12 Video Game Amusement Parks That We’d Never Visit

Worst. Amusement Park. Ever. Vacations are as good a time as any for tossing your family in the minivan, stuffing a backpack full of food stuffs, and hitting the open road for a lazy day at the amusement park. The world’s all-in-one destination for thrill rides and cheap prizes, amusement parks are the place for a good time – until they aren't. If you’re one of the lucky few to afford one, you’ll know there’s no mistaking the difference between a crappy carnival and the perfect weekend escape, which might just be a zombie pirate punching your ticket. Bad, worse, and all other kinds of awful, join us as we take a look at these twelve video game amusement parks that aren’t half as amusing as they might seem. Cartoon Wasteland (Epic Mickey) Home to Walt Disney’s most obscure and neglected creations, the Cartoon Wasteland is an animated purgatory for second-rate cartoon characters forgotten by time. An ink-stained nightmare inspired by all of Walt Disney’s theme parks, the Wasteland is like all five of their worst lines rolled into a single parade of sore losers, including Mickey Mouse’s own ill-fated rival, Oswald the (allegedly) Lucky Rabbit, who makes his home on top of a literal mountain of his brother’s own merchandise. Like its inspiration, the park is divided into themed lands, each a dark incarnation of a Disney landmark, with nasty names like Mean Street and Dark Beauty Castle. A number of rejected characters designs also haunt the Wasteland, including an animatronic Captain Hook. Seriously, why did Disney reject that? Bowser Land (Mario Party 2) The sixth and final board of Mario Party 2, Bowser Land is an amusement park modeled in Bowser's own image and, by extension, the opposite of fun. According to its reversed mechanics, banks lend out money you didn’t ask for, but force you to pay them back in full while Koopa kids sell you items whether you like them or not. Worse, happening spaces now shoot you clear across the other side of the board as a marching parade mugs you and throw you back to the start. Jerks. It’s to this end that Bowser runs around the board leading you on a wild goose chase until you challenge, defeat, and send him hurtling across the world just so you can be on your way. Talk about a host who won’t quit. Lakeside Amusement Park (Silent Hill Series) If you’re looking for a break from reality, then Silent Hill’s Lakeside Amusement Park has plenty to take your mind off of your troubles. It hosts a variety of family friendly attractions: an outdoor water ride, death-defying roller coasters, a haunted house and just one, murderously sentient carousel. Its spine-tingling atmosphere isn’t any more inviting, and that’s probably because the haunted house bit is overkill in a park full of gaseous zombie horses. As one of the series’ recurring destinations, Lakeside is only more unpredictable the longer you stay in it – so much so that what’s real and what’s not might very well be in question. Krazy Kremland (Donkey Kong Land 2) “Do, or do not. There is no try,” a Jedi master wiser than I once said, and boy does Krazy Kremland try to troll its visitors in the worst ways it knows how. Created by King. K. Rool as a getaway for his off-duty henchmen, Krazy Kremland is worse news than its owner - that is, if riding around in a skull cart wasn’t your first clue. The place is chock full of monsters and hives of zingers – and not the funny kind. It’s a darn shame, because at first glance, Hornet Hole, Rickety Race and Bramble Scramble might all sound like standard park ride fare if they didn’t describe their probable cause of death. That there are no lines to speak of probably indicates how popular this place must be among K. Rool’s crew, but maybe that’s why there’s no such things as mandatory company meetings in a monarchy. Specter Land (Ape Escape) While most monkeys would be content flinging poo at passersby, Ape Escape’s are all about ruling the world from their own amusement parks in hipster sunglasses. Specter is one such monkey. A mad genius bent on rewriting human history and placing the world’s furrier primates on top, Specter rechristens his former zoo habitat of Monkey Park as “Specterland,” a twisted circus whose permanent residents include an evil killer clown and ghostly fart clouds. In it, you must survive a variety of deathtraps, the least of which include a deadly remote-controlled car, and a heart-stopping roller coaster ride. It’s a pity, too, because they almost look like fun. Carnival Of The Damned (Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge) Any place that goes by “Carnival of the Damned” should probably be as inviting as its namesake eludes. Constructed by the undead pirate captain LeChuck to harness the energy of the Big Whoop, the park offers no such joy save for it making you feel like a kid again - literally. In reality, the park curses all its guests into thinking they’re just kids on a family’s night out. Now that’s marketing. Thus, visitors remain ignorant to the fact that its signature roller coaster plunges its spellbound riders through a scorching lava pit where they’re reborn as skeletal lackeys under LeChucks’ command. I assume that’ll make the park’s “Guess Your Age and Weight” booth a bit