Cho Aniki which translates as "Super Big Brother" is bizarre video game from Japan.  The game gain cult status from its surreal graphics, wacky humour and homoerotic overtones. The game is essentially a side-scrolling shoot-em-up, where spend much of the game semi-naked, with other semi-naked muscle men, fighting more semi-naked and oiled-up muscle men. There are pyramids of semi-naked men, rocket powered dildos, and an end of level boss that fires a giant man shaped penis out of his robotic cod-piece. You really can't make this stuff up, and that's all just a brief explanation of the weirdness that is Cho Aniki, that actually spawned a whole series of sequels. 

The first game debuted in 1992 for the PC Engine system. The game's many sequels and spin-offs later appeared on the Super Famicom, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2.  

The game is an example of what the Japanese refer to as "kuso-ge", meaning "shit game". In fact it's classed as a sub-genre, known as "baka-ge", which translates as "idiot game".

Don't stop believing that they did actually make a rock band Journey video arcade game in 1983. Not only that, there was even a home video gaming version of it. Both were failures (the home version bombed big time, and the arcade version less so), but hey, that's now why they are being blogged about on Weird Retro. 

The game was produced by Bally Midway,  following the success of the bands albums Escape (1981) and Frontiers (1983). The release of the arcade game was originally intended to run alongside the band's nationwide tour after the release of the Frontiers album. A big deal was made of the fact the game featured characters made of digitized photographs of the members of the band at the time of release: Steve Perry, Neal Schon, Steve Smith, Jonathan Cain and Ross Valory.

The object of the game was to reunite the band with their instruments, all the while listening the band's song  "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)". Which was played on a loop, via a cassette player hidden inside the arcade cabinet. Each instrument is located on a different planet, and the musician must first reach the instrument, then make it back to the band's ship without running into an obstacle. Many of these mini games were weak rip-off versions of popular arcade games of the period. Once all of the instruments have been collected, the band performs a concert (see right) while the player controls, a bouncer whose job is to prevent fans from rushing the stage. Eventually a fan gets past and the crowd steals the band's instruments. Play starts again on a harder level. The game continues until the player has lost all of his or her lives.

An utterly bemusing and confusing review of the Journey arcade game from its TV début in 1983.

Considered one of the worst ever carts produced for the NES, Action 52 (containing 52 games) was originally released at a storming $199 price tag in 1991. It quickly became absolute proof that more is not better. The unlicensed unlicensed video game compilation was developed by Active Enterprises for the NES, released on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive in 1993, and although advertised, never actually made it onto SNES.

The cartridge was famous for many of the games being heavily bugged, and some that didn't run at all. The company tried to turn the main game Cheetahmen into a franchise, by releasing  Cheetahmen 2 as a stand alone game. Unfortunately, that too has since made its way onto many a worst game ever list. Gaining a cult status, as it was never actually released. Although a few copies were leaked in 1996, make it a much sort after piece of vintage gaming history.

Death Race, was a controversial video arcade game, released by Exidy in the United States in 1976, inspired by the cult 1975 film Death race 2000. Approximately 500 units of the game were made, making it a rare find. Despite it's primitive blocky black and white graphics, the game was considered too violent. The game was originally entitled Pedestrian, as in the two player game, the goal is to mow down the "pedestrians". Which were renamed as "gremlins", to make the game sound less blood thirsty. Pedestrians or gremlins, they were only vaguely humanoid shaped at best. Once run down the "victims" turn into crude cross-shaped tombstones.

The criticism of the game reached the national media, being featured on video game violence in 60 Minutes and featured on NBC's Weekend news show.

The game also made the pages of the tabloid trash, the National Enquirer, and the National Safety Council denounced the game. 

Such controversy seems laughable today, by the standards of the hyper-realistic gore filled games of today. The game was part of Exidy's chase and crash style arcade games, following the popular Destruction Derby from 1975.

Death Race has gone down in retro gaming history, as the first video game to court controversy, and is considered as one of the most controversial video games of all time.

One of the most unusual and rarest games produced for the Atari 2600, in 1983, was Space invaders inspired Pepsi Invaders or otherwise known as Coke Wins! Coca-Cola commissioned Atari to create the game, which was essentially a direct redesign of the Space Invaders ROM. Instead of aliens coming down the screen, they had the word PEPSI. 

Only 125 cartridges were produced, which were packaged unlabelled in plain white disposable packaging, and handed out to delegates at a Coca-Cola convention in Atlanta, along with a Atari 2600 console. When original copies do come up for sale, they can fetch up to $2000 at auction.

The game is thought to be the rarest and most collectible games, in gaming history.

A video game created in 1982 by Starpath Corp. (formerly known as Arcadia) for the Atari 2600 home video game console and featuring the Starpath Supercharger cassette accessory (originally called the Arcadia Supercharger). In which the special cartridge had a cassette port, to allow for a whole extra 6KB of memory, giving a "supercharged" kick to those blocky Atari games. (Supercharger sold separately.) 

