Mad Panic Coaster for PS1 is a death trap worth strapping yourself into
One of my methods of preliminary research for my kusoge column–my dumpster scouting, if you will–involves searching through old forum threads of people describing bad games they played. You kind of have to sift through the obvious mentions of Too Human and the philistines who say something like King’s Field, but sometimes I come across something I’ve never heard of, and I go into it largely sight-unseen.
A brief synopsis, the claim that it’s terrible, and bonus points if someone says “for some reason.” This can be, “The game is about X, for some reason.” Or, alternatively, “My friend and I couldn’t stop playing it, for some reason.”
Mad Panic Coaster was one of those games. Developed by a company not known for game development, released only in Japan, about a concept that hasn’t had its time in the spotlight. It’s perfect.
And it also happens to be my favorite kind of kusoge (crap game), the kind that I really get into.
Mad Panic Coaster was released in 1997, exclusively in Japan, by a company called Hakuhodo. Normally, Hakuhodo is an advertising company, but they seem to have very briefly dabbled with game publishing. Aside from Mad Panic Coaster, they did 1999’s Himiko-Den Renge. However, they just published that one. Mad Panic Coaster doesn’t have a development company listed, and most of the people involved aren’t really linked to any other company.
If it was developed in-house, it’s pretty strange subject matter to pick. Essentially, Mad Panic Coaster is a reverse of Roller Coaster Tycoon. Someone has designed a roller coaster for you to die on, and you’re probably going to. You should have waited until a safety rating was established before you got on the ride, but you didn’t.
The story told in the manual (with
Read more on destructoid.com
