There's a Resident Evil 4 on every platform...
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00:00Video game ports are just part of the gaming industry, and there's nothing wrong with
00:04that.
00:05From a business standpoint, getting your titles onto as many platforms as possible means more
00:08ways for gamers to play, and potentially leads to higher sales numbers.
00:11Additionally, it's important that beloved and classic titles are made as available as
00:15possible so that they don't get lost to time.
00:18That being said, there are some versions of classics that perhaps should be left in the
00:22past.
00:23I'm Sy for WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 awful versions of iconic video games you
00:28didn't know existed.
00:3010.
00:31Tomb Raider – N-Gage
00:32It would be cheap and easy to fill a list of terrible video game ports with mobile games,
00:37but what's important is that the Nokia N-Gage positioned itself equally as a handheld games
00:41console as it did a phone.
00:43Getting an icon like Lara onto the system was Nokia's biggest bet at pulling in a
00:47hardcore gaming audience.
00:48Whilst the original Tomb Raider was seven years old at this point, the promise of being
00:52able to play this classic on the go had a certain allure to it.
00:55The N-Gage version of Tomb Raider was the console's biggest seller at launch, which
00:59sounds impressive until you realise it didn't even shift 3,000 units.
01:04Whilst ambitious in scope, this mobile port just shows why the N-Gage is flawed by design.
01:08With its tight buttons and sticky D-pad, moving Lara's tag controls have never been harder.
01:13Being able to pull off any of Lara's jumps is consistently challenging, and not in a
01:17fun way.
01:18Worst of all, Lara now moves with an auto-run.
01:21Players push up to get her moving and then down to make her stop.
01:25Even by running off the same ledge over and over with the console's painfully small
01:29buttons and it's safe to say that even the few people who played Tomb Raider on the N-Gage
01:33scarcely made it out of the opening stage.
01:369.
01:37Mortal Kombat – Game Boy When Mortal Kombat left arcades and came to
01:41the home console audience, many gamers found themselves debating which version was superior.
01:46Mega Drive or Super Nintendo?
01:48Suffice to say the title's Game Gear and especially Game Boy port did not enter the
01:52conversation.
01:53Technically speaking, character special moves and even fatalities are in the Nintendo handheld
01:58version but most players will be hard-pressed to make them happen intentionally.
02:02With controls this sluggish, trying to even ascertain the right timing, let alone pulling
02:05off a combo is not worth the struggle.
02:08In its defence, this 8-bit rendition looks somewhat impressive for its hardware limitations
02:12and it is clearly the same digitised fighters, just shrunk down and monochrome.
02:17Which obviously presents a problem considering that Scorpion and Sub-Zero on the character
02:21select screen look identical because of it.
02:23The problem is, one of the key selling points of many great fighters is style and Mortal
02:28Kombat has a very specific feel to it that this game can't replicate promptly.
02:32Stages are boring, animations are poor and a lack of gore kind of makes the entire thing
02:36feel heartless.
02:37Ergo, it feels as though Shang Tsung devoured the soul of Mortal Kombat and this tiny cartridge
02:43was all that remained.
02:448.
02:45Mega Man – MS-DOS Just when you think the Blue Bomber has been
02:49through enough over his 35 years, you discover another blemish on the track record of poor
02:53old Mega Man.
02:54In 1990, as the franchise was at its peak on the NES, Capcom USA gave the license to
03:00Hitech Expressions to craft an entry in the series for Microsoft's DOS system.
03:04From the off, it's pretty clear that the version is limited, as instead of the 6 robot
03:08masters from the original, Rockman can only rock up on 3 boring, albeit totally original,
03:13bad guys.
03:14But that's even if you get to the stage selection screen as the game features a single
03:18room intro stage that is simply baffling.
03:21The player is immediately attacked by a powerful robotic dog, which will continuously respawn
03:25if killed and moves faster than Mega Man can, meaning the game always starts with the player
03:30panicking and fleeing for safety.
03:32Mega Man is all about challenging difficulty, but that just seems cheap and unfair.
03:36It doesn't really get any better from there, with slippery controls and frankly insultingly
03:40bad visuals.
03:41At least, like other Mega Man games of the era, it has a fantastic soundtrack, right?
03:46No, actually, the game doesn't feature a single note of music and is instead just
03:5015 minutes of bleeping and blooping until it's beaten or abandoned by the player.
03:557.
