Let's just hope that this serves as a lesson to all the marketing and PR people that are out there looking to expand their brand name in something that shouldn't really have their hands in.
20. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
I know a lot of people have skeletons in their closets, but Mark Wahlberg might as well be the national spokesperson for skeletons in the closet. Before starring in inspirational movies about boxers, football players, rock stars, and taco stand vendors, Wahlberg took a "stab" at the hip-hop industry as a white boy who loved to rap and hang with his homies. OK, so he wasn't Vanilla Ice horrible, but by God he was laughably bad when he tried to roll with his Funky Bunch crew. He should be very thankful he has a blooming acting career because Marky Mark was certainly not meant for this world.
So anyway, Sega wanted to make its new Sega CD machine "hip" and "cool" or probably "hippity cool" to make it the only console out there that only cool people play. Unfortunately, Sega didn't get the memo that Marky Mark was not hip, cool, or hippity cool to most people, so it was no surprise the console tanked big time when they released Make My Video featuring Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I should point out that INXS and Kris Kross also had Make My Video games, but by far Marky Mark was the worst of them all.
19. Where's Waldo?
I certainly get the idea that the Where's Waldo books help kids or inspiring safety inspectors to have a keen eye. But has anyone ever asked why Waldo's hiding in the first place? Whether it's at the beach, a crowded mall, or the moon, this motherfucker is always trying to keep a low profile. Is he hiding from the police for child pornography charges? Or perhaps hiding from the mob after screwing them over on track racing bets? Whatever the case may be, Waldo's definitely blending in with the crowd to get away from someone.
There are plenty of edutainment games out there (plus a staggering amount of Sesame Street games), but Where's Waldo is a terrible license to pick for a video game. Why? I don't think I'd want to have my kid rub his face against the TV screen and look all over the damn place to look for Waldo while frying his eyes out. Oh, and the Great Waldo Search is a really shitty game to boot. Good luck trying to find our stripped friend in one sea of pixelated mess.
18. Sour Patch Kids
We're finally in the year 2012, right? So explain to me why out of all the intellectual properties that are out there that Capcom decided to greenlight a Sour Patch Kids game.
If you've ever been to a movie theater, then you've probably had a pack of Sour Patch Kids candy along with your buttered (if that is butter...) popcorn. If there's one thing Sour Patch Kids are guaranteed to do, that's ruining your fucking teeth for life. Although this game hasn't come out yet, we do know that it's suppose to deal with the Sour Patch Kids navigating through movie theaters and other places while avoiding other treacherous candy treats and "deranged" humans (according to the press release). You know, the Sour Patch Kids doesn't really need to be a video game, but somehow Capcom is throwing all its marbles down for this game.
By the way, it gets even more bizarre as Method Man (yes, THAT Method Man of Wu-Tang fame) has provided the theme song for this upcoming game.
17. Chester Cheetah (Cheetos)
You gotta love the irony in this one. Remember as a kid when you'll playing some video games with your pals and one of them ask to pass over the controller while the little bastard's hands are covered in Cheetos powder? I bet this game was dedicated to all those moments when it happened.
Believe it or not, Kaneko made two Chester Cheetah games for the SNES and Sega Genesis. Overall, both titles were basic platforming games that weren't really anything to write home about. However, given the fact the game stars a mascot who promotes greasy cheese snacks, you know the game sole purpose was to get kids running to the grocery store and stock up on crunchy and puffy Cheetos.
16. Jeopardy!/Family Feud
I'll admit it: I tune in to Jeopardy on a daily basis. In fact, I'm a sucker when it comes to quiz shows like Jeopardy or Family Feud so I can prove to myself that I'm not dumb and truly am a genius. But there's a huge fatal flaw when it comes to making licensed video games based on game shows.
Jeopardy and Family Feud are two perfect examples on how things can go south while playing them in video game form. For one thing, it's a real pain in the ass to navigate the cursor to type in your answer. Life would be easier if this was being played on a PC, but seeing how there's been multiple versions of Jeopardy and Family Feud on the NES and other home consoles, it was pure torture just getting your answer in before time runs out. Also another huge problem with licensed video games based on game shows is the limited amount of questions in the game. It'll take you at least three sessions to finally see the questions being repeated, thus rendering the game unplayable. And don't even bother to play any of these games if you suck at spelling. Just misspelling a word by one letter will get it wrong.
