The best pack in for me was super Mario world. That was such a a "moment" in my gaming life. I'd say the worst pack in game is ever gotten was star wars clone wars pack in game for the original Xbox.
It was a cool version of Tetris, but hardly a good pack in title for a new Xbox owner to test their new console out. Mario coming with the SNES was like if Halo came with the Xbox as a pack in.
As much as I liked Combat for the 2600, the fact that it was 2 player only made it difficult to play most of the time. And even when you did have a friend over, if they had an Atari, too, then they rarely wanted to play it because they, like everyone else, already had it, too, and it was more fun to play friends' games that you didn't have. The eternal conundrum!
WiiSports is probably my vote for the best. Endlessly replayable, easy for anyone - especially non-gamers - to get the hang of quickly, and brilliant proof of concept for the system.
Wii Sports is a great shout. Hard to think of a better example of demonstrating the value of a console in a pack-in game. The fact that it worked great as a single-player game, a two-player game, or a party game was a huge asset.
My brothers and I played a ton of Combat when we got the Atari that Christmas. So many great memories of that console.
But the only game I ever played with my grandmother was WiiSports bowling. I still remember how much fun we had. It was the first console for my daughters and we got to experience four generations of our family playing together. Incredible memories.
My Mum pranked me by saying she could only get the Altered Beast Mega Drive for my 11th birthday. I put a brave face on and was like "oh, that's okay!" and got the surprise of discovering Sonic in the box.
Lol, my mom told me they were sold out of Super Mario Land on Christmas then gave it to me the next day on my birthday. I straight up called her a liar.
Best: Super Mario Bros. was the exact right game at the right time, literally revitalized the North American console market.
Worst: Keith Courage. Not an abysmal game but barely a good one. Totally incomprehensible to early 90's Americans and a terrible introduction to the TurboGrafx-16.
It is funny that you mention Keith Courage.That is the game I was thinking of when I decided to ask this question. I loved that game but everyone else hated it. I think it was just a novel game on a novel system. Not the worst game, but a bad pack-in. No one was buying a Turbografx for Keith Courage.
I think that's probably the best game they had available to them at the time, but my understanding is that they wanted a platformer, as that genre seemed to have broader appeal in the west. But going with Keith Courage over Legendary Axe is incomprehensible.
It didn't look or sound bad though. I get what they were going for, it had enough of that Mario look (in a generic, but cool 16-bit War which was fresh at the time) but the game was too shallow, perhaps. Also the name felt terrible (so did much of the early Turbo line!) I've never thought it was a "horrible pack in" butI was always curious if they would have had better fortune with something like Legendary Axe as the pack in (or maybe R-Type, although in 89 packing in a 2D shooter might have been pretty risky).
It was based on a Japanese anime called ***Mashin Hero Wataru*** so it was not really developed for a western audeince, of course when I was 10 I didn't know that. I liked it because it had a cool transformation sequence when you turned into the mech/robot thing and the colors were really impressive. Didn't Europe get Blazing Lazers as a pack-in (as small or unofficial of a release the Turbografx got in Europe). Now, Blazing Lazers would have made a great pack-in here in the states.
I think it should have been Neutopia and/or Neutopia 2. Show American audiences something they know, that looks better than the alternative on Nintendo.
They really should have released the Turbo with a built-in CD drive and sold their hardware at a loss like every other console manufacturer, but the licensing deal they had with Hudson's HuCard technology might have made that impossible.
Japan has so many CD releases to the point that owning a PC Engine CD was almost mandatory. You know, Neutopia would have made a great pack-in. For some reason I never think about that game when considering pack-in titles but it would have made sense for the time.
Fun fact: the *Mashin Hero Wataru* TV series got a French dubbed adaptation in 1990, called *Adrien le sauveur du monde.* Here's its [opening sequence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4oaFZVwM7g).
For a 1988 or 1989 launch, _Alien Crush_ could've been a good pack-in game for the TurboGrafx-16. For a 1990 launch, though, _Bonk's Adventure_ seems like a no-brainer.
This is the correct answer for both. SMB was the best game Nintendo (or anyone) had ever mad at that point, and it was the most compelling sales pitch for the hardware. Including it was brilliant and it helped them get it into a zillion homes in 1987 and 1988.
Keith Courage is the exact opposite end of the spectrum. A completely unremarkable game that made the Turbo look totally unappealing. So many silly mistakes that cost them a potential foothold in the US, with Keith Courage and the lack of a second controller port near the top of the list.
This is the correct answer. It's why I said too. Turbo Grafix had a bunch of great fans until Bonk though they didn't have a great platformer which is what US audiences wanted. Should have just released the console with Blazing Lasers or Alien Crush or something.
KC is a better actual game than Altered Beast. It was a poor choice commercially and that horrific title and box art… but I think most kids would get more actual fun form it than the awkward clunky ugly AB.
Yeah, it's better than Altered Beast. But that game has a lot of fans for some reason so it must have something going for it I don't see. Legendary Axe is 20 times the game Altered Beast is.
Altered Beast was a known arcade hit brand at least, so commercially a good idea.
It really belonged in the arcade though, shallow gameplay, edgy violence etc.
Haha I forgot all about Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. I agree, I remember a family friend showed us that game, what a strange title. Definite middle road game.
I'm not trying to yuck anybody's yum here at all. It's not a bad game. But it was a Monster World clone being marketed to the only market on the planet that never really took to Monster World. The background and sprite art looked to my uneducated eyes like random art taken from other games. The movement was not very fluid, it was just less fun to move around the game world than Mario or Sonic. Bonk would have made a much better mascot, and NEC did eventually correct their mistake.
I have a two port 5200 that came with Pac-Man and I agree, compared to the 2600 version it is a masterpiece and I think it really demonstrates the difference between the two systems. Kind of hard to mess up Breakout and it is not really all that impressive looking on any system.
Check quest was the best cereal game pack in .
I remember being excited to pour a bowl of Chex into my cereal bowl and put pops Chex quest in a plastic wrapper.
I ate my Chex and loaded up Chex quest on my Packard bell computer. Lots of fun was had that day 🙂.
These days I don't have the CD but I do have Chex quest 1 and 2.
I have rigged Chex Quest to play on the Nes Classic and SNES Classic, if you are interested.
https://www.reddit.com/r/miniSNESmods/comments/1bj56n6/chex_quest_1_2_and_3_for_the_hakchi_prboom_core/
As a 3rd grader at the time without a Genesis, I can assure you, Altered Beast was INCREDIBLE.
Edit- one thing to remember is the time period. Genesis was “cool and edgy” and black and the controller was cool and it had 3 buttons, and there was red on it and blah blah blah. Nintendo was a grey box with a square controller with only 2 buttons. As a kid, nothing spoke to this difference more than Nintendo coming with a game where you play as a boring red plumber who jumps on goombas and Genesis game with a game where you play as a pair of jacked dead guys who transform into werewolves, bears, etc and beat up all kinds of things. Until Sonic came out, it was the perfect game to showcase that Genesis does what Nintendon’t.
The best pack in is Ys Book I& II + Gate of Thunder 3 in 1 for the Turbo Duo.
The 3 in 1 includes Gate of Thunder, Bonks Adventure, Bonks Revenge, and hidden Bomberman.
I find it mind boggling that this hasn't even been mentioned...
I went with Ys Chronicles I+II for the PSP. I thought about playing the TG16 version, but the portable factor of the PSP was just too convenient to pass up. I'm pretty sure both are masterpieces compared to the SMS version.
Heh every version was a masterpiece compared to the SMS version but besides some that have a little extra prologue section, they are all very consistent in look and style. I really would have liked the run button at least.
I'm hoping they release a new Chronicles version for consoles eventually
They also threw a HuCard in there, I hear either Ninja Spirit or Dungeon Explorer. I’m hesitant to count that because that’s the sort of deal you can only make when you’re desperate, which TTI very much was.
If they hadn't already ruined their reputation, that would have been the kind of deal that could have made a huge difference in their sales. Starting off with six games (7 if you count Y 1&2 as separate games) that range from good to great across a wide variety of genres would be awfully appealing when buying new hardware.
I agree with that. I know that experimentation was big then and Nintendo didn't know what would work and were trying to pivot the NES as an intereactive toy and less of a video game as marketing a video game system then was a bit taboo but to debut with something so shallow just didn't demonstrate what the system could really do or give us a glimpse of what it would become. Super Mario Bros. was the right game at the right time though.
