List of Recalled Video Games

Bubble Bobble Revolution

In November of 2006, Codemasters released Bubble Bobble Revolution for the Nintendo DS with one major problem: players could not go past level 30 in New Age mode. The company finally issued a recall for Bubble Bobble four months later, replacing defective cartridges if shipped in their pre-paid envelopes with an original receipt.

Radica's Stand Alone Baseball Video Game

Radica is a large manufacturer of stand alone video games. You know, the ones that plug directly into the TV via RCA plugs. Soon after they released their Play TV Baseball game in 2000, they recalled approximately 140,000 of them because the bat can separate during a players swing. The pieces can cause injury if they hit another player or someone near the gameplay. Radica actually received reports of players (all ages) with split lips, cuts and bruises because of the flying bat debris.

On the List of Recalled Video Games, An Arm-wrestling Game

North America isn't the only region that puts a title on the list of recalled video games. Distributor Atlus Company, based in Japan, recalled 150 Arm Spirit arcade arm-wrestling machines because three players broke their arms on the game's mechanical arm. A spokesman for the company was confused because, "The machine isn't that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it." (MSNBC.com) It was guessed that gamers probably over-extended their arms or put to much pressure on the wrong parts of their arms, causing bones to break.

Law & Order

Across the other ocean, Great Britain adds a game to the list of recalled video games. A game based off of the TV show Law & Order was removed from the shelves because an image of a deceased infant on the cover. It is rumored that the mother of the baby saw the cover and forced the publisher to recall the games, but it's possible that this is just an urban legend.

Something Intangible in San Andreas

Can an idea be recalled? The answer is yes. The ESRB (the group that gives out game ratings) recalled it's original rating of Mature for the video game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Instead, the ESRB gave the game an AO (Adults Only) rating because after a lengthy investigation, the game was found to have some hidden content that involved nudity and prostitution. Retailers immediately pulled the AO version from the shelves and replaced it with the toned down Mature version.

Nintendo

In perhaps the biggest recall in gaming, Nintendo recalled over three million wrists straps for the Wii Remote. The strap had a tendency to break if the Wii Remote was used vigorously. This caused flying Remotes everywhere, which broke a lot of television sets and put a lot of holes into gamers' walls. The slider on the original strap would come undone, loosening the whole strap and it was possible at that moment that a player would slacken his or her grip and release the Remote into the air. Nintendo exchanged those straps and made the material thicker and redesigned the clasp so it would stayed closed better.

The Recall that Should Have Happened

Remember Halo 3? Remember the Legendary Edition of Halo 3? If you purchased the game on release day, you may have gotten a disc that was all scratched up. Microsoft used game cases that were inferior and in shipping, the little circle that held the CD in would break because it was so thin. The disc would slide around and get scratched and sometimes would not play. Microsoft didn't issue a recall on the Legendary Edition and at first left it up to retailers to just to a basic exchange. A month later, Microsoft decided to replace those discs if they were sent to Microsoft. By that time, most of the scratched discs were exchanged or the scratched discs played just fine and gamers didn't care.

Recallapalooza

Most gaming companies have excellent quality assurance departments, but once in a while a game slips through with software bugs or defective equipment. With great competition in the video game market, major developers will cater to the gamer's needs on recalls without hesitance. Unless you're Microsoft and you just hope the issue goes away.