15. Alvin & The Chipmunks
I'm actually pretty amazed that there hasn't been an Alvin & the Chipmunks video game until the franchise got rebooted for the 2007 live-action movie. However, seeing how this atrocity turned out, I think it was best the Chipmunks franchise stayed away from video games.
14. Garfield
Plenty can be said about the Garfield comic strip, but for me, I know it's Jim Davis' clever way to tell a story of a paranoid, depressed schizophrenic disguised as a comic strip about a lazy cat who likes to eat lasagna. As I mentioned before in my blog, Garfield Minus Garfield does an awesome job in revealing the comic strip's true nature.
It's a shame most people don't notice that because they only see Garfield as a pretty crappy comic. You can't really do much with a lazy, fat cat who eats a lot and does nothing else. But whether you love or hate the orange critter, there's something truly mind-boggling that there are over fourty video games released featuring Garfield. That's right; going all the way back to the Atari 2600, the Garfield license has been used in 40+ different games. I don't know if that's a record, but hell, there's gotta be someone out there who finds Garfield hilarious and buy these games.
Here's a look at some of Garfield's "finest" moments in video game history.
13. Kiss
Of all the rock bands that are out there, there's no bigger PR and marketing machine than Kiss. It's kind of interesting to see what people will remember the band for; their music or their lust for marketing. I'll give Gene Simmons credit where it's due. He sure makes one hell of a salesman. From comic books to action figures to funeral caskets to even condoms, Simmons has slapped the Kiss brand to just about everything. But when it comes to video games, Kiss has it all wrong.
Surprisingly, there are only two Kiss-branded video games (plus an unconfirmed one for Commodore 64), but for the most part, they suck. Their first game was Kiss Pinball for the Playstation 1 and it wasn't offensively bad. But seeing how you probably get more entertainment playing the actual Kiss pinball machine, this game made no sense. However, the Kiss ad nauseum train goes full steam with the release of KISS: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child for the Sega Dreamcast and PC in 2000. Based on Kiss' comic book series, the Psycho Circus game is nothing more but a Quake/Unreal ripoff. The funny thing about this game was that you played the role of not the actual Kiss band, but a Kiss tribute band. I don't know if Simmons and his band didn't want any part of this crappy game, but it's kind of like playing Super Mario Bros. only to find out you're only playing some fat guy from Brazil who's pretending to be Super Mario.
12. The Olsen Twins
Remember when Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen were America's little darlings way before there turned into anorexic crack gobblers? That's okay if you don't. So apparently back when Full House was all the rage in the late 80's to early 90's, the Olsen Twins captivated audiences everywhere with their adorable spunk because they just couldn't get enough of not one, but two modern day Shirley Temples. While Bob Saget and the rest of the Full House cast's careers went down the shitter when the show ended, the Olsen Twins had other plans by going on a decade long marketing blitz in order to enslave little girls to the Olsen brand. Just like with Kiss, the Olsens planted their name on toys, cereals, videos, and the whole shabangbang. Thankfully, there weren't any Olsen Twins condoms or caskets.
In an attempt to make video games a little more emasculating, Acclaim released a total of 13 Olsen Twins-licensed games. Now, I don't know about you, but I just don't see pre-teen girls flocking to the nearest Gamestop to pick up copies of Mary Kate & Ashley's Crush Course or Mary Kate & Ashley's What's That White Stuff. Targeting the 6-12 female demographic with video games is like target the male demographic with sanitary tampons. Granted that video games are much more casual today than it was 10 years ago, but I don't think releasing a "Mary Kate & Ashley's Anorexic Action" game would be a smash hit today.
11. Bebe's Kids
From what I can recall about Bebe's Kids the movie, it was extraordinarily boring. Not much to write home about this animated dud. It was hard to tell if this movie was targeting kids or a mature audience, but in any case, it bombed at the box office. What many of you probably don't know is that Bebe's Kids is essentially an well-noted routine done by the late standup comedian Robin Harris. With that in mind, it looks like Bebe's Kids for Super Nintendo is the first and only video game based on someone's standup routine. Just imagine a film studio making a movie about Dave Chappelle's Rick James routine and then licensing that movie for a video game. Now you know how crazy converting Bebe's Kids to video game form was.