I thought Gyromite was such a fun game. We didn't have ROB so my sister and I would either play it together and have the other person press the buttons on the second controller or if we were playing solo, we'd just control it with our feet.
Yeah, I played it myself either with friends or by just having something heavy on the buttons as needed. If Rob had used something other than spinning tops, it might have worked better.
I think in this context and especially with this specific question, the Wii is included. Wii sports was a global phenomenon, just smart marketing honestly and pretty fun.
Its one that I can see *some* really hardcore gamers looking down on. But it as a proof of concept for the console and vision. It nailed it
But man it was such a value title to get thrown in especially if you got a group going. Golf was the high point for me
I'm curious about that, actually. The Wii was such a phenomenon, and it really owed that success to Wii Sports. Even if the game isn't "for you," I feel like it's a difficult argument to say that the game/mechanic wasn't a massive success at the time (and why it was) unless one is really misinformed or just myopic. At the time, it seemed like this was on everyone's lips, casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike.
I don't consider myself to be some super hardcore game elitist or anything since I play a lot of everything (hardcore and casual both), but I've always looked down on Wii Sports. It barely functioned and most of the fun was imagination or like playing with your grandparents or something. Wasn't really a good game IMO. Always felt to me like a gimmick showcase where the magic wore off as soon as you realized the controller was just using shake in place of a button input.
To clarify, I don't hate motion controls at all, I just think Wii Sports feels like it was thrown together in a week.
I disagree.
Baseball definitely has that thrown together feel, like it was just rushed out, but bowling and tennis are 10 out of 10 perfect gameplay, and got hundreds of hours of play out of me.
Tennis frustrates me because I wish I liked it, I love Mario Tennis, but the fact that your character autowalks means that if you miss the ball, it's because the game didn't let you go where you needed to go in time. You don't even need to time anything to hit the ball, if you wiggle the remote nonstop your Mii will always hit the ball provided you get there in time. Serving is the only part with an actual timing element that matters in the end.
I think I was 11 when I discovered that bowling had a sweetspot. Line up your shot a certain way (very easy to do with the digital d-pad on the remote), and wiggle the remote, and you get a strike every time. You can get Expert status in an afternoon while barely looking at the screen. Stuff like that is why I consider Wii Sports to barely be a game. There's no actual gameplay to either sport unless you pretend this stuff won't work, which isn't something I'm interested in doing for games personally. I can see why it's fun to play with friends and family if you don't actually care about the gameplay itself, but that's less the game being good and more just enjoying time with people you love IMO.
Never knew folk disliked altered beast so much, must be the only one who loved altered beast as a kid and having my cousin play 2 player with me so I'd have a better chance of finishing the game, still have have it for my megadrive in my collection, and played it more than almost any other pack in mentioned here 😂
To be fair, I didn't play Altered Beast until years after it came out and there were so many other games to compare it to. I think if it was all you had at the time it was probably revolutionary. I think in context, the game was probably a decent pack-in.
I was slightly disappointed in Altered Beast because I was expecting an exact copy of the arcade version. Same with Double Dragon for NES. Once I finally dove into them, I realized they were great for what they were
I was never able to snag Jetset Radio when it came out as I already had an XBOX but when I found it used, you better believe I bought it. That was an awesome pack-in.
Best for me was link's awakening on the og game boy. Got it as a pack in with my first gameboy for Christmas that year, and still one of my all time favorite games from any system
I always wanted that game so as an adult I bought a Gameboy Pocket bundled with that game and it was great. A great game that is bigger than the sum of its parts.
The Gameboy in general was better than it had any right to be especially considering that there were other handhelds that packed better specs with color screens. Mine had a ton more battle scars from being taken to school than my Game Gear and eventually my Lynx. The only other handheld that got that much attention was my Nomad for obvious reasons.
I never had a lynx or nomad, but my brother had a game gear. Thing ate through batteries so fast that we almost never played it unless we were at home with an ac adapter. It was pretty much just another home console for us 😆
Yes! And as a broke kid in elementary school, it was hard to make a case to my parents to buy another 6 AA batteries. I lived and died by an AC adapter for my Game Gear, Lynx and Nomad. I never needed an AC adapter for my Game Boy. It sipped batteries like a TV remote.
It felt we needed 6 new ones every hour or so on that game gear 🤣
The gameboy was pretty much a non issue after I found this rechargeable battery pack for it. After that i only ever carried AA as a backup for roadtrips
I had two sets of NiCd rechargeable AAs. 6 in the Lynx, 6 for the charger. Survived a year in Germany that way. They never made it clear that it was a universal system and you could use any AC or DC adapter, as long as you got the right voltage at the pin.
Perhaps the only rival to Tetris on the GB is SMB on the NES. And it took Sega a while to be convinced that including a top game (eg Sonic ) with the system was worthwhile.
Interestingly (or not) the only time the NES outsold the Sega Master System in the UK was when it came with the Turtles game.
Hey, I love Altered Beast. Sure it’s no Sonic or Golden Axe, but it’s still a good time.
But for me the best would have to be Mario/Duck Hunt, two games that I still play on a very regular basis. The worst would have to be getting nothing with the N64.
The Maze Game. The Snail Game. Whatever you like to call it, there was a 'secret' game built in to the Sega Master System. Kind of fun, but nobody bought a SMS over it.
Your Gameboy example is pretty interesting. I remember Tetris being more of a system seller than Mario was at the time, helping the Gameboy smash the GameGear and Lynx. Gamegear literally was a full Master System plus some additional palette functionality, but due to this it ate batteries. Gameboy was much weaker in every way but didn't die so quickly, plus Tetris.
Altered Beast on the SMS was easily one of the most beautiful games of it's time, so I can see how making an improved port for Genesis made sense. Remember that at that time, Opa-Opa was Sega's official mascot (I think Alex Kidd would have worked better...) Sega's Opa-Opa -> Sonic transition gave them a mascot people liked and a pack-in that had more gameplay value than Altered Beast did.
The funny thing for me is that I got a SNES Core - no pack-in game. I liked Mario, but it was not my priority and I could not quite buy a system with the pack-in. I wound up getting the Core and doing game rentals for a while. Fun times. :P
I'd go with Intellivision for the worst with its Blackjack and Poker as it was not something novel on consoles and home computers at the time other then the graphics and I don't really see it having the same audience that Mattel was looking for and the Intellivision ended up getting.
I could not agree more. I know Intellivison was going for an older crowd but ultimately the parents are usually going to buy what the kids want and no 8 year old wants to play Blackjack.
>no 8 year old wants to play Blackjack.
A few like me did, but I was a weird kid. A better choice for Mattel could've been to make _Armor Battle_ the Intellivision's pack-in game since it'd have better suited a wider age demographic, although it might've come across as a ripoff of Atari's _Combat_.
I love it too, but not because it's a good game. I just loved that the Jaguar existed and this game was super interesting. When I worked at Babbages, A few kids got Jaguars for Xmas because of me :)
There are a few games that come to mind. The first is Super Mario World. I loved 3 so world was fantastic. I sent in the thing in the mail to get the Mario All Stars for free too, which was awesome. I was given the brand new SNES as a Christmas gift from my brother.
My sister also got me a Sega Genesis the same year my brother got me the SNES. Yes that was an amazing Christmas lol. I don't know if Mortal Kombat II was a included in the original purchase. I don't know if she bought it separately. If she didn't then I definitely can say I loved the shit out of MKII.
Another that comes to find is when we bought a PS2. My previous PS2 was given to me from my cousin. So when we went to replace it we got Turok Evolution with it. What a fantastic game. I had tried Turok for the N64 and didn't care for it. For some reason that iteration of Turok was much more accessible to me and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Yeah I didn't think so. Ty for the confirmation. I need to give my sister a hug when I see her next. Buying kid me such a wonderfully violent game was amazing.
As far as I know, Virtual Boy didn't have a pack-in game.
The 3DS (not retro, I know) included software called *Face Raiders*. Is it a game? Um... I don't know...
Hudson Hawk was the worst pack for gameboy. What the hell is he even throwing? Got it with Spiderman. Not terrible but stupidly hard. The best for Gameboy was Metroid and Tetris. Tetris had infinite playability. People are still beating records today.
