5 Strangest 80s and 90s VIDEO GAMES Based on MOVIES
Ever since the invention of the video game, it has been a natural propensity to tie them in with popular films. This makes sense. People love to extend the experience of a movie they cherish. However, some video game/movie crossovers can seem a little perplexing. While this list may or may not make specific claims about the strangeness of the films or the gameplay of the video games themselves, it does question why a video game was conceived for the film in the first place. So, here are five of the strangest 80s and 90s video games based on movies.
“Porky’s” (1983)
In 1981, the mother of all raunchy comedies was made… Porky’s. Then a few years later, someone said, “you know, this movie would make a great video game!” So, in 1983, Fox Video Games and Romox published it for the Atari 2600 and the game is even stranger than the concept of making it. Moreover, in addition to “ET: The Extra Terrestrial”, it’s a good example of why Atari went downhill. I have no doubt that there are many copies of the Porky’s game cartridge next to ET in Atari’s infamous landfill.
The game starts with you as one of the movie’s characters, Pee-Wee (we know this from the game insert) and you are trapped in some kind of sewer. The only way to get out is to arduously pole vault to a platform, get a blinking ladder rung, and use it to build a ladder… over and over and over and over… and over again. Oh, and each failed attempt loses you points.
If you actually had the patience and wherewithal to get to the next level, you are treated with an 8-bit naked lady taking a shower in the middle of a room of ladders. No really, there is a pixelated, 8-bit naked girl taking a shower, just like in the movie. However, when you go to sneak a peep, the girl disappears, and the ghost of Coach Balbricker comes after you. If she catches you, she throws you by the pecker right back to the sewer where you get to practice your pole vaulting yet again… and you lose points.
If you manage to go Pacman mode, dodge the ghost coach, and push a rope down to the sewer, you’ll then be given an exit to the next level which is a whacked out, bizzarro version of Frogger. You must cross multiple lanes of a road full of moving vehicles, creatures… and more 8-bit naked girls, to get to the other side. However, if you get hit by something, you go all the way down to the sewer again where you can once more practice your pole vaulting and then coach dodging skills.
Guess what? Yep, you also lose points.
If you manage to pass the wannabe Frogger gauntlet, you reach the boss level and must dodge Porky himself as you climb a wall path. The catch? There’s only a certain pattern by which can proceed, and it is unmarked. Therefore, you have to conduct multiple sessions of trial-and-error to find the right pathway, all the while dodging Porky below. What happens if Porky catches you? That’s right! All the way back to the sewer with you… and you lose points. If you have enough points and perseverance to actually reach the end, you are rewarded with the honor of blowing Porky’s up, and there’s probably nothing more satisfying after such a tribulation.
BOOM!
The Porky’s game is just as strange as conceiving it to begin with, and anyone who actually put effort in playing this game likely questioned the meaning of their lives and the futility of endeavoring to do anything. But at least it’s likely the first occurrence of nudity in a video game, so it’s got that going for it.
“Paul McCartney's Give My Regards to Broad Street” (1985)
Reminiscing about The Beatles film days, in 1985, Paul McCartney gave the world a musical drama film it didn’t ask for called, "Paul McCartney's Give My Regards to Broad Street” to compliment his album of the same name. Moreover, he thought the trifecta could be completed with a corresponding video game.
Paul McCartney went full Moonwalker three years before Michael Jackson.
Developed by Argus Press Software for the Commodore 64 and Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computers, you too could live Paul’s midlife crisis dreams and drive around an 8-bit London in your 8-bit car listening to an 8-bit version of “Band on the Run”. If you are a fan of 8-bit music and “Band on the Run”, this is the game for you because that’s pretty much all you’ll hear while playing it. But watch out! Hitting another car will send you all the way back your origin at Abbey Road Studios and you’ll lose points.
In the film, Paul loses a master tape of an important song. In the game, the purpose of driving around London is to search for band members who have parts of the missing track. But don’t drive blind! Use the times and Underground station locations as clues to the bandmates’ whereabouts. But don’t arrive too early. The cops will send you away or thugs might smash your car up. Then, back to the origin point you go… and you lose points.
Once you find a keyholding bandmate, you get to watch electronic, middle age Paul McCartney slooooolwy walk to them at the station to retrieve it, then slooooowly walk back to his car. Fortunately, the car runs on digital petrol because that’s a lot of idling.
