5

Omikron: The Nomad Soul -- Soul-Swapping Madness Starring David Bowie

Eidos Interactive

One of the better games to come out of the late '90s, Omikron: The Nomad Soul threw the whole "first-person vs. third-person" debate to the wind and hit us with Inception-style character development while Leo DiCaprio was still reeling from not getting an Oscar for Titanic. The main character is you, playing a gamer, playing a detective in a dystopian dimension who has to prevent a demonic army led by a supercomputer from taking over the world. There was probably also some cocaine involved.

Eidos Interactive
... or a lot.

4

Motorhead -- A Metal Fan's Wet Dream

Virgin Interactive Entertainment

3

Give My Regards To Broad Street ... Starring Paul McCartney

Mastertronic

As far as video games based on movies are concerned, the bar for "Eh, not bad" is low. As far as movies based on things The Beatles cared about are concerned, the bar isn't much higher. The overlap of that Venn Diagram is Give My Regards To Broad Street, a video game based on a 1984 musical film of the same. It that has a whopping 23 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The game itself is a Grand Theft Auto wannabe sandbox-style circle jerk about how great Paul McCartney's life must be. The problem here is that, unlike in the movie, there's a central conflict driving the plot forward. One of Paul's songs has been deleted, so he has to stalk his bandmates across London, recovering snippets of the song. That's it: Sir Paul driving through an empty English capital reminiscent of 28 Days Later, praying he doesn't get a parking boot, all while the main hook of "Band On The Run" resonates from the heavens for eternity. Why wasn't this the next Pac-Man?

Mastertronic

Mastertronic
The game doesn't tell you any of this, so the player is left to assume that McCartney is a crazed god presiding over a dead world.

2

Xplora1 -- Peter Gabriel's World Of Puzzles

MacPlay

As part of the band Genesis, Peter Gabriel was responsible for popularizing (among other things) 18-hour songs, the weird moments in those songs where the beat breaks down, and pretension as a musical genre. His venture into the video game world was no different.

MacPlay
As was his ill-fated venture into the passport industry.

Enter Xplora1, a game so incomprehensible that it reads like the dictionary of a dead language, and then smacks you upside the head with that very dictionary. Made as a companion to his 1992 album Us, Xplora1 is what happens when narcissism meets hedonism in a weird yoga class on the wrong side of Portland.

Alongside an encyclopedia of his life, as well as a tool that allows you to play his collection of exotic instruments, the main task of the game is to ... fill a suitcase with his stuff. You aren't told what stuff precisely, and in some parts of the game, you can't progress until the right stuff has been located and packed. But yeah, go get 'em, tiger. In hindsight, this doesn't read like a game so much as an experiment in how much bullshit gamers would put up before smashing their heads against a wall.

MacPlay
Don't forget the Phil Collins voodoo doll. Gabriel never does.

1

Holy Diver -- A Japanese Fantasy Game Starring Ozzy Osbourne And Ronnie James Dio

Irem

It's often said that the past is a foreign country. And you know what? It is. More precisely, it's Japan. If not, how else do you explain the Castlevania ripoff Holy Diver, a game starring Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, and a whole bunch of other guys whose names you only remember from the CDs in your badass uncle's truck?

Irem
And featuring enemies that were airbrushed on the side of said truck.

You play Randy Rhoads, who's on a quest to rid the kingdom of an ancient demon king called the Black Slayer before he can usurp the Crimson Emperor or the game writers could rip off any more band names. You're accompanied by Zack "This Guy" Wylde and later adopted by Ozzy Osbourne, proving that -- even with the help of magic -- Child Protective Services is as worthless as a candle in the wind.

If you didn't know you were playing as rock royalty, you'd assume that this was a standard old-ass Nintendo game ... which is to say that there is literally nothing else to do with rock music in this game. There's no music, no themed levels, not even a single drink anywhere. It's like the manufacturers were forced to make a rock game as part of their contract, and made the most incomprehensible piece of shit ever out of pure spite. Which itself is pretty rock 'n' roll, you guys.

Irem
It was nice of them to give Sharon a cameo, though.

When you think about it, this game also puts you in the really awkward position of having you fight demons and otherworldly nightmares under the banner of fucking Black Sabbath. This is a band who, if they ever ran across a demon, would be more inclined to high-five it and take it to a strip club than magic-murder it. That's not to say that we'd want a game where you blow up angels and shit, but ... seriously, guys.

Be sure to check out The 5 Most Absurd Video Games Starring Rock Stars and The 5 Most Baffling Celebrity Appearances In Video Games.

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