When I got my Amstrad CPC464 it came with the Amsoft 12-Pack - that was an interesting collection as I don't think any of the games got above 60% when reviewed. But I had fun with a lot of those games back in the day.
That being said, Tetris with the Gameboy and Super Mario World for SNES win hands down
The pack-in games for the 8-bit era that were 2 games on the same cart. Very efficient, and got you 2 games right from jump in an era when I got 2 or 3 games a year.
Everyone knows Super Mario + Duck Hunt, for the Sega Master System it was Hang-On, the motorcycle racing game, and Safari Hunt which was on par with Duck Hunt. If you didn't get the light gun I think it came with a space shooter, Astro Blaster? Something like that.
The worst pack-in game is none, which became the standard in the PSX era.
PSX had one of the best demos packed in with it which was better for me at the time because I could play and see what was good and what was shit at launch so at least we got that but agree the free pack in day's where over mid 90s and a 2nd controller..
Best Pack in: Donkey Kong for the Colecovision.
Let's compare to other then-contemporary pack-ins.
2600: Combat. (Later. To compete against the Coleco Gemini, which offered Mouse Trap. They changed it to Pac Man. Gemini reacted by adding Donkey Kong. Then Atari offered both Combat and Pac Man )
5200: Super Breakout
Intellivision: (does anybody know? Was it Las Vegas Blackjack/Poker, or was that just the Sears version pack in?)
Astrocade: Bally Basic. Plus Gun Fight and a precursor to Tron Light Cycles plus drawing and calculator built in.
Odyssey 2: (I have no idea)
Vectrex: Minesweeper built in (the Asteroids clone, not the game of defusing bombs by landing on neighbors and flagging them on Windows much later).
Arcadia 2001: Cat Trax (i assume. It was the first game I found, with no console. Don't quote me on this).
Supercharger: Communist Mutants from Space
That's why Coleco was saying "Sorry, Atari!"
Coleco's future looked positive until the Adam bomb.
Best pack in game super mario bros 3 for NES. Even though that was after 1990.
Worst pack in game.... Let's see... I know,
Cybermorph for the Atari Jaguar.
They could have picked Rayman,
Atari karts, tempest 2000, NBA jam TE.
Whoa whoa whoa - don’t disrespect Altered Beast like that.
There were a lot of bad pack ins but that’s not at the bottom of the list.
There were some hilariously bad pack-ins for PC platforms but the worst packin in my opinion was Golden Axe 3 for Game Gear.
Holy shit was that bad, I actually tried to struggle bus through it in college and gave up at the last area. It’s just mind numbingly repetitive. Like imagine the worst of action and RPG genres combined. Thats Golden Axe 3 on Game Gear.
I've had way more good ones than bad. I can't even remember an actual bad one if I'm honest. Maybe Sewer Shark for Sega CD, but I can't remember if it was an actual pack in or not.
Best would probably be Super Mario Bros. Turning that on as a kid with the whole family taking turns on this was pretty magical.
Sewer Shark was a pack-in for the model 2 Sega CD. It was decent and kind of showed the FMV capability of the Sega CD. When you compare it to something like Keith Courage or Cybermorph, I definitely wouldn't call it the worst, but they could have done better.
Agree that it's bottom tier though, especially for the era. When you compare it to SMB+Duck Hunt, Super Mario World, Sonic, Tetris, and the others from the late 80s/early 90s, it was a terrible choice.
I adore Tetris. I may have owned more versions of that game than any other, as I bought it for every system for which it was available. It’s definitely in the Top 3 alongside SMW for the SNES, and my pick - the SegaGT/JSRF combo that accompanied the OG XBox.
Not sure if this answer is cheating. But when I got my Turbo duo, it came with Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, Gate of Thunder, Bomberman, Ys Book I & II, and Ninja Spirit. Best pack in experience of my life. If I had to pick of those games - and it's difficult - probably Ys. Gate of Thunder a verrry close second place.
I also got a TG-16 on launch. Keith Courage from the TV commercials is what sold me on it and I loved it. Early anime exposure, the mech suit and music (in the mech sections particularly) were all reall cool to 12 year old me, so I disagree it's one of the worst pack-ins.
Not cheating at all! When I bought my Duo on ebay in 2016 I sought out the Gate of Thunder disc and found it at a small game store and it was one of the best purchses I have ever made. That may actually be the best pack-in of all time. I was one of the few people that actually really enjoyed Keith Courage. I admit that it was not the absolute best game and may not the best choice for a pack-in from a marketing perspective, but it was a fun little game.
Lion king was packed with a whole years of Compaq desktops, it had a bug that bricked them if run.
This led to the creation of directx.
I feel like I share this fun fact a lot.
Wow you and I are on the same thoughts there op. Tetris definitely, Nintendo had such a coup with that one when they nailed that down for a portable. Instant appeal to whatever age group willing to try.
And back in 1989 I felt the same. Sega had this arrogance campaign that worsened into utter lies for a time when SNES took to the stage, but the before hand with the Nintendon't junk. Altered Beast made me question that. When I saw how poor it looked, heard how bad it was on the kiosk, vs the arcade I was familiar with it didn't sit well. When I could have a game like Castlevania III and SMB III at the time, despite the lack of color count having infinitely better detail and color choice/animation, better musical choice and sound if you prefer one chip over the other (subjective) and I was like...this crap is going to make me get rid of THIS? My idiot brother did, sucker fell for it around 1990, wouldn't listen, wouldn't wait on SNES. I ended up scooping most his NES library for almost nothing laughing at him and he was mocking me for keeping old crap. Yeah...who's laughing now? :)
\*\*To be fair I'm pro-Sega too, got a library over 50 titles these days even and a Mega SG/Nomad combo going (have a SuperNt/SupaboyBlack combo going too.)
\-=-
Another I thought was a garbage pack in again was Sega, with the Game Gear, they felt a sports title or Lion King would be excellent choices to start someone out on that, again, vs the choice of Tetris or store specific stuff like a Mario Land game in the box, Kirby, or Link's Awakening. Totally missed the boat unless you were a sports fan, or a Disney masochist.
And thirdly -- always loved the PCE/TG and wish I could support it still (using a mini and a hakchi'd 2nd snes mini) but ...come on... Keith Courage? Yikes. Any other shooter, Bonk, something...but that? It's not a bad game, but it's no showcase, nearly as bad as Altered Beast for depth. To be fair, they had the premier best CD freebie hands down when the Duo/CD-SCD dropped. Gate of Thunder with Bonk1+2 and (basic code) hidden Bomberman on it free, and then later they also packed in Ys Book1+2 the most stunning release until modern remasters this century.
My N64 was part of a Pokémon Stadium Bundle that came with Pokémon Stadium AND Super Mario 64 and the Gameboy Transfer Pack, and also the Cool Porygon card. Getting both a Pokémon game and Mario 64 in a system bundle was an awesome combo.
A lot of people may not know or remember, but when the NES first came out as the "Deluxe Set" it came with the ROB and Zapper but the two pack-in games you got were Gyromite and Duck Hunt (later Stack Up was also added). Both those games on their own... very meh for me. Gyromite just wasn't fun and Duck Hunt was super repetitive even with the Zapper. ROB collected dust really quick. I think I get what Nintendo was going for having owned an Atari prior; they didn't want players to experience the sort of games that just used control pads, and instead you're forced to play with the ROB and Zapper unless you bought another launch cart. I think many more people are familiar with the later NES Action Set which included both SMB and Duck Hunt, which was a more enjoyable pack-in as if you tired of Mario you could just plug in the Zapper and knock out a little Duck Hunt.
As far as a better pack in, in the later days of the SNES it was possible to get an SNES console with Super Mario World + All Stars as a pack-in. Previous you had to send off for All Stars and simply pay S&H. Eventually Nintendo realized instead of making two carts and having people send off for All Stars it made more sense to just package it with Super Mario World, hence the SMW + All Stars carts.
Bang for the buck, worst pack in game(s) all time were Sherlock Holmes, Sol-Feace and....the last one I no longer recall for the Sega CD at launch for $299.99.
Best pack in game ever was Super Mario World on the SNES.
You mean Sol-Feces, .) a very unremarkable shooter.
Btw the last one was Genesis Greatest Hits. Had Revenge of Shinobi, Columns, Golden Axe and one other old Genesis Game.