Overall, the game was flat-out bad. In fact, some game critics consider it to be the worst SNES game of all time. But going back to the notion that Bebe's Kids originally was a standup routine, the game takes the least-interesting portion of Harris' act, as well as the movie, and uses that for the entire game. It's like taking George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" routine and just using the word "balls" to make a video game out of it.
10. Aerosmith
While Kiss has a crappy video game, at least there's is not as horrible as Aerosmith's cry for help.
Before rock bands slapped their names and likenesses to Guitar Hero games, musicians had other ideas to work with. Motley Crue kept it simple like Kiss by making a pinball video game, while Michael Jackson went the whole nine yards and did the Moonwalker arcade game for Sega. While some of you may argue that licensing a Michael Jackson arcade game is worse than licensing an Aerosmith arcade game, realize that Moonwalker came out in 1988 when Jackson was at the peak of his career and the game itself wasn't bad. In fact, I wouldn't call licensing a Michael Jackson video game crappy back in the 80's as anything tagged with the words "Michael" and "Jackson" would sell like hotcakes.
But let's go back to Aerosmith. The band had a relatively successful run during the 90's, so they wanted to capitalize on that success by taking at stab at video games. So Steven Tyler and the gang went to Midway Games for them to create an Aerosmith video game. The result? Revolution X.
Well, that was unexpected. In a nutshell, Revolution X is Midway taking its popular Terminator 2 arcade game and throwing in a bunch of aging rockers into the game. Along with an absurdly dopey storyline where the future is depended on you and Steven Tyler's large-ass lips, Revolution X is laughably bad and goofy as we get a couple of Aerosmith songs playing on loop over and over again while you take down ninja rejects by flinging compact discs at them. Hey, at least it shows you what they did with all those extra copies of the band's crappy Rock in a Hard Place album. By the time you listen to an instrumental version of "Eat the Rich" playing in the background for the 40th time, you'd wish the game would allow you to shoot down the band in a murderous rampage.
Now that I think about it, I'd wish bands like Kiss and Aerosmith would've waited until 2006 to work on a Guitar Hero video game because we ended up with some pretty crappy stuff in licensed video games featuring dinosaur rock bands.
9. The Blues Brothers
I have a feeling that Dan Akyroyd doesn't know the saying, "Let sleeping dogs lie." If he did, we'd probably never would have wound up with the ultra-shitty Blues Brothers 2000 sequel.
But even before Akyroyd decided to desecrate John Belushi's good name by making that abortion of a movie, someone had a brilliant idea of taking the Blues Brothers license and using it for a video game. I don't know about you, but there's nothing about Elwood and Jake Blues that screams they should be put into a video game. In fact, I don't think there's any reoccurring Saturday Night Live sketch that could be used to make a video game (with the exception of the horribly gone wrong Wayne's World game).
So the Un-Hun-Hun Frenchmen over at Titus Software produced a platformer game featuring the Blues Brothers for the NES, Commodore 64, Amiga, Game Boy, and PC systems. The game itself was particularly bad since it had little or nothing to do with the movie or the SNL sketches. Instead of evading the Illinois State Police and Nazis or jamming it up with some good ol' fashioned blues music, Elwood and Jake are just hopping and skipping around factories and abandoned buildings while throwing wooden crates at complete strangers and random green blob monsters. In some versions of the game, the Blues Brothers somehow receive superpowers and are able to walk on clouds. I think it's safe to say that the Blues Brothers game is a classic example on what happens to a license when it gets lost in translation. But hey, at least the game wasn't as bad as the Blues Brothers 2000 movie. There's nothing that can top that in terms of crappiness, right?
Son of a bitch...
8. M&M's
We all know that M&M's "melt in your mouth, not in your hands". But did you know that M&M's will melt your brain while they're in your video games?
M&M's were first introduced in 1941 by the Mars candy company and while they had anthropomorphic M&M's running around to hawk the candy, there wasn't a official or primary mascot for them. That wasn't up until 1995 when they finally debuted the Red and Yellow M&M's as their "official" mascot for the candy. Red was originally voiced by Jon Lovitz and Yellow voiced by John Goodman. Of course it was obvious that the two were fulfilling the stereotypical snarky wisecrack/clumsy big oaf duo quota. Soon, each M&M color started to get personalities of their own and it wasn't long for Mars to decide to branch out its brand and license it to toys, school supplies, race cars, and of course, video games.