In the oddly titled Space Invaders shoot-'em-up inspired game you have to fight off communist aliens, wanting to convert your planet into mutant communists. They are lead by an egg laying, irradiated vodka swilling Mother Creature (a parody of Mother Russia it can be assumed), who is hell-bent of spreading the evils of communism across the galaxy. The game allowed for multi-players. Up to four people could join-in, with players sharing the two Atari joysticks. 

Wow! Look at those pumped-up graphics that the whole extra 6KB brought to the Atari 2600! Assuming that the blocks are a purposeful design choice, relating in some way to the Eastern Bloc! Or it could be that the massive 6KB expansion had no impact on the quality of games. And the fact that they attempted to incorporate a cassette based element to a cartridge based system wasn't an utterly ridiculous and backwards move on the part of the game-makers.

The infamously controversial platform game, that was so much a blatant rip-off of Super Mario Bros. that the original Commodore 64 cover art declared "The brothers are history". The Great Giana Sisters was a German computer game from 1987 developed by Time Warp Productions and published by Rainbow Arts. It's similarities to the famous Nintendo platformer were so great that urban myths developed around lawsuits being filed by Nintendo, against the makers of the copy-cat game. Originally released on the Commodore 64, it was ported across to the Amiga and Atari ST, as well as the Amstrad CPC and the MSX2. However a planned Sinclair Spectrum version never saw the light of day, supposedly due to legal pressures. Due to the controversy around the game, it has gained a cult status among retro gaming fans, and it rated as one of the best ever C64 games.

The game has two playable characters, the "sisters" Giana and Maria.  The game background and general style looks very similar to Super Mario Bros.  However in the game play, instead of collecting mushrooms from blocks, the sisters gather brightly-coloured balls from blocks.  After collecting the power balls, the characters do not grow large (like in Mario), but instead their hairstyle changes into Mohawks.  Allowing the characters to break blocks, a feature of both games.

In 1995 the avant-garde multimedia and music giant eyeball wearing art collective, The Residents brought out a computer game. Bad Day On The Midway is a surreal, dark carnival of a game and multimedia experience. The game was published by inScape, who also published the darkly surreal Edgar Allan Poe game The Dark Eye, also in 1995.

The puzzle based serial killer murder mystery looks like it was spewed from the mind of David Lynch. Lynch was actually on-board at one point to develop the game into a TV series, after Ron Howard bought the rights. You start the game as Timmy, who has skipped violin lessons to go to the Midway. But you soon are able to switch characters, seeing through their eyes, becoming them.

You start the game as Timmy, and young lad who has skipped his violin lesson to go to the Midway. As you play the game, you can switch characters, literally able to see through their eyes, become them. The dated CGI is still creepy, and the characters more so. As embedded in the CGI are real live-action eyes and mouths, just to up the nightmarish quality of the gaming experience. Things twist, turn and randomly happen, and death is almost inevitable, all played out to The Residents soundtrack. 

The reason I so love B.C.'s Quest For Tyres is that it was the first pirated computer game I ever got, after getting my Commodore 64.  And it was a simple yet brilliantly infuriating side-scrolling pixel perfect game. So typical of the era. Based on the Johnny Hart B.C. comic strip, the game was developed by Sydney Development and published by Sierra On-Line in 1983. It was released for the Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, ColecoVision, ZX Spectrum, MSX, and Apple II computers.

As the player you become the stone unicycle riding  caveman Thor, who has to rescue his girlfriend, "Cute Chick", who has been kidnapped by a dinosaur. To do this, you must travel on the stone unicycle through several levels. Each level has Thor moving from the left to the right, avoiding various pot-holes, rocks and other obstacles along the way.

At the end of the day, the game was very basic. But that it was based of a comic strip, and featured many of the characters from that comic strip, some how made the game more than it was. The simple graphics captured the cartoon, and it did in some way feel like you were playing an interactive comic strip, rather than just a simple basic side-scrolling jump and duck game. Hence why B.C.'s Quest For Tires remains a stand-out game.

In 1981 On-Line Systems released the very first commercially available pornographic computer game, Softporn. A fantasy text adventure game for adults, where the player had to seduce three women, while avoiding hazards, like being killed by a nightclub bouncer. With text commands as odd and creepy as BUY WHISKEY, WEAR CONDOM and SCREW HOOKER, the game was about as erotic as being slapped in the face with a wet fish.

They went full steam ahead marketing the game, with the now infamous hot tub advertising photo, which was taken in the Williamses' own backyard. The photo even featured employees of On-Line Systems, with Roberta herself appearing in it, on the far right. The hot tub ad first ran in the September 1981 issue of Softalk, an Apple II enthusiast magazine, and instantly became controversial, among early computer hobbyists and readers of the magazine.