Zero Comico

Zero Comico is an Italian adventure game co-developed by GMM Entertainment and Oogo S.r.l., and co-published by Medusa Games and Oogo S.r.l.. It is based on the stars of the Italian comedic trio of Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo. It was released exclusively on Microsoft Windows in 2001 in Italy. The game was rushed and developed under a very small budget, which accounts for the following problems.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) The story doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and feels more like a mishmash of random plot threads thrown at the wall to see what sticks:
 * 2) * It's never explained what the titular Zero Comico actually is or how is it supposed to bring the world population back to their normal lives.
 * 3) * The rise to power of the Planetary Federation is never even touched upon, and Federation itself is barely mentioned outside of the opening scene, which makes them feel tacked-on as the greater scope villain of the game.
 * 4) * We are never told what the five pieces of the Zero Comico actually are, or why are they situated in the game levels. In fact, they are never even shown on-screen.
 * 5) * The Zero Comico itself pulls the "Sealed Evil in a Can" trope, as it's literally hidden inside the system that controls the Federation (despite being implied to be the greatest threat to its power) and there is no explanation for this. It's not even built up as a twist of any sorts, as it's spoiled right at the beginning of the game.
 * 6) The five levels the game has to offer are all meant to be parodies of several video game genres, but more often than not, they end up falling flat. Not to mention, they are extremely tedious to complete, for one reason or the other. Due to the game being rushed, levels grow increasingly simplistic up until the end.
 * 7) * The first level is a parody of arcade games such as Arkanoid, Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Shortly into the level, we will meet Pac-Man, who is suffering from a bellyache due to eating too many pellets. What the player is needed to do is to find a bottle of whiskey and a tank of spaceship gasoline, mix them together, and offer them to Pac-Man, who will vomit a ball which will be used to play a game of Arkanoid and obtain a red book. After finding a locked door, we will need to retrieve an explorer's hat to enter a "forest", where we will need to give fruit juice to a crocodile in order to use him as a bridge to pass through a river, only to then meet a man who is cycling backgrounds for a game and is unhappy with his job. What he needs is the red book, which will turn out to be the Capital by Karl Marx, which will make him angry and cause him to leave behind a wrench, which will be used to repair a broken arcade cabinet and play a game of Space Invaders, the prize of which will be the first piece.
 * 8) * The second level references 1990s collect-a-thon and 3D platformers such as Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. The objective of this level is to collect 20 magic stars, which will be used to open a door in the clouds and fight a monster who is oppressing the land. What makes this otherwise easy task so annoying is the horrible navigation, as every passage you take is unidirectional and requires you to circle around the area to return where you were originally. Getting lost in this process is incredibly easy, and the more areas you unlock, the more the level will confuse you. Only 18 stars are out in the open, which will annoy you to no end, until you miraculously figure out that you need to find a warp pipe hidden in the level, which will take you to a sewer where you will meet Wario, who is arguing with Mario over who needs to repair the pipes in the sewer. After doing so, we will obtain the last two stars, which will allow us to fight the monster and obtain the second piece.
 * 9) * The third level is a parody of adventure games, mostly The Secret of Monkey Island. In this level, we will find ourselves stranded on the aptly-named Donkey Island, where LeChuck (in his Zombie form from the first game) will explain us that our goal is hidden in the "Forbidden City", which was overrun by zombies. To fend off the zombies, we will need a Voodoo doll (like in the first game in the series), which can be made from LeChuck's beard, which in turn will require us to defeat him in an Insult Swordfight. To learn all the insults required to win, we will need to head to the tavern and challenge the pirates there residing to Insult Swordfights, who will teach us all the insults. The problem here comes from the fact that the insults that they teach us are randomized each time we speak to them, meaning that when we will find ourselves against an insult we don't know, our only possible course of action is to return to the tavern and keep talking to the pirates until they teach us the one insult we need. While LeChuck's insults are randomized, too (meaning that with a bit of luck, he can be defeated even without knowing the complete set), after we defeat him, we need to challenge and defeat the guardian of the City, the Zen Warrior, who will require us the complete set, no questions asked. The only thing you can do at this point is hope that the pirates teach you all the correct insults, which can easily take hours. The actual Forbidden City segment is painfully short, as the only thing required is to kill the two zombies and collect the piece they guard.
 * 10) * The fourth level, a parody of sci-fi first-person shooters like Doom and Quake, is extremely annoying due to a glitch that can cause invisible walls to appear around us and prevent us from moving. Not to mention, several of the things we will do are extremely horrifying, like finding the frozen head of a woman, which will be hung on a pole and connected to a battery to make her scream loud enough to smash a glass. After doing so, we will find a gun which we will give to a soldier to send him against the aliens after making him angry by tricking him into believing his lover is cheating on him with an alien.
 * 11) * The fifth and final level is a parody of Tomb Raider. We will meet Lara Croft in the entrance to an Egyptian pyramid, where she is looking for a new shirt after a tiger stole hers. This is easily the easiest level of the bunch, as all we will need to do is to find a piece of paper and a plant of tobacco to make a cigar, which we will use to stun the tiger, disguise as an ostrich to get past the tiger, and find the shirt, which will turn out to be the final piece.
 * 12) As stated above, several glitches plague the levels, such as the aforementioned invisible walls in the fourth and fifth levels. The hit detection is also messed up, and may cause you to get stuck on pieces of the scenery or not triggering actions correctly.
 * 13) *In the second level, there is a hole where we need to insert a wooden plank. The hole is very small, and finding the correct spot to interact with it is one of the most tedious parts of the level.
 * 14) The game is full of stereotypes, especially Japanese. The most egregious example is a robot that can be found in the fourth level.
 * 15) Lots of items are misspelled.
 * 16) As you go through the game, it becomes abundantly clear that the script wasn't reviewed by Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo (the very figures the game is based on). Most dialogue is either them screaming plot threads, telling jokes that try way too hard to be funny and fall flat, with some of their skits thrown in the bunch (such as the red book scene in the first level or the ending scene). As a result, the writing comes off as outdated, unfunny and annoying.
 * 17) Most character models are just reskins of Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo, with minimum variation. Some characters outright reuse their models, like with Mario and Wario in the second level.
 * 18) Whenever you load the game, you need to sit through the opening cutscene, which can't be skipped (despite the manual stating that you can press Delete to skip any cutscene).
 * 19) The gameplay suffers from some crippling flaws: to use an item, you first need to highlight it in the menu (similarly to how you would select an icon on a computer) then use it. However, to use it, you first need to pick a target, which defies common sense when it comes to adventure games (where all you need to do is to select the item and use it on a target). Also, to move in the main menu, you need to press the left and right mouse buttons and press the Enter button to pick an option, a scheme that was outdated in 2001.
 * 20) The game uses fixed camera angles and tank controls à la Resident Evil (where you need to press the Down arrow to turn 180°, and the Left and Right arrows just turn you in place, leaving you to move with the Up arrow), which was already outdated in 2001.
 * 21) The ending is nonsensical, something even pointed out by the main characters, which still doesn't excuse it.