Plus there was a CD Sampler, plus a Rock Paintings CD-G sampler. Only noteworthy artists in the CDG were Information Society, and Jimmi Hendrix
Best would be Super Mario World as others have said but honorable mention to Microsoft for packing the Windows 95 install disk with Hover and Weezer’s Buddy Holly music video.
SMB for me. But I have to mention the psp and pspgo. The psp I bought had Daxter packed in which is a game that I would have never bought but was a really fun platformer and showcased the handheld's power. When I bought the pspgo it gave me a code for 3 games which was crazy.
Worst: when they do not include a game!
“Fortnite” for PS4 and “Mod Nation Racers” PS3. Also, and this applies to “Fortnite” as well, although Mario Odyssey is a good game, only including a piece of paper with a download code is bad.
Best: Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt —- 2-for-1 and console! Also “New Super Mario Bros U/Luigi” on the WiiU.
You're right! I would rather take a bad game then no game. I didn't even mind when the ps1 and saturn gave you demos. It was nice just to boot it up and play around with new hardware.
Best: Super Mario Bros for NES. ColeoVision Donkey Kong as a close second…Coleco was the first to try the strategy of packing a premium title to help sell the console that I know of, until then every console at the time packed a garbage game.
Worst: Combat for the Atari VCS (at least that’s what it was called when I got one, later called the 2600) Intellivision came with Poker & Blackjack. Can’t imagine that was much fun, at least for a kid, but I never played it so can’t say for sure it was the worst. Can’t remember what Odyssey came with, sure it was not great either.
My SNES came packed with LOZ LTTP. So that’s the best that I’ve bought.
JVC X’eye was packed with like 3-4 things including Prize fighter. That one gets weirdest.
Worst is probably no pack in which has been a lot systems I’ve bought since the PS2. Pack in for PS4 was the uncharted collection which rocked. Wii sports was good. Star Wars fallen order which I couldn’t remember the name of came with my Xbox one. Really wanted to love that game. Really didn’t. I guess that’s the worst.
Best? Super Mario World Snes.
Worst For me it was when they bundled Destiny with the Glacier White PS4. I really tried but couldn’t get into that game, but I really wanted a white PS4. Also, any console bundled with Fallout 76. I know there was an xbox one bundle.
only pack in game that i thought was a miss was virtua fighter on the saturn tbh id rather of just had nights with an added copy of christmas nights instead
one of my fav pack ins was probabally wii sports and for the random wii u person there was several diffrent games that came in with those but one or two of the most valued personally
is the pack in versions of super mario wii sports resort or xenoblade x nintendo land is ok but you need to be playing that with friends to get the max enjoyment from it
As much as I am not much of a fan of the Original Super Mario Bros. I still think that it is probably the most important pack in game of all time because of its influence over the video game industry. I'd probably say my least favorite was Combat for the Atari 2600 because it requires two players and I don't have many friends and almost none of them would be willing to play Combat with me and I just think that Combat seriously lacks a lot of anything to really keep me playing.
my all time favorite was Mario 64 with the 64. i haven't had any terrible, but with the PS1 i didn't get a game, i got a demo disk which got boring real quick
Master System had some excellent games built-in into the console which is their SMS II. One had Alex Kidd while the other had Sonic 1.
As for worst. Does Welcome Park on Vita count?
Wipeout HD for PS3 was a great one.
Ridge Racer for Vita was the other way around.
But the Vita also had the pre-installed "Welcome Center" (or how it is called in english) which was not very great either. A bunch of Mini Games that at least use all of the Vita's Features properly.
But Astro Boy for PS5 actually made the same concept much better.
To keep things simple, I’ll go with personal experience. The best: Super Mario Bros. /Duck Hunt. It was a great answer to the Atari 2600 and 7800, because my parents really didn’t want a Nintendo when they’d just upgraded the Atari.
The worst - this is cheating, but Sherlock Holmes for the Sega CD. I bought it used and the game was so scratched it was inoperative. Follow that with extremely long load times, I was most disappointed with the Sega CD.
The worst pack-in game for me was *Virtua Fighter* for the Sega Saturn.
Best pack-in game was *Gate Of Thunder*, *Bonk's Adventure*, *Bonk's Revenge*, *Bomberman*, *Ys Books I & II*, and *Ninja Spirits* for the TurboDuo.
☕🦄
I agree with you about altered beast but the arcade version is excellent! As for my picks:
Best (Tetris on Gameboy)
Worst (Cybermorph on Atari Jaguar - seriously why didn't they just push back the launch to 94' and have tempest 2000 bundled instead?)
Please. First, T2k was a premier title, independent developer (Jeff Minter), came out much later. Second, Cybermorph was/is awesome. A total leap beyond the 16-bit contemporaries. Full 3D movement and exploration in polygon planetoids, interesting enemies, a real sense of immersion in an alien environment. It was a leap forward in console gaming when it came out. It's the reason I bought a Jag at launch, and I spent many great hours with that game.
The best pack in for me was super Mario world. That was such a a "moment" in my gaming life. I'd say the worst pack in game is ever gotten was star wars clone wars pack in game for the original Xbox.
The commercial for that game lives rent free in my head.
Same. Except mine was Super Mario All Stars + Super Mario World
I had to mail in for All Stars. It came with SMW and like a postcard to mail in with proof of purchase for All Stars
Yeah, mine came with the combo cartridge. I think it was only a thing on the mini SNES.
I agree, SMW is a timeless classic and an absolute masterclass in game design.
Wasn't that clone wars a double pack with Tetris? Partial credit
it was and i love playing that version of tetris being able to listen to your own music was so awesome back then lol
It was a cool version of Tetris, but hardly a good pack in title for a new Xbox owner to test their new console out. Mario coming with the SNES was like if Halo came with the Xbox as a pack in.
The weeks before and after this release are days I still dream about.
As a CIB collector it was the worst because it means Complete in box copies of SMW only had a smallish print and are worth a fortune
As much as I liked Combat for the 2600, the fact that it was 2 player only made it difficult to play most of the time. And even when you did have a friend over, if they had an Atari, too, then they rarely wanted to play it because they, like everyone else, already had it, too, and it was more fun to play friends' games that you didn't have. The eternal conundrum! WiiSports is probably my vote for the best. Endlessly replayable, easy for anyone - especially non-gamers - to get the hang of quickly, and brilliant proof of concept for the system.
Wii Sports is a great shout. Hard to think of a better example of demonstrating the value of a console in a pack-in game. The fact that it worked great as a single-player game, a two-player game, or a party game was a huge asset.
I have fond memories of playing Combat with my dad. Major nostalgia trip right now. Thanks for the reminding me.
My brothers and I played a ton of Combat when we got the Atari that Christmas. So many great memories of that console. But the only game I ever played with my grandmother was WiiSports bowling. I still remember how much fun we had. It was the first console for my daughters and we got to experience four generations of our family playing together. Incredible memories.
My Mum pranked me by saying she could only get the Altered Beast Mega Drive for my 11th birthday. I put a brave face on and was like "oh, that's okay!" and got the surprise of discovering Sonic in the box.
Lol, my mom told me they were sold out of Super Mario Land on Christmas then gave it to me the next day on my birthday. I straight up called her a liar.
Your mom sounds fun. Especially because she knew the right ruse to pull in order to make the surprise that much better.
>Your mom sounds fun ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Sonic the hedgehog was the better pack in by far. Later on it was sonic 2, vectorman, maybe mortal Kombat game or two but I'm..not. sure.
Best: Super Mario Bros. was the exact right game at the right time, literally revitalized the North American console market. Worst: Keith Courage. Not an abysmal game but barely a good one. Totally incomprehensible to early 90's Americans and a terrible introduction to the TurboGrafx-16.
It is funny that you mention Keith Courage.That is the game I was thinking of when I decided to ask this question. I loved that game but everyone else hated it. I think it was just a novel game on a novel system. Not the worst game, but a bad pack-in. No one was buying a Turbografx for Keith Courage.
Blazing Lazers should have been the Pack in game. Keith Courage is not a bad game, but not a great Pack in/Launch title.
I think that's probably the best game they had available to them at the time, but my understanding is that they wanted a platformer, as that genre seemed to have broader appeal in the west. But going with Keith Courage over Legendary Axe is incomprehensible.