The problem with having mascots from the food industry and using them in video games is that I don't think they have that "cool" factor where kids wanna bum rush the store and buy their games. Unless the mascot of a fast-food chain is a grizzly bear wearing sunglasses while riding a T-Rex, I doubt mascots representing the food industry will ever have a top-selling video game. I would give M&M's the benefit of the doubt if their games were awesome, but unfortunately, that is not the case. In fact, M&M Kart Racing for the Nintendo has become the whipping boy for crappy bargain bin games everywhere.
7. E.T.
I already mentioned unfortunate horrible video game in one of my previous blogs, so the less said, the better. I will add that this was expected when your license is about an alien who looks like the offspring of Ghandi and a California Raisin.
6. Burger King
Burger King may have officially retired their creepy, royal mascot, but his legacy certainly lives on. There's no bigger evidence of his existence when the fast food chain released Burger King games in 2006 for the Xbox 360.
Selling at $4 a pop, Burger King had not one, but three games to choose from. The first two were just basic racing games featuring BK characters like the King himself, Subservient Chicken (WTF?), Whopper Jr. (DoubleWTF?), and others. Nothing out of the ordinary for racing games featuring licensed characters. But the third one has without a doubt the most absurd concept in video game history. In Sneak King, you control the company's namesake by sneaking around and approach unsuspecting civilians with Whoppers before they pass out from hunger. Now think about that for one moment. Here you are, dressed up as royalty while wearing a disturbing mask, stalking innocent people and using the element of surprise in order to fulfill Burger King's plot to take over the world. Just take a look at this video to see the insanity behind all this.
There's just something terribly wrong about all of this. In the real world, just about anyone can see a disturbing, burger-pushing stalker from a mile away while he prances and tiptoes around like the absolute creep he is. But in Burger King's version of the world, everyone suffers from glaucoma and constant fainting spells. The Burger King might as well be breathing down the back of your neck and these people still won't notice him. Also, the type of reactions the characters give when the King surprises them is the complete opposite of what a sane, normal human being would give if the King of Nightmares popped out of nowhere. In Sneak King, the King's "prey" would squeal with joy as he dances in front of them like it was the mating dance of a peacock. After the King's little jig, he would then pull a Whopper on a sliver platter out of nowhere and serves it to them. These people would merrily accept his offering without the notion the King may have drugged the Whoppers so he can rape them. I don't know about you, but if I ever encountered the King in that situation, my most likely reaction would be to scream bloody murder and run far, far away and contact the local authorities.
5. "Shaq" Shaquille O'Neill
If you've ever played any of the NBA Jam games as a kid, you probably noticed two glaring omissions in them. First of course was Michael Jordan. Jordan was wildly popular at the time, so he went the nontraditional route by trademarking and licensing his own name and likeness. With his high asking price for royalties and fees, he rarely appeared in NBA video games except for coming out with his very own video game called "Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City". The second omission was Shaquille O'Neill (or simply Shaq). He too went the same route as Jordan by trademarking and licensing his name across the board. But unlike Jordan, Shaq branched out to other stuff like becoming a rapper, actor, and karate expert. Yes, you heard me, karate expert.
You may be familiar with his acting career and laying down some beats in his platinum-selling rap album, but did you know Shaq was such the karate expert that he had his own form of martial arts called "Shaq Fu"? That's how he was able to license his own Shaq Fu video game.
OK, seriously, looking back at Shaq Fu for SNES and Genesis, it was quite goofy and absurd like Shaq starring in Kazaam. I don't know why he didn't keep it simple and use his license for a basketball game, but for Shaq to be in a fighting game is like seeing Joe Namath be in a dating simulator game. I won't lie; I thought the prospect of Shaq in a Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat type game was both cool and ridiculous when I was a kid. But now looking back, it was really only ridiculous. Hey, I love the big guy, but you gotta be more careful on what you license your name to.
