(EDIT) This was originally posted on another blog I used to run. Original post date – 27/02/2014
In my ceaseless crusade to destroy whatever sense of a childhood I had, I have been going back to games I used to own and love as a kid to see if they still hold up today. Some, of course, hold up very well, even if a bit dated, and are still very much playable to this day. Then you have the other section of games which hold up as well as a dam made out of bread. For example, this “game”, Space Jam for the Playstation 1.
I put “game” in quotation marks as I’m not sure exactly who this is aimed at, or if is a game at all. I remembered liking it a fair bit when I was a young boy, but that was probably most likely due to the fact it had the Looney Tunes in. If you haven’t been able to tell because, I don’t know you were kicked by a horse a couple of times in the 90’s, this is a movie tie in game to the film of the same name. The plot involved Professional Basketball player Michael Jordan being transported to the world of the Looney Tunes to help them beat a team of genetically modified monsters who want to use them as entertainment on their home planet. The plot is, well, ridiculous, but it is to be expected when NBA legends are passing to anthropomorphic rabbits and ducks. The film, to me at least, was great and a good watch for kids and adults alike. I can’t say the same for this game, unfortunately.
I think what got me through this game as a child was the nostalgia for the film and the Looney Tunes themselves. The game itself is as bare bones a basketball game as you can get with a few god awful mini games thrown in during the intervals which are completely optional and very easy to miss. Also, by bare bones basketball, I mean the barest of bones. This game at most two plays in it, if only to let the second player play as the Looney Tunes and not the newly made up, characterless “Monstars”. This game would be almost passable as if you could play Looney Tunes vs Looney Tunes, but no, one player can play as their childhood favourites and the other can either play the Monstars or eat shit.
As for the Tunes themselves, you can choose a grand total of three – well, two in all honesty. With Michael Jordan i the game, he is by far the best player in the game, you need to play him. You can have a team of Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam, but good luck winning or having fun. They all play the same anyway, bar a different tackle animation and maybe a well animated dunk move, but other than that you might as well pick Michael Jordan then close your eyes and pick two other random Tunes.
So overall, the game is boring, uninspired, unfair, uninteresting and just generally a terrible movie tie in game. Your nostalgia may see this game and say “hey, I remember liking that game!” and may insist you to pick it up for its sake. What you need to do is slap that little dick down and remind it that you enjoyed the film – your tiny child mind tolerated the game. This exercise in nostalgia beating is making me questions everything I know about gaming in the 90s and early 2000s. I may have to review a good game from my childhood soon so I just don’t end up snapping my PS1 in half. That seems unlikely, seeing the next game I have lined up to play…
RAMBOLIC RAMBLER 