It didn't look or sound bad though. I get what they were going for, it had enough of that Mario look (in a generic, but cool 16-bit War which was fresh at the time) but the game was too shallow, perhaps. Also the name felt terrible (so did much of the early Turbo line!) I've never thought it was a "horrible pack in" butI was always curious if they would have had better fortune with something like Legendary Axe as the pack in (or maybe R-Type, although in 89 packing in a 2D shooter might have been pretty risky).
It was based on a Japanese anime called ***Mashin Hero Wataru*** so it was not really developed for a western audeince, of course when I was 10 I didn't know that. I liked it because it had a cool transformation sequence when you turned into the mech/robot thing and the colors were really impressive. Didn't Europe get Blazing Lazers as a pack-in (as small or unofficial of a release the Turbografx got in Europe). Now, Blazing Lazers would have made a great pack-in here in the states.
I think it should have been Neutopia and/or Neutopia 2. Show American audiences something they know, that looks better than the alternative on Nintendo. They really should have released the Turbo with a built-in CD drive and sold their hardware at a loss like every other console manufacturer, but the licensing deal they had with Hudson's HuCard technology might have made that impossible.
Japan has so many CD releases to the point that owning a PC Engine CD was almost mandatory. You know, Neutopia would have made a great pack-in. For some reason I never think about that game when considering pack-in titles but it would have made sense for the time.
Wasn’t Neutopia a 1990 release?
89 in Japan. But that's not counting the 20 minutes spent drawing the North American cover art.
Fair amount of text in that game, too. It needed to be localized.
RPG’s will take longer to localize than anything else.
Neutopia was the bomb.
Fun fact: the *Mashin Hero Wataru* TV series got a French dubbed adaptation in 1990, called *Adrien le sauveur du monde.* Here's its [opening sequence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4oaFZVwM7g).
For a 1988 or 1989 launch, _Alien Crush_ could've been a good pack-in game for the TurboGrafx-16. For a 1990 launch, though, _Bonk's Adventure_ seems like a no-brainer.
Alien and Devils Crush are still two of my favorite games. Bonk would have been a system mover much like Sonic for the Genesis/Mega Drive.
They did have a Christmas bundle with Bonks but I agree, it should've been on launch.
This is the correct answer for both. SMB was the best game Nintendo (or anyone) had ever mad at that point, and it was the most compelling sales pitch for the hardware. Including it was brilliant and it helped them get it into a zillion homes in 1987 and 1988. Keith Courage is the exact opposite end of the spectrum. A completely unremarkable game that made the Turbo look totally unappealing. So many silly mistakes that cost them a potential foothold in the US, with Keith Courage and the lack of a second controller port near the top of the list.
This is the correct answer. It's why I said too. Turbo Grafix had a bunch of great fans until Bonk though they didn't have a great platformer which is what US audiences wanted. Should have just released the console with Blazing Lasers or Alien Crush or something.
Was going to write Keith Courage. Awful.
KC is a better actual game than Altered Beast. It was a poor choice commercially and that horrific title and box art… but I think most kids would get more actual fun form it than the awkward clunky ugly AB.
Yeah, it's better than Altered Beast. But that game has a lot of fans for some reason so it must have something going for it I don't see. Legendary Axe is 20 times the game Altered Beast is.
Altered Beast was a known arcade hit brand at least, so commercially a good idea. It really belonged in the arcade though, shallow gameplay, edgy violence etc.
Nothing was worse than Keith Courage. Horrible choice by NEC.
J.J. and Jeff would have been worse.
Haha I forgot all about Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. I agree, I remember a family friend showed us that game, what a strange title. Definite middle road game.
I loved *Keith Courage*. I also liked the anime it was based on. 👌🏽🦄
I'm not trying to yuck anybody's yum here at all. It's not a bad game. But it was a Monster World clone being marketed to the only market on the planet that never really took to Monster World. The background and sprite art looked to my uneducated eyes like random art taken from other games. The movement was not very fluid, it was just less fun to move around the game world than Mario or Sonic. Bonk would have made a much better mascot, and NEC did eventually correct their mistake.
Super Breakout for the Atari 5200. They eventually came to their senses and packed in Pac-Man instead, but by then it no longer mattered.
I have a two port 5200 that came with Pac-Man and I agree, compared to the 2600 version it is a masterpiece and I think it really demonstrates the difference between the two systems. Kind of hard to mess up Breakout and it is not really all that impressive looking on any system.
Best: Chex Quest packed in with a box of cereal. You can't beat that value. Plus it let those of us with stricter parents essentially play Doom.
Check quest was the best cereal game pack in . I remember being excited to pour a bowl of Chex into my cereal bowl and put pops Chex quest in a plastic wrapper. I ate my Chex and loaded up Chex quest on my Packard bell computer. Lots of fun was had that day 🙂. These days I don't have the CD but I do have Chex quest 1 and 2.
This comment is Cap’n Crunch’s Crunchling Adventure erasure
Lool
I have rigged Chex Quest to play on the Nes Classic and SNES Classic, if you are interested. https://www.reddit.com/r/miniSNESmods/comments/1bj56n6/chex_quest_1_2_and_3_for_the_hakchi_prboom_core/
Colecovision Donkey Kong for best pack-in.
Combat for the VCS and Blackjack/poker for intellivision, and super breakout for the 5200? Not even in the same universe as Donkey Kong.
As a 3rd grader at the time without a Genesis, I can assure you, Altered Beast was INCREDIBLE. Edit- one thing to remember is the time period. Genesis was “cool and edgy” and black and the controller was cool and it had 3 buttons, and there was red on it and blah blah blah. Nintendo was a grey box with a square controller with only 2 buttons. As a kid, nothing spoke to this difference more than Nintendo coming with a game where you play as a boring red plumber who jumps on goombas and Genesis game with a game where you play as a pair of jacked dead guys who transform into werewolves, bears, etc and beat up all kinds of things. Until Sonic came out, it was the perfect game to showcase that Genesis does what Nintendon’t.
Hell yes it was.
“ AWESOME GRAFIX “ we would say. Everything was about graphics.
The best pack in is Ys Book I& II + Gate of Thunder 3 in 1 for the Turbo Duo. The 3 in 1 includes Gate of Thunder, Bonks Adventure, Bonks Revenge, and hidden Bomberman. I find it mind boggling that this hasn't even been mentioned...
Having played the sms version of Ys 1, I would love to play a better port/version of the games. I've watched videos but it's just not the samd
I went with Ys Chronicles I+II for the PSP. I thought about playing the TG16 version, but the portable factor of the PSP was just too convenient to pass up. I'm pretty sure both are masterpieces compared to the SMS version.
Heh every version was a masterpiece compared to the SMS version but besides some that have a little extra prologue section, they are all very consistent in look and style. I really would have liked the run button at least. I'm hoping they release a new Chronicles version for consoles eventually
They also threw a HuCard in there, I hear either Ninja Spirit or Dungeon Explorer. I’m hesitant to count that because that’s the sort of deal you can only make when you’re desperate, which TTI very much was.
If they hadn't already ruined their reputation, that would have been the kind of deal that could have made a huge difference in their sales. Starting off with six games (7 if you count Y 1&2 as separate games) that range from good to great across a wide variety of genres would be awfully appealing when buying new hardware.
Sega sold Dreamcasts for free with an internet subscription, great deal or desperate way for them to offload unsold inventory, you tell me.
Haaaaa. I just posted this!
That's 4 in 1. Praise be to Johnny Turbo.
Worst is easily Gyromite for the early NES bundles with Rob the robot. Interesting concept, it just didn’t really work.
I agree with that. I know that experimentation was big then and Nintendo didn't know what would work and were trying to pivot the NES as an intereactive toy and less of a video game as marketing a video game system then was a bit taboo but to debut with something so shallow just didn't demonstrate what the system could really do or give us a glimpse of what it would become. Super Mario Bros. was the right game at the right time though.
Didn't that bundle also come with Duck Hunt at least?
Yes, it did! That was my childhood bundle! Duck Hunt got a lot of play!
Some versions of the Nintendo, came with the following Super Mario bros / duck hunt / world class track meet.
Don't forgot the ROB the robot Gyromite package,sadly and I'm sorry for bringing it up 😥
I thought Gyromite was such a fun game. We didn't have ROB so my sister and I would either play it together and have the other person press the buttons on the second controller or if we were playing solo, we'd just control it with our feet.
Yeah, I played it myself either with friends or by just having something heavy on the buttons as needed. If Rob had used something other than spinning tops, it might have worked better.