03:56Spider-Man 2 PC
03:58Spider-Man 2 for PS2, Xbox and Gamecube is not just one of the most beloved video game
04:02adaptations for the webbed one, but also an overall solid game that had a hand in crafting
04:07what an open world could be.
04:09Much like 2018's Spider-Man game, this 2004 title can be hours of fun when avoiding the
04:15objective and simply swinging around Manhattan.
04:18It was one of the releases that put the young team of Treyarch on the map, however the PC
04:22version was uniquely crafted by The Fizz Factor, whose relative lack of video game experience
04:27is immediately apparent.
04:29The open world web swinging has been turfed out for a tired level system and swinging
04:33is done by clicking the mouse whenever the game asks.
04:36These simple changes are enough to totally derail the game, but even beyond comparison
04:40to the console version, Spider-Man 2 for PC is a technical mess.
04:45Awful hit detection, bad controls and dire camera make this game a frustration as well
04:49as a bore.
04:50It's essentially a completely different game to the celebrated home console title,
04:54the problem is that Activision didn't advertise it as such, so PC gamers that saw this on
04:59a store shelf and were excited to try out the console game everyone was high on were
05:03about to get stung.
05:056.
05:06Myst Nintendo DS
05:08In 1993, developer Cyan Inc released Mac OS type Myst, a calm yet eerie little game that
05:14enraptured audiences with its puzzles and visual design in a way that felt like the
05:17industry taking its first steps into gaming as an art form.
05:21The 2007 Nintendo DS version does not live up to that legacy, not one iota.
05:27How exactly this was allowed to release at all is a question in itself as this handheld
05:31port of the classic feels like the most lazy and unfinished tie-in possible.
05:36Something clearly happened behind the scenes with developers Hotlight Research as their
05:40earlier efforts porting Myst to the PSP were fine compared to this.
05:44The game's now 15 year old visuals are horribly compressed to the point where text is unreadable,
05:49the audio gets the same treatment which is an issue since many puzzle solutions are sound
05:53based.
05:54And considering the whole point of the system is an additional touch screen, the second
05:57screen is basically just black with a few icons on it.
06:01Thrilling.
06:02On top of this, the port was upgraded for the Nintendo 3DS which only made things worse.
06:07The main audio is now out of sync, the controls are totally reworked into something clunkier
06:12and the game's promise to use the system's 3D feature is unfulfilled.
06:175.
06:18Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop
06:19Nintendo Wii
06:21Dead Rising released a year into the Xbox 360's life and really showed what the console
06:25could do by rendering large crowds of zombies and inviting players to mow them all down
06:29however they saw fit.
06:31Three years later the franchise made its way to the Nintendo Wii.
06:35Presumably the original Dead Rising was too far out of reach for the Wii's power and
06:39so Chop Till You Drop is a quasi-remake.
06:41The game has been built from the ground up on the engine used for Resident Evil 4 Wii
06:45Edition which totally alters the gameplay style.
06:48Whilst this doesn't have to necessarily be a bad change and could offer a unique experience,
06:53the Wii version has several big holes that sink it as a viable contender.
06:57In short, everything that made Dead Rising great.
07:01The overall countdown clock which made players do the best they could in the three available
07:04days they had is completely reworked and Frank West, famous photojournalist, can no
07:10longer whip out his camera for a perfect Kodak moment.
07:13Worst of all, not only is Willamette Parkview Mall a smaller location, it's far less inhabited.
07:19Gone are the big crowds of zombies and instead players will neatly navigate around the dozen
07:23or two that the game can render at a time.
07:25Rendering this version the one that misses the entire concept of Dead Rising.
07:304.
07:31Call of Duty N-Gage
07:33Before it became a million dollar grossing worldwide phenomenon, Call of Duty was just
07:37one little PC FPS.
07:39In fact it almost completely stayed this way as there were five years between the PC and
07:43home console release.
07:45Therefore, the N-Gage version of Call of Duty is the first handheld port for the series
07:49and it actually predates the franchise coming to both Xbox and PlayStation.
07:54Launching on Nokia's video game system and cell phone hybrid means that Call of Duty
07:58suffers the same issues every title on the system does.
08:01A tiny screen, an aspect ratio that is not suitable for gaming and awkward controls.
08:06Still this version of Call of Duty at the very least has clearly had plenty of effort
08:10put into it which is what makes it even more of a shame that it functions terribly.
08:14Sluggish aiming makes the game incredibly hard to play.
08:17Furthermore, limited textures, terrible draw distance and in fact enemies that can shoot
08:22and kill you from behind that draw distance make this an alarming departure from the quality
08:26of the original.