4. McDonald's
Nowadays, having McDonald's interact with kids will horrify parents and go apeshit that the Golden Arch is pushing childhood obesity to them. But it wasn't like that 20 years ago. Mom and dad were fine with Ronald McDonald and company promoting their Happy Meals and burgers to kids across America. If you were a kid back in those days, then you'll recall the plethora of licensed goods McDonald's pushed to kids. From toys to Halloween costumes to bed sheets to music records, there were no boundaries for McDonald's when it came to marketing to kids. So it came to no surprise that McDonald's licensed a video game in 1992 called M.C. Kids. Just like other licensed, platformer video games, M.C. Kids had you collecting the McDonald's logo while throwing crap at your enemies. One thing I want to point out is while the U.S. cover for M.C. Kids isn't alarmingly -- two chubby kids high-fiving each other after eating a round of Big Macs -- its the European artwork paints a far sinister picture.
Known as McDonaldland in Europe, you do get a lot of mixed messages in this picture. Here we see two strapping young lads who reek of early 90's radicalness (especially the stereotypical African American dude sporting a hi-top fade haircut and red, green, and yellow colors) standing in front of a McDonald's sign. But as you look above, there's Ronald McDonald with quite a menacing look on his face as he's creeping from behind the sign. Talk about truth in advertising; did McDonald's want to give Europeans a subtle hint about the smoke and mirrors it was showing? If one thing was for certain, this picture sums up the disturbing nature of McDonald's marketing to kids by licensing their brand in video games.
By the way, the chain also released two more McDonald's-licensed games for the Sega Genesis: Mick & Mack's Global Gladiators and McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure. Despite being licensed by a fast food chain, both games were actually developed by reputable game developers. Global Gladiators was made by Shiny Entertainment (Earthworm Jim, Aladdin for Sega Genesis, Robocop vs. Terminator) and Treasure Land Adventure was made by Treasure (Contra, Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes). Even more crazy is the fact both games weren't bad at all. It's amazing that despite being a game using a McDonald's license that they turned out to be good. This my friends is an example of taking a ridiculous license like McDonald's and creating an enjoyable and playable video game.
3. The Bible
Okay, so I cheated. The Holy Bible isn't licensed property per se, BUT with megachurch preachers, right-wing politicians, and bible belt lunatics touting the bible like they own it, it might as well be.
It's kind of funny religious video games exist in the first place because most devote Christians loathe video games. I'm certain someone like Billy Graham would call it the devil's work or something like that. But the people at Wisdom Tree don't think so. In fact, video games and the Bible are like peanut butter and jelly for Wisdom Tree. Born out of the ashes of Color Dreams, Wisdom Tree tore out pages from the Old Testament and inserted them in well-known games. So in other words; they plagiarized games like Super Mario Bros. 2, Legend of Zelda, and Wolfenstein 3-D and threw in biblical figures to cover their tracks. So now instead of hunting and shooting Nazi soldiers like you did in Wolfenstein, you hunt and feed animals fruits that puts them to sleep in Super 3D Noah's Ark. I'm sure this will teach kids that Noah ran around his ark with a slingshot and force-fed goats and lions apples laced with Ambien.
That's the thing about Bible games; I always thought that any form of entertainment that has a Christian theme to it is meant to be a learning tool for kids or "inspire" people to become better Christians. And it's not just Christians either. Those of the Jewish faith may pick up other Wisdom Tree games like Exodus and Baby Moses. In any case, I have a hard time believing that strictly-religious parents would buy these games for their kids so they can learn all the different historical inaccuracies in the games or be inspired after controlling a skateboarder who ollies his way to Sunday school.
As far as I'm aware, there's no other video game out there that uses other faiths like Muslim, Hinduism, or Scientology, but I'm sure time will tell when Tom Cruise funds a 360 and PS3 Scientology game.
2. The Noid (Domino's Pizza)
Now this I cannot comprehend. Why would anyone want to license the fuckin' Noid? The Noid! Arguably one of the most annoying mascots in history, the Noid was a small, weird man dressed in what appears to be a red bunny suit and his claim to fame was he wanted to ruin your pizza and terrorized pizza delivery boys everywhere.
While I appreciate well-known claymation director Will Vinton, who created the Noid TV ads, the red menace should've stayed on the TV screen and nothing more. Unfortunately, Domino's had other plans and went to town with a full marketing blitz for the Noid. Their first order of business was licensing a computer game called "Avoid the Noid!". Obviously as the title implies, the purpose of the game is to...well...avoid the Noid.