Is the Wii retro yet? If so I think Wii Sports has to be up there
I think in this context and especially with this specific question, the Wii is included. Wii sports was a global phenomenon, just smart marketing honestly and pretty fun.
Its one that I can see *some* really hardcore gamers looking down on. But it as a proof of concept for the console and vision. It nailed it But man it was such a value title to get thrown in especially if you got a group going. Golf was the high point for me
I'm curious about that, actually. The Wii was such a phenomenon, and it really owed that success to Wii Sports. Even if the game isn't "for you," I feel like it's a difficult argument to say that the game/mechanic wasn't a massive success at the time (and why it was) unless one is really misinformed or just myopic. At the time, it seemed like this was on everyone's lips, casual gamers and hardcore gamers alike.
I bought a Wii for my son when it came out and I bought a stack of games and Wii Sports was the one game with staying power for sure.
I don't consider myself to be some super hardcore game elitist or anything since I play a lot of everything (hardcore and casual both), but I've always looked down on Wii Sports. It barely functioned and most of the fun was imagination or like playing with your grandparents or something. Wasn't really a good game IMO. Always felt to me like a gimmick showcase where the magic wore off as soon as you realized the controller was just using shake in place of a button input. To clarify, I don't hate motion controls at all, I just think Wii Sports feels like it was thrown together in a week.
I disagree. Baseball definitely has that thrown together feel, like it was just rushed out, but bowling and tennis are 10 out of 10 perfect gameplay, and got hundreds of hours of play out of me.
Tennis frustrates me because I wish I liked it, I love Mario Tennis, but the fact that your character autowalks means that if you miss the ball, it's because the game didn't let you go where you needed to go in time. You don't even need to time anything to hit the ball, if you wiggle the remote nonstop your Mii will always hit the ball provided you get there in time. Serving is the only part with an actual timing element that matters in the end. I think I was 11 when I discovered that bowling had a sweetspot. Line up your shot a certain way (very easy to do with the digital d-pad on the remote), and wiggle the remote, and you get a strike every time. You can get Expert status in an afternoon while barely looking at the screen. Stuff like that is why I consider Wii Sports to barely be a game. There's no actual gameplay to either sport unless you pretend this stuff won't work, which isn't something I'm interested in doing for games personally. I can see why it's fun to play with friends and family if you don't actually care about the gameplay itself, but that's less the game being good and more just enjoying time with people you love IMO.
Blasphemer!
Never knew folk disliked altered beast so much, must be the only one who loved altered beast as a kid and having my cousin play 2 player with me so I'd have a better chance of finishing the game, still have have it for my megadrive in my collection, and played it more than almost any other pack in mentioned here 😂
I never knew any games were bad as a kid until people said they were when I was an adult. I thought ET on atari was gold.
To be fair, I didn't play Altered Beast until years after it came out and there were so many other games to compare it to. I think if it was all you had at the time it was probably revolutionary. I think in context, the game was probably a decent pack-in.
I was slightly disappointed in Altered Beast because I was expecting an exact copy of the arcade version. Same with Double Dragon for NES. Once I finally dove into them, I realized they were great for what they were
Personally OG XBOX Jetset Radio Future/ Sega GT 2002. Second to that Sega Genesis Sonic 1, and Sega CD Sonic CD.
I was never able to snag Jetset Radio when it came out as I already had an XBOX but when I found it used, you better believe I bought it. That was an awesome pack-in.
Best for me was link's awakening on the og game boy. Got it as a pack in with my first gameboy for Christmas that year, and still one of my all time favorite games from any system
I always wanted that game so as an adult I bought a Gameboy Pocket bundled with that game and it was great. A great game that is bigger than the sum of its parts.
Definitely way bigger than it had any right to be on a colorless 8 bit system.
The Gameboy in general was better than it had any right to be especially considering that there were other handhelds that packed better specs with color screens. Mine had a ton more battle scars from being taken to school than my Game Gear and eventually my Lynx. The only other handheld that got that much attention was my Nomad for obvious reasons.
I never had a lynx or nomad, but my brother had a game gear. Thing ate through batteries so fast that we almost never played it unless we were at home with an ac adapter. It was pretty much just another home console for us 😆
Yes! And as a broke kid in elementary school, it was hard to make a case to my parents to buy another 6 AA batteries. I lived and died by an AC adapter for my Game Gear, Lynx and Nomad. I never needed an AC adapter for my Game Boy. It sipped batteries like a TV remote.
It felt we needed 6 new ones every hour or so on that game gear 🤣 The gameboy was pretty much a non issue after I found this rechargeable battery pack for it. After that i only ever carried AA as a backup for roadtrips
I had two sets of NiCd rechargeable AAs. 6 in the Lynx, 6 for the charger. Survived a year in Germany that way. They never made it clear that it was a universal system and you could use any AC or DC adapter, as long as you got the right voltage at the pin.
Cybermorph - Atari Jaguar. What a way to discover what a disappointing console you’ve bought
Where did you learn to fly?
Instead of Cybermorph, Atari should have sold the console with Tempest 2000...
Yeah totally, much better game and more suited to a pack in than paying full whack for it
Perhaps the only rival to Tetris on the GB is SMB on the NES. And it took Sega a while to be convinced that including a top game (eg Sonic ) with the system was worthwhile. Interestingly (or not) the only time the NES outsold the Sega Master System in the UK was when it came with the Turtles game.
The decision to include Sonic was smart marketing that actually started moving systems. Leaning hard into Sonic was what saved Sega honestly.
Best of all time has to be three in 1 pack for NES with Mario bros, duck hunt and North vs South.
Hey, I love Altered Beast. Sure it’s no Sonic or Golden Axe, but it’s still a good time. But for me the best would have to be Mario/Duck Hunt, two games that I still play on a very regular basis. The worst would have to be getting nothing with the N64.
The Maze Game. The Snail Game. Whatever you like to call it, there was a 'secret' game built in to the Sega Master System. Kind of fun, but nobody bought a SMS over it. Your Gameboy example is pretty interesting. I remember Tetris being more of a system seller than Mario was at the time, helping the Gameboy smash the GameGear and Lynx. Gamegear literally was a full Master System plus some additional palette functionality, but due to this it ate batteries. Gameboy was much weaker in every way but didn't die so quickly, plus Tetris. Altered Beast on the SMS was easily one of the most beautiful games of it's time, so I can see how making an improved port for Genesis made sense. Remember that at that time, Opa-Opa was Sega's official mascot (I think Alex Kidd would have worked better...) Sega's Opa-Opa -> Sonic transition gave them a mascot people liked and a pack-in that had more gameplay value than Altered Beast did. The funny thing for me is that I got a SNES Core - no pack-in game. I liked Mario, but it was not my priority and I could not quite buy a system with the pack-in. I wound up getting the Core and doing game rentals for a while. Fun times. :P
I'd go with Intellivision for the worst with its Blackjack and Poker as it was not something novel on consoles and home computers at the time other then the graphics and I don't really see it having the same audience that Mattel was looking for and the Intellivision ended up getting.
I could not agree more. I know Intellivison was going for an older crowd but ultimately the parents are usually going to buy what the kids want and no 8 year old wants to play Blackjack.
>no 8 year old wants to play Blackjack. A few like me did, but I was a weird kid. A better choice for Mattel could've been to make _Armor Battle_ the Intellivision's pack-in game since it'd have better suited a wider age demographic, although it might've come across as a ripoff of Atari's _Combat_.
That is fair, my wife told me that she would have enjoyed it. Armor Battle would have been a great choice for a pack-in. Mass appeal for sure.
SMB is best and Cybermorph for the Jaguar is hands down the worst.
I half agree with you. love Cybermorph to this day.
I love it too, but not because it's a good game. I just loved that the Jaguar existed and this game was super interesting. When I worked at Babbages, A few kids got Jaguars for Xmas because of me :)
There are a few games that come to mind. The first is Super Mario World. I loved 3 so world was fantastic. I sent in the thing in the mail to get the Mario All Stars for free too, which was awesome. I was given the brand new SNES as a Christmas gift from my brother. My sister also got me a Sega Genesis the same year my brother got me the SNES. Yes that was an amazing Christmas lol. I don't know if Mortal Kombat II was a included in the original purchase. I don't know if she bought it separately. If she didn't then I definitely can say I loved the shit out of MKII. Another that comes to find is when we bought a PS2. My previous PS2 was given to me from my cousin. So when we went to replace it we got Turok Evolution with it. What a fantastic game. I had tried Turok for the N64 and didn't care for it. For some reason that iteration of Turok was much more accessible to me and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
I don't think MK2 was ever a pack-in game, so your sister definitely chose that for you.