easier - or a bit harder? Eggman Land (Sonic Unleashed) Dr. Eggman is an evil genius with an I.Q. of 300, so you’d expect Eggmanland to be a technical marvel, which it is if you think of it as a shameless self-advertisement. Part amusement park and part decorated in blazing lights and eggs for some wild reason, Eggmanland is an architectural nightmare of control roller coasters, bottomless pits, levitating buzz saws and more killer robots than is probably legal. I’ve seen this horror movie before and no number of grinning Eggman faces is going to make me forget a vehicle named “Egg Dragoon.” Of course, you get what you paid for, and at the cost of being an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog, it’s a raw deal for five minutes of fame smashing up the place. That’s’ too bad, because I’m sure Eggman could be a bang-up park designer if he wanted to be. After all, he’s well past his prime to be beating princesses in the Olympics much longer. Witchyworld (Banjo Tooie) Banjo Tooie’s Witchyworld is a sleazy rundown amusement park that makes no attempts to disguise itself as such. The food is garbage, the employees are jerks, its big top doesn't even have seating, and the rides are downright dangerous, if they work at all. It’s to that end that a sign outside it announces that the park is closed due to their “appalling safety record” and that it’ll reopen once the authorities have been thoroughly bribed. On top of all that, the security is so lax that a medicine woman and a shaman have even set up shop in the park undisturbed as there are no customers. Funny, because kids love it so much that they’re not too keen on leaving - or finding their way out, for that matter. Another sign even mentions that anyone surviving all the attractions gets a fan club membership. Current member count? Zero. Cold as an old witch’s heart, eh? Any Amusement Park In A Batman Game Gotham City doesn’t have much in the way of entertainment, which is probably one of the many reasons why it boasts the highest crime rate of any city ever. That would explain why every one of its amusement parks are lawsuits waiting to happen, as well as why they’re routinely inhabited by murderous clowns. The trash-strewn grounds look like the insides of a toilet and the rides are so dilapidated they could fall apart at any moment. The price of admission, however, is to die for - not literally, as long as you’re dressed like a bat, anyway. The best they could do is tidy up a bit and maybe even put a fresh coat of paint on the carousel. Either that or pay the electric bill ever once and a while so folks could see what deathtrap they were walking into. Seriously, these open pits and funhouse mazes are getting old. The Joker already did those for last week’s show. Ryan Amusements (Bioshock 2) Andrew Ryan would have you believe that scaring small children is entirely educational, and Ryan Amusements attempts just that. Built to educate the citizens of Rapture about the horrors of the surface world, the park is one big, fire and brimstone speech of maniacal proportion decked out with all your favorite touristy amenities. Part drugstore, part gift shop, and part museum to the evils of statism, it’s the perfect place to kick back, relax, and enjoy a gene-splicing tonic with the family as you take in some mildly terrifying political theater. In addition, its starring attraction, “Journey to the Surface World,” is an interactive sermon about the literal long arm of the law coming to snatch you from your living room complete with horrifying automatons dressed in ‘50s suit jackets. That’s exactly the wrong way to spend the day with the kids, and probably the worst conversation starter on the car ride home. Uranus Zone (Dead Rising 2: Off The Record) In a world where zombie reality shows are a dying breed, it’s a wonder how places like Uranus Zone manage to survive. A science-fiction themed amusement park in the shape of an alien’s head, the ritzy playground for Fortune City’s undead is an eyesore of blinding neon and pun-inspired shopping centers. What it may lack in ambience it makes up for in its all-season passes of absurdity, but it just feels weird taking a jetpack joyride over a brain-eating mob all by your lonesome. That the park’s restrooms should be the cleanest places in Uranus Zone is no small consolation for running around with a full bladder in the post-apocalypse. Where you could possibly find any decent toilet paper is another matter. This is a park named Uranus Zone and that’s exactly what it cares about the least? Good grief. Screamride (Screamride) Set in a near-future in which there are apparently no other forms of entertainment, Screamride places you in the shoes of a hapless employee tasked with building, maintaining, and running one of its eponymous amusement parks for the masses. As such, players attempt to solve problems designing and controlling their park’s assorted thrill rides with limited resources while making sure they make your visitors hurl as much as they would pay money for. That’s all presumably on top of your chore of keeping guests in the dark about the fact that your park is in constant need of repair and that they’re all screaming to be dressed up in Tron costumes. The future is already sounding overrated.