Who knew that just trying to avoid the Noid would be a life or death situation? Never mind that you're a Domino's pizza boy who's trying to avoid the Noid from murdering you. The concept of this computer game has you working your way up to the 30th floor of an apartment building that has no elevators and is rigged with booby traps everywhere. From dodging missiles, jumping over trap doors, and doing barrel rolls over homicidal Noids, you start to think you're delivering a box of Domino's pizza under 30 minutes or less to James Bond. And if you needed any indication that this insanely absurd computer game was licensed by Domino's, look no further than the actual cover box.
When the cover artwork has at least 5 mentions of Domino's Pizza, you better damn well know it's licensed by them. While the next Domino's-licensed game, Yo Noid by Capcom, wasn't as obvious with its in-game advertising, the plot is just as over the top as its DOS counterpart. In this NES game, the Noid is commissioned by the mayor of New York City to stop a renegade Noid and his minions from assailing the city. You heard right. Mayor Rudy Giuliani doesn't need the police or National Guard to bring down terrorists in NYC; he's got the Noid to do it all. But what's even more of a head scratcher is that at the end of every level, the Noid challenges one of its kind in a pizza-eating contest. Now wait a minute...doesn't the Noid loathe pizza? Why else would the little bastard put all of his effort in destroying pizza? Something doesn't add up.
As someone with the privilege of living within range of New York City, I barely bother with Domino's anymore and enjoy damn good pizza from the local pizzerias. But if Sal's Pizza decided to use the Noid as their spokesperson, I'd stop patronizing them for good.
6. Burger King
Burger King may have officially retired their creepy, royal mascot, but his legacy certainly lives on. There's no bigger evidence of his existence when the fast food chain released Burger King games in 2006 for the Xbox 360.
Selling at $4 a pop, Burger King had not one, but three games to choose from. The first two were just basic racing games featuring BK characters like the King himself, Subservient Chicken (WTF?), Whopper Jr. (DoubleWTF?), and others. Nothing out of the ordinary for racing games featuring licensed characters. But the third one has without a doubt the most absurd concept in video game history. In Sneak King, you control the company's namesake by sneaking around and approach unsuspecting civilians with Whoppers before they pass out from hunger. Now think about that for one moment. Here you are, dressed up as royalty while wearing a disturbing mask, stalking innocent people and using the element of surprise in order to fulfill Burger King's plot to take over the world. Just take a look at this video to see the insanity behind all this.
There's just something terribly wrong about all of this. In the real world, just about anyone can see a disturbing, burger-pushing stalker from a mile away while he prances and tiptoes around like the absolute creep he is. But in Burger King's version of the world, everyone suffers from glaucoma and constant fainting spells. The Burger King might as well be breathing down the back of your neck and these people still won't notice him. Also, the type of reactions the characters give when the King surprises them is the complete opposite of what a sane, normal human being would give if the King of Nightmares popped out of nowhere. In Sneak King, the King's "prey" would squeal with joy as he dances in front of them like it was the mating dance of a peacock. After the King's little jig, he would then pull a Whopper on a sliver platter out of nowhere and serves it to them. These people would merrily accept his offering without the notion the King may have drugged the Whoppers so he can rape them. I don't know about you, but if I ever encountered the King in that situation, my most likely reaction would be to scream bloody murder and run far, far away and contact the local authorities.
5. "Shaq" Shaquille O'Neill
If you've ever played any of the NBA Jam games as a kid, you probably noticed two glaring omissions in them. First of course was Michael Jordan. Jordan was wildly popular at the time, so he went the nontraditional route by trademarking and licensing his own name and likeness. With his high asking price for royalties and fees, he rarely appeared in NBA video games except for coming out with his very own video game called "Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City". The second omission was Shaquille O'Neill (or simply Shaq). He too went the same route as Jordan by trademarking and licensing his name across the board. But unlike Jordan, Shaq branched out to other stuff like becoming a rapper, actor, and karate expert. Yes, you heard me, karate expert.
You may be familiar with his acting career and laying down some beats in his platinum-selling rap album, but did you know Shaq was such the karate expert that he had his own form of martial arts called "Shaq Fu"? That's how he was able to license his own Shaq Fu video game.
OK, seriously, looking back at Shaq Fu for SNES and Genesis, it was quite goofy and absurd like Shaq starring in Kazaam. I don't know why he didn't keep it simple and use his license for a basketball game, but for Shaq to be in a fighting game is like seeing Joe Namath be in a dating simulator game. I won't lie; I thought the prospect of Shaq in a Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat type game was both cool and ridiculous when I was a kid. But now looking back, it was really only ridiculous. Hey, I love the big guy, but you gotta be more careful on what you license your name to.
