Sword of Sodan: Another candidate for Worst Game Ever?

[Jorpho]

So I stumbled upon this today:
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/7047404544/h5B67A9FE/

All of these are readily familiar to me (aside from Twilight Scene It, which I'm sure has some redeeming qualities), but Sword of Sodan? I cannot recall ever hearing about that one; it's not even on Wikipedia's list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_notable_for_negative_reception ), though it did make the ROM pit (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/rom-pit/sword-sodan.php) and I-Mockery (http://www.i-mockery.com/shorts/sword-of-sodan/).

Have you heard of this game before? Any proper "roast" that you would recommend?

[Gameguy]

Good ol' Sword of Sodomy, as I like to call it anyway. I think I still have a few copies of this game as I bought a large bulk lot of loose Genesis ex-rentals a few years ago, I sold most of the extra games from this lot already but I think I still have this along with a bunch of sports games.

Here's a review.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EJSChKeeLA

[kupomogli]

Sword of Sodomy

I hear this about the game a lot.

[goldenband]

I'm one of the few who will defend Sword of Sodan, at least to some extent. I don't think it's a great game or even a particularly good one, but it's not nearly as bad as people claim -- and it's not even close to being the worst game on the Genesis, let alone "ever". Plus there's a lot of nonsense that gets posted about it ("You have to crotch-stab everyone!" "The pits in Level 5 are invisible!").

The controls are awkward and stiff, and it can be a frustrating game to learn. But I had fun with it -- especially once I adapted to the game's quirks -- and I genuinely enjoyed the process of figuring it out, first beating it on a low difficulty level, and then working my way up until I could beat it on the hardest settings.

One of the game's serious missteps, BTW, is that the default settings are the hardest settings; beating the game on Easy/7 Lives with the girl (Shardan) is far easier than beating it on Normal/3 Lives with the guy (Brodan). A lot of fun drains away when you play on Normal with the guy, since his reach stinks and the enemies have more stamina.

Now if you want a totally worthless Amiga port on the Genesis, try Onslaught. It's a lot more playable at first than Sword of Sodan, true, but once you've played one level you've basically seen the whole game...and it expects you to play through 100+ of them to beat it. It's basically a one-level side-scroller disguised as a strategy game, and it doesn't have Sodan's charmingly unintentional homoeroticism.

(I mean, "Brodan"? Really?)

[tom]

I liked it but I only ever played the Amiga version

[retroguy]

*sigh* Why do people still rag on ET? It's not original anymore, nor is it funny. This very site did an excellent job of debunking its "worst game ever" status. Here, look:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzdqaJIeE0Q


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR50m78IIJs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwoUt-AGW3c

[Gentlegamer]

*sigh* Why do people still rag on ET? It's not original anymore, nor is it funny. This very site did an excellent job of debunking its "worst game ever" status. Here, look:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzdqaJIeE0Q



Atari Soccer:

"You just take turns trying to catch up to the other guy before he gets a shot off."

"That's not fun"

"It's just running back and forth."

"It's not like real soccer, is it?"

Sounds *exactly* like real soccer to me!

Anyway, on ET, regardless if it is the "worst ever" it is still terrible. Any "high profile" first party game will get more infamy and grief than an obscure third party 'shovelware' game.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

HEH,

OH, EA's early Genesis releases.

As bad as Sodan and Dark Castle were, I SWEAR that I had SO MUCH FUN with them ... but I'm pretty sure that a huge part of that was getting an opportunity to play games that were previously only available on Amiga and/or Apple computers.

[BydoEmpire]

I really liked Sword of Sodan on the Amiga. It was a fun hack & slash, albeit fairly simple. I have it on Genny, too, and it's not nearly as good. The graphics aren't as crisp and the controls are a bit clunky. Nowhere near worst game ever, though.

[Xian042]

Sword of Sodan is my #1 Worst game I love.

It had great graphics for Genesis at the time, it call very cool sound, too. The ambient bird chirping was very cool. As for play control? Golden Axe it was NOT. But the potions to amp you up was cool. Flame sword anyone?

The coolest thing about this game was the uber violent way the taller guard looking guys would die. You stab their knees until they drop, their head will be within strike level, you hack at it until they make this guttural sound before their head comes off and squirts blood everywhere as it rolls across the ground. Super violent pre-Mortal Kombat 16 bit goodness.

[Aussie2B]

Oh yes, it's definitely a putrid game. Here's the only "roast" you need: http://www.honestgamers.com/reviews/461.html

[Robocop2]

There are far worse games out there than SoS. It may be in the top 30 of all time but far from the worst.

