Movie licensed games are almost always bad, even moreso when theyre for the NES. Im not even upset I played this game though, not one bit. Why? Total Recall is one of those very, very few bad video games that manages to cross over into so-bad-its-good territory. There are countless movies and old campy TV shows like this, but not so much video games. A bad movie can be made enjoyable by a stellar, albeit cheesy performance from the actors, like if I see Christopher Walken in a bad movie Im still going to watch and enjoy it.
Im still surprised theres a movie licensed NES game that LJN had nothing to do with.
A bad video game being enjoyable though? How is that different, and how is it similar? Well bad games are always marred by technical issues, loose controls, bad graphics and music (for its time), and inconsistent and asinine level design among other reasons. But, if a game isnt entirely horrific in those categories, just has some weaknesses across the board then we end up with a good candidate for an enjoyably bad video game. Total Recall is the poster child of awesomely bad games because of this.
As soon as the game starts the player is already confused and just runs to the right where theyre pulled into an alley to fight purple clothed dwarves. But it gets better, what makes Total Recall so enjoyable for me is just how ridiculous everything looks. The graphics are terrible, and because of this a wall that is supposed to be people punching through holes ends up looking like... well I like to call it The Great Wall of Gloryholes.
What puny little cocks you all are.
There is a cool X-Ray effect in the second level (I think its level 2, none of them are labeled). So this shows that the programmers actually knew how to do a few things, just that the level designers were terrible. It seems like this giant X-Ray machine unlocks after a time limit , then Arnold is allowed to work his way through a very confusing subway system. Around this point the game takes on the typical bad video game syndrome, the absurd fun being sucked away by now.
Arnold can also crouch down and punch to the side hes facing, because of the height of many enemies on the main screen this ends up looking the player is making Arnold punch the enemies in the privates. Real classy Acclaim. Its still hilarious to me that a game that can so easily be sexually construed ended up with a Nintendo Seal of Quality. I guess that is just a way to see how little Nintendo actually cared about game quality, and were more concerned with censorship. Oh well, the past is past for a reason.
BOOM! Right in the gonads!
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Just wanted to stop you in your tracks real quick...
LJN was a division of Acclaim. They're one and the same, sir.
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@Shadow Kisuragi: Acclaim did own them by this point in time, but when they got their start in games they were owned by MCA, who sold them to Acclaim after they got their infamous reputation and started bleeding money.
It seems like Acclaim used the logo and publishing staff for the worst of the worst and super quick cash ins, but the actual company was kept intact until the doors closed in 1994.
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So you're implying that, by releasing such shoddy titles, Acclaim wasn't even remotely worthy of its own namesake?
If so, that's the greatest example of irony in the history of video games.
Well, that and John Romero promising to "make you his b*tch" with Daikatana...
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@Zagnorch: Well development of this particular game could have started before Acclaim acquired LJN, we don't really know how long it was in production and Interplay and Acclaim could have had their contract written up before the buyout.
That's the hard part of trying to be all technical right at a transition period like this. Imagine if Rare released a bunch of games just before being acquired by MS, then did nothing for a couple years, that's what happened here.
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Wow. Surprised Crab hasn't commented, seeing that he's a big proponent of this game (well, as big as one can be for it).
While I found the game easier once you grasped the strange mechanics in place, it still wanted me to cock-punch myself after the second level. No fun.
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