Don't Buy This

Don't Buy This
Developer(s)	Various
Publisher(s)	Firebird
Platform(s)	ZX Spectrum
Release date(s)	1985
Genre(s)	Video game compilations
Mode(s)	Single player
Media/distribution	Cassette

Don't Buy This (also known as: Don't Buy This: Five of the Worst Games Ever) is a ZX Spectrum compilation. As described on the box, it contains five of the poorest games submitted to Firebird.

Instead of rejecting the submissions, they decided to mock the original developers by releasing them together and publicly brand it as "unoriginal" and "awful". Firebird even disowned all their copyright to the game and encouraged buyers to pirate it at will.

The compilation was sold for £2.50 ($3.88 USD).

Games

• Fido 1 A repetitive game where the player controls a dog named Fido to defeat gophers to protect an area for several levels.
• Fido 2: Puppy Power Basically the same game as "Fido," but Fido can now move up and down, instead of just left and right. Fido can also shoot laser beams from its eyes to destroy other enemies to gain health.
• Race Ace A racing game with ridiculously inferior graphics, where the player controls a light blue racecar that can turn in only 90 and 180 degree angles. The game is impossible to win, regardless of the speed setting of the player's car because the opponents advance more quickly every time the player turns. On one screen, the game is even erroneously called "Ace Racer."
• Fruit Machine The player plays a poorly animated, low resolution slot machine with reels that don't spin, but move rather slowly. The music is also a mediocre 8 bit medley of short tunes that play when the character wins.
• Weasel Willy A game where a very poorly designed "weasel" has to avoid entirely green trees and its own large, uniform footprints. The trees spawn in random locations whenever a level starts, so the "weasel" may be blocked by trees, preventing the player from even playing the level. The "weasel" may even start a level with a tree occupying the same space as it does, causing immediate loss of the level.

Reception

Your Spectrum wrote: "The games aren't that bad as do-it-yourself games but, they won't provide that much fun."^[1] Sinclair User said it contained "five of the most uninspired games ever to disgrace the Spectrum."^[2] In a 2011 retrospective on the compilation, television presenter and gaming journalist Larry Bundy Jr admitted he had to showcase the game as a retrospective rather than a review because: "you can’t exactly review or give the ol’ “angry reviewer” treatment to a game that openly admits that it’s supposed to be rubbish can you?" He ridiculed a wide variety of aspects of each game, from their low resolution graphics to their difficult or even impossible gameplay. ^[3]

See also

• Cassette 50 - Another compilation of poor titles for the ZX Spectrum, though unlike Don't buy this, it wasn't deliberately awful.
• List of video games notable for negative reception

References

1. ^ Your Spectrum 17 - Joystick Jury
2. ^ Sinclair User 40 - Spectrum Software Scene
3. ^ Games Yanks Can’t Wank – Don’t Buy This: Five of the Worst Games Ever

External links

• Video Retrospective/review of "Don't Buy This" by television presenter, "Guru Larry" Bundy Jr
• Don't Buy This at World of Spectrum