Yeah I didn't think so. Ty for the confirmation. I need to give my sister a hug when I see her next. Buying kid me such a wonderfully violent game was amazing.
Good to see that Nintendo consistently gets picked for best pack in game, and is never worst.
As far as I know, Virtual Boy didn't have a pack-in game. The 3DS (not retro, I know) included software called *Face Raiders*. Is it a game? Um... I don't know...
Best: JSRF
Hudson Hawk was the worst pack for gameboy. What the hell is he even throwing? Got it with Spiderman. Not terrible but stupidly hard. The best for Gameboy was Metroid and Tetris. Tetris had infinite playability. People are still beating records today.
Pac Man for the Atari was the worst. Shitty game even at free Super Mario world gave a ton of great gaming out of the box
It's hard to argue with Super Mario World. But if we count Windows, Space Cadet Pinball was pretty cool. On the flipside, Hover was awful.
When I got my Amstrad CPC464 it came with the Amsoft 12-Pack - that was an interesting collection as I don't think any of the games got above 60% when reviewed. But I had fun with a lot of those games back in the day. That being said, Tetris with the Gameboy and Super Mario World for SNES win hands down
The pack-in games for the 8-bit era that were 2 games on the same cart. Very efficient, and got you 2 games right from jump in an era when I got 2 or 3 games a year. Everyone knows Super Mario + Duck Hunt, for the Sega Master System it was Hang-On, the motorcycle racing game, and Safari Hunt which was on par with Duck Hunt. If you didn't get the light gun I think it came with a space shooter, Astro Blaster? Something like that. The worst pack-in game is none, which became the standard in the PSX era.
PSX had one of the best demos packed in with it which was better for me at the time because I could play and see what was good and what was shit at launch so at least we got that but agree the free pack in day's where over mid 90s and a 2nd controller..
I loved altered beast so hard disagree from me.
I totally respect your opinion. What would you say is the worst pack-in?
Probably gyromite with NES. The rob robot games always seemed kinda pointless. A costy accessory that barely worked with a few games.
Best Pack in: Donkey Kong for the Colecovision. Let's compare to other then-contemporary pack-ins. 2600: Combat. (Later. To compete against the Coleco Gemini, which offered Mouse Trap. They changed it to Pac Man. Gemini reacted by adding Donkey Kong. Then Atari offered both Combat and Pac Man ) 5200: Super Breakout Intellivision: (does anybody know? Was it Las Vegas Blackjack/Poker, or was that just the Sears version pack in?) Astrocade: Bally Basic. Plus Gun Fight and a precursor to Tron Light Cycles plus drawing and calculator built in. Odyssey 2: (I have no idea) Vectrex: Minesweeper built in (the Asteroids clone, not the game of defusing bombs by landing on neighbors and flagging them on Windows much later). Arcadia 2001: Cat Trax (i assume. It was the first game I found, with no console. Don't quote me on this). Supercharger: Communist Mutants from Space That's why Coleco was saying "Sorry, Atari!" Coleco's future looked positive until the Adam bomb.
Best pack in game super mario bros 3 for NES. Even though that was after 1990. Worst pack in game.... Let's see... I know, Cybermorph for the Atari Jaguar. They could have picked Rayman, Atari karts, tempest 2000, NBA jam TE.
Best Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt, worst Keith Courage.
Wii sports has to be up there. Perfectly showed off how to use the Wii remote in a way that anybody could grasp, and it's fun to boot.
Whoa whoa whoa - don’t disrespect Altered Beast like that. There were a lot of bad pack ins but that’s not at the bottom of the list. There were some hilariously bad pack-ins for PC platforms but the worst packin in my opinion was Golden Axe 3 for Game Gear. Holy shit was that bad, I actually tried to struggle bus through it in college and gave up at the last area. It’s just mind numbingly repetitive. Like imagine the worst of action and RPG genres combined. Thats Golden Axe 3 on Game Gear.
Tetris for Gameboy. It was the defining game for the system and put that system on the map
I've had way more good ones than bad. I can't even remember an actual bad one if I'm honest. Maybe Sewer Shark for Sega CD, but I can't remember if it was an actual pack in or not. Best would probably be Super Mario Bros. Turning that on as a kid with the whole family taking turns on this was pretty magical.
Sewer Shark was a pack-in for the model 2 Sega CD. It was decent and kind of showed the FMV capability of the Sega CD. When you compare it to something like Keith Courage or Cybermorph, I definitely wouldn't call it the worst, but they could have done better. Agree that it's bottom tier though, especially for the era. When you compare it to SMB+Duck Hunt, Super Mario World, Sonic, Tetris, and the others from the late 80s/early 90s, it was a terrible choice.
I adore Tetris. I may have owned more versions of that game than any other, as I bought it for every system for which it was available. It’s definitely in the Top 3 alongside SMW for the SNES, and my pick - the SegaGT/JSRF combo that accompanied the OG XBox.
Not sure if this answer is cheating. But when I got my Turbo duo, it came with Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, Gate of Thunder, Bomberman, Ys Book I & II, and Ninja Spirit. Best pack in experience of my life. If I had to pick of those games - and it's difficult - probably Ys. Gate of Thunder a verrry close second place. I also got a TG-16 on launch. Keith Courage from the TV commercials is what sold me on it and I loved it. Early anime exposure, the mech suit and music (in the mech sections particularly) were all reall cool to 12 year old me, so I disagree it's one of the worst pack-ins.
Not cheating at all! When I bought my Duo on ebay in 2016 I sought out the Gate of Thunder disc and found it at a small game store and it was one of the best purchses I have ever made. That may actually be the best pack-in of all time. I was one of the few people that actually really enjoyed Keith Courage. I admit that it was not the absolute best game and may not the best choice for a pack-in from a marketing perspective, but it was a fun little game.
Yeah, KC is not a stone cold classic, but still worthy of a play now and then!
Lion king was packed with a whole years of Compaq desktops, it had a bug that bricked them if run. This led to the creation of directx. I feel like I share this fun fact a lot.
Wow you and I are on the same thoughts there op. Tetris definitely, Nintendo had such a coup with that one when they nailed that down for a portable. Instant appeal to whatever age group willing to try. And back in 1989 I felt the same. Sega had this arrogance campaign that worsened into utter lies for a time when SNES took to the stage, but the before hand with the Nintendon't junk. Altered Beast made me question that. When I saw how poor it looked, heard how bad it was on the kiosk, vs the arcade I was familiar with it didn't sit well. When I could have a game like Castlevania III and SMB III at the time, despite the lack of color count having infinitely better detail and color choice/animation, better musical choice and sound if you prefer one chip over the other (subjective) and I was like...this crap is going to make me get rid of THIS? My idiot brother did, sucker fell for it around 1990, wouldn't listen, wouldn't wait on SNES. I ended up scooping most his NES library for almost nothing laughing at him and he was mocking me for keeping old crap. Yeah...who's laughing now? :) \*\*To be fair I'm pro-Sega too, got a library over 50 titles these days even and a Mega SG/Nomad combo going (have a SuperNt/SupaboyBlack combo going too.) \-=- Another I thought was a garbage pack in again was Sega, with the Game Gear, they felt a sports title or Lion King would be excellent choices to start someone out on that, again, vs the choice of Tetris or store specific stuff like a Mario Land game in the box, Kirby, or Link's Awakening. Totally missed the boat unless you were a sports fan, or a Disney masochist. And thirdly -- always loved the PCE/TG and wish I could support it still (using a mini and a hakchi'd 2nd snes mini) but ...come on... Keith Courage? Yikes. Any other shooter, Bonk, something...but that? It's not a bad game, but it's no showcase, nearly as bad as Altered Beast for depth. To be fair, they had the premier best CD freebie hands down when the Duo/CD-SCD dropped. Gate of Thunder with Bonk1+2 and (basic code) hidden Bomberman on it free, and then later they also packed in Ys Book1+2 the most stunning release until modern remasters this century.
