10 Crazy Video Game Spin-Offs You Won't Believe Exist

6. Pokémon Channel

Pokemon Channel
Nintendo

Remember that old lie your parents used to tell you about staring at screens for too long - that it would make your eyes go funny? Well, kids back in 2003 must've been terrified that their peepers would blow up when playing Pokémon Channel, because the game has you staring at a TV screen... inside your real TV screen!

Ditching the action and strategy of the main Pokémon games, this spin-off has you serving as the test audience for the titular channel, a TV station that broadcasts a variety of Pokémon-centric shows, from anime to newscasts.

From here, all you have to do is... watch TV. That's it. Granted, there's some interactivity involved in certain shows - and you can also explore a few areas of the house - but it's hard to class this as a proper "game" as much as it is a really long quick-time event.

Stuff like watching a Psyduck read the news is fun for a short while, but it gets old fast, and it's honestly hard to believe that Nintendo had the nerve to make this a full-priced console game instead of a free add-on.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!