Author: John Legendoffzelda As the adolescent escapism-junkie Danny Madigan watches the Arnold Schwarzenegger franchise picture “Jack Slater IV”, the magic ticket in his hands begins to glow. Suddenly, he finds himself transported into the film, lying face-down on the nighttime sidewalk where he sees his hero, Jack Slater, about to…
Author: John Legendoffzelda With its studio glitz, its recurring bodybuilder characters who called themselves the Gladiators, and its playground environment of red, white, and blue gym pads, the syndicated TV series American Gladiators made sports into a heightened form of escapism. Audiences could tune into an episode and see folks exert…
Author: John Legendoffzelda How much moving around is there in the Super Nintendo video game of Animaniacs? The Warner brothers (and the Warner sister) go into their idle animations, a dance where they shake their behinds in unison, not two seconds after the player leaves them still – that’s how…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Super Valis IV, Atlus’ port of the fourth installment in the overlooked Valis franchise, suffers the most from a lack of context. It’s named like a sequel, and it’s the continuation of a magical-girl fantasy about a girl named Yuko Ahso, who inherits a magic sword and…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Jeopardy!, perhaps the best game show after The Price is Right, has such a strong concept that it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work as a video game. The most famous trivia contest in popular culture, the show has carried itself on the lasting thrills of both…
Author: John Legendoffzelda Ocean’s video game adaptation of Cool World is the sensation of the original film multiplied by ten. Back in the summer of 1992, the movie was received as a frustrating disappointment – an incoherent, down-and-dirty Who Framed Roger Rabbit variation that wasn’t funny or even that dirty.…
Author: John Legendoffzelda There’s no fun behind The Incredible Hulk, none of the zing of demolition that you might expect from a work featuring Marvel Comics’ signature green brute. When not examining the character’s notable human-monster duality, a detail this game ignores anyway, his status as a thrilling force of destruction is all…
Author: John Legendoffzelda In the game Smart Ball, the player controls a nameless blue thing: a viscous blob with big eyes and a small mouth that looks like a moving drop of water. This guy has no name because the English translation removed every trace of the original story for…
Author: John Legendoffzelda A bad THQ game from the early 1990s is a soulless, turgid mess designed without any sense of individuality. It looks and sounds awful, marred by crude graphics and tuneless music. It plays like the development team wasn’t done with it yet, and licenses an outside property not to…
Author: John Legendoffzelda I believe in a sort of honor system between video game companies, at least when it comes to the compilations they make. These updated collections get created when they are important, when the amassed games matter. They aren’t just made to serve only nostalgia, but the justification…