4. McDonald's
Nowadays, having McDonald's interact with kids will horrify parents and go apeshit that the Golden Arch is pushing childhood obesity to them. But it wasn't like that 20 years ago. Mom and dad were fine with Ronald McDonald and company promoting their Happy Meals and burgers to kids across America. If you were a kid back in those days, then you'll recall the plethora of licensed goods McDonald's pushed to kids. From toys to Halloween costumes to bed sheets to music records, there were no boundaries for McDonald's when it came to marketing to kids. So it came to no surprise that McDonald's licensed a video game in 1992 called M.C. Kids. Just like other licensed, platformer video games, M.C. Kids had you collecting the McDonald's logo while throwing crap at your enemies. One thing I want to point out is while the U.S. cover for M.C. Kids isn't alarmingly -- two chubby kids high-fiving each other after eating a round of Big Macs -- its the European artwork paints a far sinister picture.
Known as McDonaldland in Europe, you do get a lot of mixed messages in this picture. Here we see two strapping young lads who reek of early 90's radicalness (especially the stereotypical African American dude sporting a hi-top fade haircut and red, green, and yellow colors) standing in front of a McDonald's sign. But as you look above, there's Ronald McDonald with quite a menacing look on his face as he's creeping from behind the sign. Talk about truth in advertising; did McDonald's want to give Europeans a subtle hint about the smoke and mirrors it was showing? If one thing was for certain, this picture sums up the disturbing nature of McDonald's marketing to kids by licensing their brand in video games.
By the way, the chain also released two more McDonald's-licensed games for the Sega Genesis: Mick & Mack's Global Gladiators and McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure. Despite being licensed by a fast food chain, both games were actually developed by reputable game developers. Global Gladiators was made by Shiny Entertainment (Earthworm Jim, Aladdin for Sega Genesis, Robocop vs. Terminator) and Treasure Land Adventure was made by Treasure (Contra, Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes). Even more crazy is the fact both games weren't bad at all. It's amazing that despite being a game using a McDonald's license that they turned out to be good. This my friends is an example of taking a ridiculous license like McDonald's and creating an enjoyable and playable video game.
3. The Bible
Okay, so I cheated. The Holy Bible isn't licensed property per se, BUT with megachurch preachers, right-wing politicians, and bible belt lunatics touting the bible like they own it, it might as well be.
It's kind of funny religious video games exist in the first place because most devote Christians loathe video games. I'm certain someone like Billy Graham would call it the devil's work or something like that. But the people at Wisdom Tree don't think so. In fact, video games and the Bible are like peanut butter and jelly for Wisdom Tree. Born out of the ashes of Color Dreams, Wisdom Tree tore out pages from the Old Testament and inserted them in well-known games. So in other words; they plagiarized games like Super Mario Bros. 2, Legend of Zelda, and Wolfenstein 3-D and threw in biblical figures to cover their tracks. So now instead of hunting and shooting Nazi soldiers like you did in Wolfenstein, you hunt and feed animals fruits that puts them to sleep in Super 3D Noah's Ark. I'm sure this will teach kids that Noah ran around his ark with a slingshot and force-fed goats and lions apples laced with Ambien.
That's the thing about Bible games; I always thought that any form of entertainment that has a Christian theme to it is meant to be a learning tool for kids or "inspire" people to become better Christians. And it's not just Christians either. Those of the Jewish faith may pick up other Wisdom Tree games like Exodus and Baby Moses. In any case, I have a hard time believing that strictly-religious parents would buy these games for their kids so they can learn all the different historical inaccuracies in the games or be inspired after controlling a skateboarder who ollies his way to Sunday school.
As far as I'm aware, there's no other video game out there that uses other faiths like Muslim, Hinduism, or Scientology, but I'm sure time will tell when Tom Cruise funds a 360 and PS3 Scientology game.
2. The Noid (Domino's Pizza)
Now this I cannot comprehend. Why would anyone want to license the fuckin' Noid? The Noid! Arguably one of the most annoying mascots in history, the Noid was a small, weird man dressed in what appears to be a red bunny suit and his claim to fame was he wanted to ruin your pizza and terrorized pizza delivery boys everywhere.
