10 Video Game Spin-Offs That Insulted The Fans

Throughout the 90s, there was really only one important choice to make as a gamer. Were you Team Sonic or Team Mario? Video game mascots were at sales war and kids the world over picked their side.

When Sega stopped producing their own hardware, a partnership with Nintendo opened the door for the unthinkable: a crossover event. What exact shape that could take boggled the mind but, considering that both characters were instrumental in shaping the platforming genre, a team-up to save the world seemed like something that may finally happen.

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games was the big, fat “oh” of 2007. After years of hoping to see the pair either do battle or team up, having a title with the two heroes running down an Olympic race track on the cover felt cheap and hollow. Instead of marking such a massive event with a carefully curated crossover, we instead had a marketing tool for the Olympics.

Not only was the game not what fans wanted to see from a design perspective, it’s quality was “so-so” at best, nothing more than a collection of gimmicky minigames. It was always going to be surreal seeing the two together but having them face off against each other in table tennis and shotput was the wrong kind of weird.