[StealthLurker]

I really liked Sword of Sodan on the Amiga. It was a fun hack & slash, albeit fairly simple. I have it on Genny, too, and it's not nearly as good. The graphics aren't as crisp and the controls are a bit clunky. Nowhere near worst game ever, though.

Yup. Sword of Sodan was actually pretty amazing graphically for its time on the Amiga (same with Shadow of the Beast). In addition I liken the game more to the old arcade game "gladiator" than anything else. Also should note that Amiga owners were playing games with "at the time" amazing graphics, sprites, parallax scrolling and multi-channel sound while most other people were playing 8-bit NES and crappy PC XT or 286 games. It's almost like comparing a NeoGeo AES game vs. the SNES/Genesis port imho.

In general I feel that pretty much all the games that were originally Amiga computer games that got ported over to the genesis "lost" quite a bit during the translation.

.

[goldenband]

Oh yes, it's definitely a putrid game. Here's the only "roast" you need: http://www.honestgamers.com/reviews/461.html

I've enjoyed some of the reviews at HonestGamers, but that one lost me when he claimed that "the male and female are actually identical in all manner except appearance", and then kept belaboring the point. That's just not true; the differences are subtle, but they're absolutely there, and the female's greater reach makes a huge difference when you're playing on the higher difficulty setting (which, again, is something no one should do until they've mastered Easy).

[Graham Mitchell]

It's awful, but totally enjoyable. The gore is so absolutely over the top that it's just masterful. I actually just picked up the Mega Drive version (it's 100% identical.) Honestly, I'd rather play Sword of Sodan than Sonic the Hedgehog any day.

Innerprise Software's other game ported to the Genesis by EA was Battle Squadron, which is actually a really impressive, Amiga-quality Shmup. It's worth a look as well.

[kedawa]

My friend growing up had Battle Squadron and Sword of Sodan, and I don't think we finished either game.

[XYXZYZ]

I played SoS on an emulator a long time ago, and I was taken aback.. was this the worst game I've ever played?

[Steve W]

I remember trying the original Amiga game, not even making it halfway through the first level, and never playing it again. Luckily I only borrowed it and didn't actually buy the damn thing.

There were so many far better Amiga games that could have been ported over to the Genesis/Mega Drive. It saddens me when I think of all the cool Amiga games that never made it off the original hardware and into "mainstream" gaming.

[BydoEmpire]

My friend growing up had Battle Squadron and Sword of Sodan, and I don't think we finished either game.Battle Squadron was one of my favorites. The music rocked!

[Graham Mitchell]

So, here's something kind of interesting. I've been playing the genesis version of buck Rogers: countdown to doomsday, and the music in the second mission is the same as the title screen music for sword of sodan. It sounds much better in sword of sodan, but it's interesting.

[Collector_Gaming]

*sigh* Why do people still rag on ET? It's not original anymore, nor is it funny. This very site did an excellent job of debunking its "worst game ever" status. Here, look:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzdqaJIeE0Q


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR50m78IIJs


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwoUt-AGW3c

I think the guy tried too hard to justify ET

Although there are games that are worse then ET that made it to the public (I could go through a list of them)
The list he gave was piss poor. Half of the games listed I felt he was making stuff up to just try and make them look bad when really they did exactly what they were suppose to

One thing he did touch base on that is true but he kinda slid it off to the side like no big deal when really IMO it was a huge deal into why ET failed so badly is the fact it was based on a movie that at the time was crazy Huge.. It didn't just blow the doors off the box office.. It knocked the entire wall down and blew house up while it was at it just for shits and giggles.

So therefor people at the time in a age where video gaming was still fairly new was hoping that they would provide something just as epic as the movie. Ya know pushing atari's capabilities to levels unheard of.

And as we know that it failed tremendously. Thanks to that and further demonstrations years later we have learned to not trust movie production related games. (although sometimes a good one does pop up).

So with that being said is ET the worst game because it is the most unplayable mish mash of crap known to man?
NO absolutely not

Its the worst because of people expecting such a high end polished product like Steven Spielberg could do no wrong and come on its ET. and then this crap happened.

[BydoEmpire]

So, here's something kind of interesting. I've been playing the genesis version of buck Rogers: countdown to doomsday, and the music in the second mission is the same as the title screen music for sword of sodan. It sounds much better in sword of sodan, but it's interesting.Interesting, I never noticed that. I'll have to check that out. I never got very far in Coutndown to Doomsday, but I keep meaning to give it another go starting from the beginning.

[jammajup]

Yeah i loved the Amiga version and got quite far into the game, i played the Megadrive version a couple of years later and i remember thinking "man this is real bad".

PS What is E.T on A2600 doing in that pic,nowhere near a candidate for worst game ever-E.T is better than most Intellivision games lol