While I appreciate well-known claymation director Will Vinton, who created the Noid TV ads, the red menace should've stayed on the TV screen and nothing more. Unfortunately, Domino's had other plans and went to town with a full marketing blitz for the Noid. Their first order of business was licensing a computer game called "Avoid the Noid!". Obviously as the title implies, the purpose of the game is to...well...avoid the Noid.
Who knew that just trying to avoid the Noid would be a life or death situation? Never mind that you're a Domino's pizza boy who's trying to avoid the Noid from murdering you. The concept of this computer game has you working your way up to the 30th floor of an apartment building that has no elevators and is rigged with booby traps everywhere. From dodging missiles, jumping over trap doors, and doing barrel rolls over homicidal Noids, you start to think you're delivering a box of Domino's pizza under 30 minutes or less to James Bond. And if you needed any indication that this insanely absurd computer game was licensed by Domino's, look no further than the actual cover box.
As someone with the privilege of living within range of New York City, I barely bother with Domino's anymore and enjoy damn good pizza from the local pizzerias. But if Sal's Pizza decided to use the Noid as their spokesperson, I'd stop patronizing them for good.
1. Superman
Now before you comic fanboys out there start seething with rage and throw rocks at me, let me explain something. In theory, the Superman license undoubtedly would make a kick ass video game. There's nothing preventing a Superman-licensed video game to make a good game and a kick ass experience. Unfortunately, this is all in theory.
Over a dozen Superman video games have been released and all of them have been bad. I mean really bad. Not just really bad, but historically bad. It's hard to comprehend how video game companies have tried and failed every time they make a Superman game. Atari was first at bat to make a Superman game, but seeing how the Atari 2600 was one of the worst video game consoles ever made, there wasn't much of a fighting change for the Man of Steel. Next up was Kemco to try to make at least playable Superman game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Unfortunately, the Japanese developers over at Kemco either were high on wacky drugs or just being Japanese as Superman for the NES is perhaps the most nonsensical video game in history. I think AVGN sums it up the best on how atrociously bad this one was.
Despite Kemco's darnest to make a playable Superman game, this was just one hell of a black eye for the Superman brand. Afterwards, Sega took the ball and ran with its version of Superman for the Sega Genesis. For some reason, Sunsoft decided to make Superman the ultimate weakling as it didn't take much for the Man of Steel to get his ass whooped. Unless there was a fire sale on Kryptonite, there's something wrong seeing Superman get knocked on the floor by a single bullet when he's know to have them bounce off his chest. The next Superman game to come out was The Death and Return of Superman for the SNES and Genesis and was the best Superman game ever. However, saying that is just like saying Somalia is the best place to go on vacation compared to Chernobyl and Death Valley. It was a ho-hum game with mindless beat 'em up brawling. But the next Superman game to come out was so horrific, so atrocious, so terrible, that it's earned the distinction by many as the worst video game to have ever been released.
There's no argument that Superman 64 sucks, period. If you had the misfortune of playing this, then you know how incredibly crappy Superman 64 was. Believe it or not, Superman 64 was made by the same game company, Titus Software, who also made those dumb Blues Brothers games mentioned above. Good friggin' luck just trying to get pass the first level. For some idiotic reason other than they're French, Titus decided to throw Sups in a fog-infested Metropolis and he's given the task to fly through rings in order to beat Lex Luthor. Sounds easy, but given the fact the controls are as accurate as Helen Keller flying a Boeing 747 to its destination, it's simply god damn frustrating. Miss about 2 or 3 rings due to overly-sensitive controls or not beating the unmerciful time limit and the game tells you to go fuck yourself and start all over again. Top that off with horrible glitches and bugs (especially the ones where you get stuck in the wall and have to restart the level ALL the way from the beginning), this clearly is the worst game to appear on Nintendo 64. The last Superman game to have come out was Superman Returns for Xbox, Xbox 360, and Playstation 2. While Superman Returns wasn't as disastrously bad as Superman 64, it didn't do much at all to remove the stain put on Superman's good name thanks to these shitty games.
To recap, the Superman license makes a great video game on paper. But unfortunately there seems to be a curse when it comes to Superman-based video games. One bad Superman game would just be a fluke, but when virtually every Superman video game sucks, this license is certainly toxic. No wonder it's the most incredibly crappy license for a video game.
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