Once all the missing pieces of the track are found, you return to Abbey Road Studios and, along with your pal Ringo Starr, play a sound puzzle of sorts to mix the song and save the studio.
Once all is well, McCarney slooooowly walks from his car with a guitar and plays a toe tapping rendition of… 8-bit “Band on the Run”. The end is reminicent of a scene in the movie where Paul dreams of playing as a street busker outside of a tube station.
Incidentally, this scene was actually filmed with Paul McCarney disguised as a genuine street busker. He even made some money that day from spectators passing by!
“Plan 9 from Outer Space” (1992)
Publishing a strange video game about a strange 1950s z-movie, often proclaimed the worst film ever made, 35 years after the film was released was… well… strange. However, in the early 1990s, Ed Wood and his films garnered a resurgent appreciation for their delightful awfulness. Ed Wood films became so popular that they were released on VHS, and the most notorious and schlocky among them was 1957’s “Plan 9 From Outer Space”. As an accompaniment to the VHS, a point-and-click PC game by Gremin Graphics was released with the VHS, but it was also made available standalone.
If you are a fan of the movie, you might think that the game is about soldiers fighting UFOs and zombies to keep alien intruders from taking over the planet. That would be a good assumption to make.
But you’d be wrong.
You’re a Hollywood private eye, hired by the film’s producers to track down Bela Lugosi's body double. The nefarious, tall dentist stole six reels of the film. His plan is to colorize the original Plan 9 and edit the film with more footage of himself, and less of Bela Lugosi. How dastardly!
The game starts with the film producer checking your creds and hiring you. The producer is zombie inspector Daniel Clay (Tor Johnson). In fact, zombie inspector Clay plays many characters you’ll interact with. I’m not sure if this was to create a cheesy, low-budget factor or if the game developers truly were lazy, but it does get pretty tiresome.
During your investigation, you go around town in a taxi and explore buildings to talk with informants and gather clues. You have a menu of a number of actions you can take such as use, drop, talk, take and examine. There’s also a list of items you’ve collected thus far.
You continue hitting, using, pushing, giving, opening, closing and generally clicking your way through buildings and film sets. You need information from characters to get items needed to get clues about the location of different artifacts you must buy from people in other buildings… all to the background of some pretty funky, spooky 8-bit music. Fortunately, you can save multiple versions of the game at any time. You will need to as this is obviously a long-form game.
SPOLIER ALERT!
If you have the desire to ever play this game in the future, skip to the next section because I’m about to spoil the ending. However, since I know this synopsis is the closest you’ll ever get to playing it, keep reading.
So, at the end of the endeavor, you are kidnapped by ninjas at the Great Wall of China and taken to a group of Buddhist monks, where you present to them a talisman. You are then deemed worthy by them and allowed to proceed to the Seventh Gate of Nirvana.
Once you’ve passed through, all enlightened and peaceful or whatnot, you’re on a road at night where alien saucers land. One of the aliens praises you (and the mighty Wango) that you have found the complete film because, as it turns out, it is actually a secret battle plan stolen by these seemingly benevolent aliens by the evil emperor Zygaz, who was masquerading as movie producer zombie inspector Daniel Clay the whole time! If you had not recovered the plans, he would surely not only have destroyed Earth, but the entire universe! A good reward for you might be the pleasure zone of Xibdek. Unfortunately, your frail human body would not survive.
My only question is: Why did these aliens have this plan to begin with? It would seem irresponsible to hand plans for universal domination to those who originated them. Jus’sayin’.
Yeah, strange right? Look, this is an interesting game. My problem with it is that there was probably a much more fun “Plan 9 from Outer Space” game waiting to be made for anyone choosing to make it. I can conceive a multi-perspective game with tanks firing at UFOs; airline pilots fighting with Bela Legosi’s faceless body double twice his height and half his age; gravediggers running from Tor Johnson and Vampira. “Plan 9 from Outer Space” could have been an epic game. Instead, it’s a bland, point-and-click PC relic lost to history.
“Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail” (1996)
“Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is a strange movie, and it might be considered a bit strange to make its video game over two decades after its release. However, the film is a beloved British comedy classic. I remember it being still popular in the 1990s so it’s really not a stretch to think a video game adaptation was in order.
