boasts 256 variations but really just has a confusing mess of a grid in the manual?  "Let's play variation 6-3-2!" 

 

Really all of those old Atari 2600 games are false advertising. "112 Video Games", "8 Video Games", "16 Video Games"... They never said "variations", always "video games", implying that there are multiple separate games on the cartridge. In the early days, the 2600's main competitors all used multiple games on their game cartridges. The Odyssey 2 was doing it with games like Speedway! Spinout! Crypto-logic!, the Studio II was doing it with games like Gunfighter/Moonship Battle, the Astrocade was doing it with games like 280-Zzzap!/Dodgem, the Channel F was doing it with many of the early Videocart games, and so on. When Atari said "video games" instead of "variations", it implies that they put several games on each cart, when in reality they are all minor differences of the same concept. Breakout is a good example; all of the different "video games" are just different versions of the base games like Breakout, Breakthrough, and Timed Breakout. Some games are worse examples of this than others; like how Star Ship, Space Race, and Lunar Lander are all different enough to be considered different video games. Though in these examples like Star Ship the number of "video games" is still inflated from 3 to 17.

[RickR]

Here's one:  VIC-20 Pinball. 

What you expect:  Pinball!
What you get:  breakout with some pinball targets.

[RickR]

VIC-20 Avenger. 

What you expect:  It's hard to say...a Defender clone?  Colecovision "Cosmic Avenger" was like Scramble.  Something like that.

What you get:  The picture says it all.  You know what game this is.  I know what game this is.  Your MOM knows what game this is.  Why not call it that or something close?  Even "Space Avengers" would have worked. 

[HDN]

Atari 2600 Video Olympics (Take note, @nosweargamer)

What you expect: Something like Activision Decathalon, Track & Field, Summer or Winter Games, something like that.

What you get:   P o n g

I really love this game. Though when I first played it on Atari Anthology, that is what I was expecting. I didn't know they even had Pong on the 2600 at this point. I think most of the fifty "video games" are excellent. The title would have made more sense in 1977, I believe, than it does now.

[RickR]

Video Olympics is a good one!  Trust me...we said "Pffft!" in 1977 too. Atari owned the name "Pong".  What were they thinking???  "Pong Plus" would have been a better name.

 

Edited September 25, 2020 by RickR

[HDN]

6 minutes ago, RickR said:

Video Olympics is a good one!  Trust me...we said "Pffft!" in 1977 too. Atari owned the name "Pong".  What were they thinking???  "Pong Plus" would have been a better name.

 

The Sears Tele-Games version was Pong Sports. Atari owned the name for the Tank arcade game, too, but made the home port Combat. Sears, again, called it by the proper name, Tank Plus. Sears often called it by the wrong name, so it's weird seeing them be right for once.

 

Ah, how could I forget?

Slot Racers on the Atari 2600

What you expect: A game about slot racing! You know, those cars on those tracks where you have to make sure they don't fly off by regulating the speed?

What you get: This piece of garbage game where two Harry Potter sorting hats drive around a city shooting hadukens at eachother.

Edited September 25, 2020 by HDN
I wanted to put Slot Racers in but didn't want to make another post