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LJN: Taste the Rainbow...of Crap.


#1 Puffa469   is too Pro Shops CAGiversary!   6105 Posts   Joined 17.7 Years Ago  

Posted 10 April 2006 - 03:00 PM

back in the days of NES, and SNES, there were some great games, and lots of horrible ones, much like today. But there was one publsiher/developer who seemingly specialised in making crap. LJN games.

When you inserted a cart into your nes/snes and saw that rainbow logo spring up over the LJN letters, you just knew right then and there that you were about to play crap. People bash Acclaim, and Midway for releasing crap, but LJN may be the origial crap producing and developing company. They releases shit game after shit game all throughout the mid/late 80's and early 90's. They published lots of crap, and the games they developed in house were usually even worse!

A list of LJN's games reads like a worst of for 8-bit and 16-bit systems. Its actually quite an accomplishment when you consider it. To release crap after crap licensed game, with nary a bright spot to sully their record. LJN taught us many valuable life lessons, like avoiding licensed titles at all costs.

Heres just a partial list of some of the crap that they are responsible for...

NES:
Back to the Future
Back to the Future II & III
Karate Kid
Punisher
Major league Baseball
Jaws
Roger Rabbit
Bill & Teds Excellent Adventure
Beetlejuice
Gotcha
T&C Surf Designs Wood, Water, & Rage
Friday the 13th
Crash Test Dummies
Roger Clemens Baseball

SNES:
Roger Clemens
Crash Test Dummies
Wrestlemania Challenge
WWF Superstars

No real purpose to this thread other than to spotlight one of the worst publishers/developers of all time. And let everyine have a laugh at how many of those games you actually own. I know I have a few. So next time you want to play a bad game, throw in anything ever made by LJN, the symbol of crappiness!

#2 Kain Vincent   Monarch of Games CAGiversary!   1781 Posts   Joined 19.1 Years Ago  

Kain Vincent

Posted 10 April 2006 - 03:09 PM

Add in X-Men and Wolverine for the NES. I remember owning those two and they suck worse than the black hole.

#3 Pijaibros   doesn't get it CAGiversary!   788 Posts   Joined 19.2 Years Ago  

Posted 10 April 2006 - 03:10 PM

You forgot to list Alien 3, which was not a terrible game (think Contra).
Karate Kid has the best minigames ever!

You do know that LJN was a subsidary of Acclaim, right? Primarily they were there for Acclaim to push their licensed stuff out under.

Much as Konami used Ultra to release more titles.

Back in those days (under the iron fist of) Nintendo limited how many games could be released by each company so many of them had other labels to get around that rule.

#4 Scorch   CAGiversary! CAGiversary!   37487 Posts   Joined 19.6 Years Ago  

Posted 10 April 2006 - 03:17 PM

SNES:
Roger Clemens
Crash Test Dummies
Wrestlemania Challenge
WWF Superstars


"Wrestlemania Challenge" and "WWF Superstars" are not the names of two WWF games on SNES. Wrestlemania challenge was on NES, and i'm not sure what the hell "WWF Superstars" is, unless you're talking about the Game Boy version.

The only SNES wrestling games there were were Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game (LJN wasn't involved with this one), WWF Raw, WWF Super Wrestlemania, and WWF Royal Rumble. They were involved with Raw, Super Wrestlemania, and Royal Rumble. None of those games sucked.

#5 whitereflection   Shake well before serving CAGiversary!   6252 Posts   Joined 19.3 Years Ago  

whitereflection

Posted 10 April 2006 - 03:49 PM

Kain Vincent - is that an animé in your sig? The guy in the upper left looks like Strider Hiryu.

#6 Puffa469   is too Pro Shops CAGiversary!   6105 Posts   Joined 17.7 Years Ago  

Posted 10 April 2006 - 03:59 PM

I knew about Konami/Ultra but had no idea LJN was Acclaim. That explains alot of the suck. =D

You forgot to list Alien 3, which was not a terrible game (think Contra).
Karate Kid has the best minigames ever!

You do know that LJN was a subsidary of Acclaim, right? Primarily they were there for Acclaim to push their licensed stuff out under.

Much as Konami used Ultra to release more titles.

Back in those days (under the iron fist of) Nintendo limited how many games could be released by each company so many of them had other labels to get around that rule.



#7 Puffa469   is too Pro Shops CAGiversary!   6105 Posts   Joined 17.7 Years Ago  

Posted 10 April 2006 - 04:05 PM

My bad, WM Challenge was a nes game, which I have, and I have the SNES games too. Those games arent that great. Although one of them has LEx Luger in it, which has to be kinda rare...

"Wrestlemania Challenge" and "WWF Superstars" are not the names of two WWF games on SNES. Wrestlemania challenge was on NES, and i'm not sure what the hell "WWF Superstars" is, unless you're talking about the Game Boy version.