In 1996, 7th Level developed ‘Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail’ for Mac and Windows based on the 1975 classic film. It was one of three Monty Python games made by 7th Level. The game included the unique, comic style animation of Terry Gilliam, as well as photo-digital rendered scenes from the movie. The purpose is to travel through the world of 10th century Britain, solve puzzles and collect artifacts that will allow you to cross the Bridge of Death. You know you’re in for some cheeky humor when the start options allow you to watch the full movie… sped up to just seconds, and register the product, which asks you increasingly silly, meaningless questions.
Throughout your adventure, there are several amusing mini games. One is a version of Tetris called ‘Drop Dead’ where the blocks are dead plague victims.
The game reminds you that it was indeed developed in the 1990s with a Mortal Kombat parody of the encounter with the Black Night with a mini game called “Knights in Kombat”. In this game, you essentially dismember the Black Knight with a lot of verbal petulance but no physical resistance.
Another example is a whack-a-mole style game called “Spank the Virgin” where the knight spanks virgins in bed. But watch out! You lose points for spanking bare-cheeked virgins.
A final example is “Catch the Cow” where you must help your knights escape the catapulting cows flung at you by foul-mouthed Frenchman.
Once you’ve completed the puzzles and funny mini games, you can then fill in the missing planks on the Bridge of Death and cross. You are then treated to a weird cartoon and, using a key collected earlier, open a chest and get the Holy Grail!
This is a pretty strange game but ammusing and definitely a must-have for hardcore Monty Python fans. It’s also not terribly complicated with its puzzles and mini games well suited for casual gamers.
“A.D. 2044” (1991 and 1996)
So, there was a game made based on the strange 1984 Polish comedy science fiction film, “Seksmisja” (Sexmission in English). It was a point and click adventure game published by LK Avalon for the Atari 8-bit computer in 1991. However, this obviously wasn’t enough for those clamoring to see more, so they remade the game for Windows PC in 1996.
The movie, now considered a cult classic of sorts, follows two men who are cryogenically hibernated in 1991. They were only supposed to be frozen for three years as an experiment, but they awaken more than a half century later in the year 2044. All men have been eradicated by the “M-Bomb” and only an underground society of women remain. The men end up kissing and escaping their way around the society, trying to avoid sexual reassignment surgery and male genital extraction. Just your run-of-the-mill action, comedy, sci-fi satire of Communist feminism and intergender hostilities. You know… that sort of thing.
As in the film, you awaken after a female rebellion against male domination escalated into a nuclear war that turned the surface of the Earth into a barren wasteland. The remaining survivors live underground and are all females. What hits me instantly is how much the graphics for these games had changed over the course of just five years. It awakens memories of awe from my 1990s inner child, and I can remember just how fast video game graphics were progressing back then. Have a look at this comparison of awaking in the cavern from the 1991 and 1996 versions of A.D. 2044:
“A.D. 2044” scene, 1991 version
“A.D. 2044” scene, 1996 version
You must collect items, interact with the environment, and solve puzzles in order to proceed through the game, all the while narrating yourself, by text in 1991 and audio in 1996. The game is not very straightforward so a lot of discovery, trial and error, is in order and your inner monologue can give you clues on how to proceed. A major difference from the 1991 and 1996 versions is that the former replaced human women with fembots. This is likely to accommodate the Toy Story-esque, polygon type computer animation of the mid 90s.
“A.D. 2044” human female in 1991 version
“A.D. 2044” robot female in 1996 version
SPOLIER ALERT!
Anyhow, you continue to explore underground rooms and caverns, solve puzzles, fight women (or fembots) and eventually make it to the final room where you fiddle with the controls of a machine. Once you’ve fidgeted with it enough, its revealed that the machine makes babies… male babies, complete with their male bits which the game has no qualms about showing you.
“A.D. 2044” male baby in 1991 version
“A.D. 2044” male baby in 1996 version
It’s strange that a game was even conceived for the strange film “Seksmisja” to begin with, and it’s even more strange that the game was made twice. However, I like strange things and I’m happy I was introduced to the film and the games. You can bet there will be a follow up in the future.
There are five of the strangest 80s and 90s video games based on movies. Do you know of any weird video games that were made for films? Let me know in the comments below. Also, be sure to check out our video game and movie episodes of The 80s and 90s Uncensored podcast. With that, I leave you with a poem:
“Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!”
Jamie and Milo debate gaming. and the video game console rivalry between the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation 1.