08:27Thankfully, Call of Duty's first port wasn't setting a precedent and remains little more
08:31than a strange footnote in the franchise's rise to global dominance.
08:353.
08:36Super Mario Bros.
08:37Special PC-8801
08:38Whilst in this day and age Nintendo are very careful about who they let come near their
08:43sacred intellectual properties, that wasn't always the case.
08:47During the mid-1980s they loaned the Mario name to the likes of esteemed development
08:51studio Hudson Soft who created various versions of Mario titles for home computers.
08:56Super Mario Bros.
08:57Special, in particular the PC-8801 version, is the worst of the bunch.
09:03First of all, they couldn't even get the character's colour scheme right and the
09:05now yellow and red suited plumber looks more like Hulk Hogan than Super Mario.
09:10That is, when you can see him at all as the screen is almost always blinking wildly to
09:14try and keep up with the fast moving graphics.
09:17The PC-8801 just couldn't handle what was originally made for the NES and as a result
09:22one of the game's best features is totally cut.
09:25Mario's smooth sideways scrolling is what blew minds in 1985 and this port instead has
09:30to settle for long and awkward screen transitions every time the player moves forward.
09:35Whilst Super Mario Bros. itself might feel like a dinosaur compared to gaming in the
09:38current day, at the time the special ports made gamers appreciate just how cutting edge
09:43and powerful the NES was.
09:452.
09:46Perfect Dark
09:47Game Boy Colour
09:48In many ways Rareware defined the Nintendo 64 almost as much as the company who owned
09:53the hardware.
09:54Putting titles such as Banjo Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye and Jet Force Gemini,
10:00it was almost as if the developers could do no wrong.
10:02In 2000 they released Perfect Dark to critical aplomb but the game had a handheld version
10:08that has been mostly lost to time.
10:10The Game Boy Colour port of Perfect Dark unsurprisingly has to make huge changes to the formula to
10:15even function.
10:16Gone is the first person perspective and instead the game acts as a sort of Metal Gear-esque
10:21isometric top down action game.
10:23However whilst it might have looked decent for the time, it's certainly not aged well.
10:28More than that, it's just not fun to play.
10:30Perfect Dark asks players to use stealth which is a total headache to operate.
10:34With such a restrictive field of view, it's easy to accidentally trigger alarms or encounters
10:39and stealth kills are all based on an arbitrary amount of distance between Joanna and the
10:43enemy's back.
10:44With awkward and overstuffed controls, it's clear that Rare was expecting too much out
10:48of the GBC in its twilight years.
10:51With all the goodwill in the world for Rare, the gaming industry moved on from this poor
10:54Perfect Dark port quickly to save them the embarrassment.
10:581.
10:59Resident Evil 4 Zeebo
11:01Considering the huge success of the fourth numbered entry in Capcom's corporate terror
11:05franchise, you can't really blame them for porting Resident Evil 4 to every system under
11:09the sun.
11:10Starting off on the Gamecube, famously jumping to the PS2 and from there spreading its joy
11:14like… well, a virus.
11:17Most likely you've never heard of this particular Resident Evil 4 port because the console it
11:21released for was exclusively available in Brazil and Mexico.
11:24The Zeebo was a quaint yet incredibly underpowered machine that had a fairly short lifespan and
11:29shallow pool of games.
11:31Resident Evil 4 Zeebo Edition is a pale imitation of what made it great elsewhere.
11:35The panic horror gameplay of being overwhelmed by hatchet and chainsaw wielding Ganado is
11:40pretty much impossible to feel considering that the game renders very few enemies at
11:44a time.
11:45Most of the game's campaign is completely absent.
11:47The Zeebo version is 12 missions that are all just a single iconic room from the game
11:51we all know and love.
11:53Furthermore, the joy we all had organising our inventory can't be replicated here as
11:57the game does away with it.
11:59As such, it's not surprising to learn that the Zeebo edition of Resident Evil 4 was originally
12:03designed for Nokia phones, which somehow makes it even worse that this was repurposed and
12:08brought to a home console, even one that risked winding up in very few homes.
12:13And that's the list.
12:14Let us know what you thought of this video down in the comments below.
12:17Have you played any of these awful versions?
12:20And let us know of any other terrible ports that most people don't know about.
12:24Make sure you like this video, share it with your friends, subscribe and hit that notification
12:29bell.
12:30I've been Sy for WhatCulture and have a good week.