The only SNES wrestling games there were were Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game (LJN wasn't involved with this one), WWF Raw, WWF Super Wrestlemania, and WWF Royal Rumble. They were involved with Raw, Super Wrestlemania, and Royal Rumble. None of those games sucked.



#8 Kain Vincent   Monarch of Games CAGiversary!   1781 Posts   Joined 19.1 Years Ago  

Kain Vincent

Posted 10 April 2006 - 04:35 PM

Kain Vincent - is that an animé in your sig? The guy in the upper left looks like Strider Hiryu.


It's a picture from Strider 2 (PSone).

#9 cochesecochese   corrompido e imoral CAGiversary!   4894 Posts   Joined 17.7 Years Ago  

cochesecochese

Posted 10 April 2006 - 04:45 PM

Beetlejuice for the NES wasn't that bad. All of those other games were absolutely terrible though.

#10

Guest_Apossum_*

Posted 10 April 2006 - 08:34 PM

is this a general bad devs thread? If so, Razorsoft deserves a mention. They made "edgy" genesis games like Technocop, Slaughter Sport, some first person game where you had to shoot up another monster...all their games were nearly unplayable. Technocop was ambitious though and could've been better with tighter controls and less cheap deaths.

I'd have to agree about LJN....I've never figured out Friday the 13th. You run around, try to save kids...then Jason comes (who is a big fat blue guy in this game) and cuts you up in a matter of seconds. :lol:

#11 Supercake   Mighty Pirate CAGiversary!   692 Posts   Joined 17.7 Years Ago  

Posted 10 April 2006 - 08:41 PM

I'll go out on a limb and say that I love the Friday the 13th game! It's hard as hell, but certainly beatable...with save states! ;)

Technocop is pretty fun, but it's incredibly hard to get far, like said, there are cheap deaths that you just can't avoid. But didn't they also put out Pigskin Footbrawl? That's a good game.

#12 Strider Turbulence   Banned Banned   6540 Posts   Joined 19.5 Years Ago  

Strider Turbulence

Posted 10 April 2006 - 09:43 PM


Heres just a partial list of some of the crap that they are responsible for...

NES:
Back to the Future
Back to the Future II & III

Crash Test Dummies

SNES:
Roger Clemens
Crash Test Dummies



I enjoyed all of those games you mentioned except the ones above (never played Crash Dummies).

Friday the 13th rules. I only beat it once when the NES messed up and gave me invincibilty while wearing the sweater.

#13 Josef   Raising Acts! CAGiversary!   13700 Posts   Joined 19.0 Years Ago  

Posted 15 April 2006 - 01:51 PM

While MLB was God awful, I actually had some sick fun out of taking advantage of the many glitches to win by 70 or more runs. And to think, this and Baseball Stars came out for the same system!

#14 Scahom1   Back from the dead CAGiversary!   1775 Posts   Joined 18.8 Years Ago  

Posted 16 April 2006 - 11:33 PM

I'll go out on a limb and say that I love the Friday the 13th game! It's hard as hell, but certainly beatable...with save states! ;)

Technocop is pretty fun, but it's incredibly hard to get far, like said, there are cheap deaths that you just can't avoid. But didn't they also put out Pigskin Footbrawl? That's a good game.



Friday The 13th was something else all right...I remember one time in the endless woods, I came across Jason's house, and if I remember correctly, you battled Jason's Mother, who was just a floating head.

#15 BJWanlund   Broke & Otherwise CAGiversary!   58 Posts   Joined 16.9 Years Ago  

BJWanlund

Posted 30 April 2006 - 05:33 AM

add the following game boy titles:

nba all star challenge (i have YET to find one with a working game-save battery) 1 and 2
ultimate spider man (trust me, it's pants)
incredible crash dummies (it's good, never beat that damn rocket level tho)

BJ

#16 DigitalSpace   Late to the party CAGiversary!   3641 Posts   Joined 19.1 Years Ago  

DigitalSpace

Posted 30 April 2006 - 06:52 AM

I acutally thought Wolverine and Who Framed Roger Rabbit were pretty decent games. Both of them are on the hard side though, but nowhere near as bad as the other stuff LJN published.

#17 Lieutenant Dan   Ice Cream! CAGiversary!   1376 Posts   Joined 17.2 Years Ago  

Lieutenant Dan

Posted 06 May 2006 - 03:30 AM

I enjoyed this thread. Never realized the correlation between that rainbow and crap before. But it is clear to me now.

Seen that rainbow many a' time.

#18 Chacrana   You wa Cock CAGiversary!   22669 Posts   Joined 19.1 Years Ago  

Posted 06 May 2006 - 04:04 AM

Damn... they're consistantly terrible now that you mention it... I hate Acclaim and Midway, but you're right... LJN somehow surpasses them.