Bionic Granny

"Here's a really special one for the Commodore 64 heads out there - the legendary Bionic Granny. The premise is an absolute classic: you play, for some reason, as a robotic grandmother and you hate children. You hate them so much, in fact, that you're waiting outside a school in order to zap them into oblivion, but you're thwarted in your quest by lollipop ladies who throw their signs at you. I suppose it's the sort of thing that could only have been made by some nameless teenager in their bedroom who probably got paid 20p by Mastertronic for their master work, but nowadays, it feels like something taken from the pages of Scarfolk, except it's actually fully real! And as incredible as the premise is, well, the game is just as unspeakably bad. It utterfly baffled people in 1984, and it still makes people wonder just what was in the water back then to this day. Was everyone so fatalistic, raised on a steady diet of Wimpy and Fritz to think that the thought of being vaporized by an octogenerian psychotic cyborg was a preferable escape from the indulgence of everyday life? Eh, that's for you to decide."

- Kim Justice

Bionic Granny is a 1984 action game published by Mastertronic exclusively for the Commodore 64.

Plot
Its nearly four O'clock and time for the kids to come home from school.

You'r (sic) a bionic granny and are waiting outside the school to hit the kids as leave.

Some will walk down the roads but others will try to evade you by keeping off the roads.

Don't let the lollipop lady throw lollipops at you.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) False advertising: the tape inlay claims you're playing as a schoolkid that has to run away from the titular Bionic Granny, while in the game, you actually play as her and have to beat up kids.
 * 2) The in-game instructions are full of spelling and grammatical errors.
 * 3) The game plays like a boring poorman's version of Space Invaders where you can't shoot, waiting for the kids to come near Bionic Granny and hitting them.
 * 4) The graphics are incredibly bleak, and the scenery doesn't change at all.
 * 5) The sound is just as bad, with terrible sound effects and constantly looping jolly-sounding music that will get on your nerves really fast.
 * 6) The premise of going around the school and beating up children seems incredibly mean-spirited. It's never explained why Bionic Granny is doing this or how she became bionic in the first place.
 * 7) *Furthermore, despite being called Bionic Granny, all she does is wave a stick around to beat up children, instead of using some kind of hi-tech weapon.
 * 8) While the kids and the lollipop lady can move wherever they please, Bionic Granny, for some unexplained reason, is stuck to the bottom of the screen and cannot move up or down, as she can only move left or right.
 * 9) The levels offer no variety other than the kids going slightly faster.
 * 10) Sometimes, the lollipops thrown by the lollipop lady are very hard to avoid.
 * 11) You'll see everything the game has to offer within 2 minutes of playing.

The Only Redeeming Quality

 * 1) The game got an enhanced remake by Richard Bayliss in 2010, titled Bionik Granny Returns, which fixed the original game's problems.

Reception
Bionic Granny was critically panned by many gamers, and is considered one of the worst Commodore 64 games ever made. Commodore User rated the game 6 out of 20 (roughly equating to 3 out of 10). The game also has a rating of 1.55 on Lemon64 and is ranked as #18 on Lemon64's Worst games list.

Videos
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Trivia

 * Some websites mention that there was an Amstrad CPC version of Bionic Granny, but the game never actually saw a release on that platform.