24. Hey You, Pikachu! / Pokémon Channel

To my eight-year-old brain, the prospect of having a virtual pet Pikachu I could talk to through a microphone sounded like a dream. Unfortunately, the Nintendo 64 game’s tech wasn’t quite capable enough to achieve its ambition. Hey You, Pikachu! was notorious when it launched at the turn of the millennium for Pikachu’s frustrating and unresponsive AI. The idea is that the player can communicate with Pikachu through a packaged-in microphone to give him commands and directions, but Pikachu would often misunderstand or outright ignore whatever you said. In the time since, it’s been revealed that it wasn’t just a problem with programming, but the microphone itself was actually pretty terrible as well. The entire thing actually works better if you can hook up a proper mic. Poor guy wasn’t trying to be difficult, he just couldn’t hear us. While there was no direct sequel to the game, Pokémon Channel is considered to be a spiritual successor, as it once again allows you to keep Pikachu as a virtual pet. There’s just no piss poor microphone to get in the way.