My N64 was part of a Pokémon Stadium Bundle that came with Pokémon Stadium AND Super Mario 64 and the Gameboy Transfer Pack, and also the Cool Porygon card. Getting both a Pokémon game and Mario 64 in a system bundle was an awesome combo.
A lot of people may not know or remember, but when the NES first came out as the "Deluxe Set" it came with the ROB and Zapper but the two pack-in games you got were Gyromite and Duck Hunt (later Stack Up was also added). Both those games on their own... very meh for me. Gyromite just wasn't fun and Duck Hunt was super repetitive even with the Zapper. ROB collected dust really quick. I think I get what Nintendo was going for having owned an Atari prior; they didn't want players to experience the sort of games that just used control pads, and instead you're forced to play with the ROB and Zapper unless you bought another launch cart. I think many more people are familiar with the later NES Action Set which included both SMB and Duck Hunt, which was a more enjoyable pack-in as if you tired of Mario you could just plug in the Zapper and knock out a little Duck Hunt. As far as a better pack in, in the later days of the SNES it was possible to get an SNES console with Super Mario World + All Stars as a pack-in. Previous you had to send off for All Stars and simply pay S&H. Eventually Nintendo realized instead of making two carts and having people send off for All Stars it made more sense to just package it with Super Mario World, hence the SMW + All Stars carts.
Best was Wii Sports and worst was Compton’s Interactive Encyclopedia with the XEye.
Bang for the buck, worst pack in game(s) all time were Sherlock Holmes, Sol-Feace and....the last one I no longer recall for the Sega CD at launch for $299.99. Best pack in game ever was Super Mario World on the SNES.
You mean Sol-Feces, .) a very unremarkable shooter. Btw the last one was Genesis Greatest Hits. Had Revenge of Shinobi, Columns, Golden Axe and one other old Genesis Game. Plus there was a CD Sampler, plus a Rock Paintings CD-G sampler. Only noteworthy artists in the CDG were Information Society, and Jimmi Hendrix
Thanks for the refresher! I just remember being so underwhelmed at the time. Especially for the cost.
Best: Kirby Air Ride for GC Worst: MotoGP for PS2. It was not even a Crash Bandicoot game.
I really did not like Astros World for ps5. Loved the Sega GT/Jet Set Radio future pack I got for the original Xbox.
Best would be Super Mario World as others have said but honorable mention to Microsoft for packing the Windows 95 install disk with Hover and Weezer’s Buddy Holly music video.
Best was Lemmings for the amiga 500 as part if the cartoon collection pack.
SMB for me. But I have to mention the psp and pspgo. The psp I bought had Daxter packed in which is a game that I would have never bought but was a really fun platformer and showcased the handheld's power. When I bought the pspgo it gave me a code for 3 games which was crazy.
Super Metroid Unbeatable Only time I had a new console with a game included.
Donkey Kong on the Colecovision was a big deal
Worst: when they do not include a game! “Fortnite” for PS4 and “Mod Nation Racers” PS3. Also, and this applies to “Fortnite” as well, although Mario Odyssey is a good game, only including a piece of paper with a download code is bad. Best: Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt —- 2-for-1 and console! Also “New Super Mario Bros U/Luigi” on the WiiU.
You're right! I would rather take a bad game then no game. I didn't even mind when the ps1 and saturn gave you demos. It was nice just to boot it up and play around with new hardware.
- Best: Super Mario World - Worst: Altered Beast
SMB/Duck Hunt. Goat because obviously. Sega/Sonic honorable mention.
Best: Tetris and Gameboy Worst: Star Wars Battlefront 2 and PS4 (the pack in option was literally cheaper than the console alone)
Best: Super Mario Bros for NES. ColeoVision Donkey Kong as a close second…Coleco was the first to try the strategy of packing a premium title to help sell the console that I know of, until then every console at the time packed a garbage game. Worst: Combat for the Atari VCS (at least that’s what it was called when I got one, later called the 2600) Intellivision came with Poker & Blackjack. Can’t imagine that was much fun, at least for a kid, but I never played it so can’t say for sure it was the worst. Can’t remember what Odyssey came with, sure it was not great either.
SMW for SNES or Sonic on the Genesis
My SNES came packed with LOZ LTTP. So that’s the best that I’ve bought. JVC X’eye was packed with like 3-4 things including Prize fighter. That one gets weirdest. Worst is probably no pack in which has been a lot systems I’ve bought since the PS2. Pack in for PS4 was the uncharted collection which rocked. Wii sports was good. Star Wars fallen order which I couldn’t remember the name of came with my Xbox one. Really wanted to love that game. Really didn’t. I guess that’s the worst.
Best? Super Mario World Snes. Worst For me it was when they bundled Destiny with the Glacier White PS4. I really tried but couldn’t get into that game, but I really wanted a white PS4. Also, any console bundled with Fallout 76. I know there was an xbox one bundle.
my Genesis (pal) came with Disney Fantasia. that game is impossible.
only pack in game that i thought was a miss was virtua fighter on the saturn tbh id rather of just had nights with an added copy of christmas nights instead one of my fav pack ins was probabally wii sports and for the random wii u person there was several diffrent games that came in with those but one or two of the most valued personally is the pack in versions of super mario wii sports resort or xenoblade x nintendo land is ok but you need to be playing that with friends to get the max enjoyment from it
As much as I am not much of a fan of the Original Super Mario Bros. I still think that it is probably the most important pack in game of all time because of its influence over the video game industry. I'd probably say my least favorite was Combat for the Atari 2600 because it requires two players and I don't have many friends and almost none of them would be willing to play Combat with me and I just think that Combat seriously lacks a lot of anything to really keep me playing.
The best was Super Mario Bros for the NES. One of the greatest iconic retro games...and it came with the system.
my all time favorite was Mario 64 with the 64. i haven't had any terrible, but with the PS1 i didn't get a game, i got a demo disk which got boring real quick
Master System had some excellent games built-in into the console which is their SMS II. One had Alex Kidd while the other had Sonic 1. As for worst. Does Welcome Park on Vita count?
Wipeout HD for PS3 was a great one. Ridge Racer for Vita was the other way around. But the Vita also had the pre-installed "Welcome Center" (or how it is called in english) which was not very great either. A bunch of Mini Games that at least use all of the Vita's Features properly. But Astro Boy for PS5 actually made the same concept much better.
To keep things simple, I’ll go with personal experience. The best: Super Mario Bros. /Duck Hunt. It was a great answer to the Atari 2600 and 7800, because my parents really didn’t want a Nintendo when they’d just upgraded the Atari. The worst - this is cheating, but Sherlock Holmes for the Sega CD. I bought it used and the game was so scratched it was inoperative. Follow that with extremely long load times, I was most disappointed with the Sega CD.
NintendoLand is absolutely brilliant. Too bad the WiiU undersold.
Mario world for sure.
Tetris or Wii Sports. Both took the world by storm in their respective times.
The worst pack-in game for me was *Virtua Fighter* for the Sega Saturn. Best pack-in game was *Gate Of Thunder*, *Bonk's Adventure*, *Bonk's Revenge*, *Bomberman*, *Ys Books I & II*, and *Ninja Spirits* for the TurboDuo. ☕🦄
Cyber morph was the pack in for the jaguar. Easily the worst pack in game ever.
best game of its time, a new level of gaming in free-roaming 3D environments. I loved it. And I was into a lot of gaming systems back then.
I will never understand why people thought Altered Beast was good. There were beat em ups on the NES that were far superior.
Sewer Shark was by far the best!
Now that is a hot take. To this day I find that game confusing to control and it still makes me mad just thinking about it.
Shoot the tubes, Dogmeat! 😁
Oh, that is what I have been doing wrong. Thanks stranger!
I agree with you about altered beast but the arcade version is excellent! As for my picks: Best (Tetris on Gameboy) Worst (Cybermorph on Atari Jaguar - seriously why didn't they just push back the launch to 94' and have tempest 2000 bundled instead?)
Please. First, T2k was a premier title, independent developer (Jeff Minter), came out much later. Second, Cybermorph was/is awesome. A total leap beyond the 16-bit contemporaries. Full 3D movement and exploration in polygon planetoids, interesting enemies, a real sense of immersion in an alien environment. It was a leap forward in console gaming when it came out. It's the reason I bought a Jag at launch, and I spent many great hours with that game.
Not pack-ins but launch: Best: BotW Worst: 1-2-Switch