I have an inexplicable soft spot for entertainment that is often defined as…how should I put this? Terrible. I have, of my own volition, watched Manos: The Hands of Fate and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. I have searched out entire episodes of the cartoon Clutch Cargo on YouTube. I have argued, with a fair amount of sincerity,that Ed Wood was “not that bad” a director. I have even defended the existence of Jar Jar Binks.
Michael Jordan: Chaos In The Windy City is surely a video game equivalent to Jar Jar or Manos. Nintendo Power ranked it as the 7th worst game in Nintendo history. It’s existence is a mystery, inasmuch as I can’t imagine how the game was even pitched in the first place. Then again, Shaq-Fu was released the same year (1994) so who’s to say?
The game was a side scrolling action game, which featured you as His Airness. However, you weren’t playing basketball. No, no, no. That would have made sense. Instead, you were rescuing the Chicago Bulls from a mad scientist named Maximus Cranium. MAXIMUS. CRANIUM. And how does MJ learn about this heinous crime? Why, a basketball is thrown through his window with a note from Dr. Cranium attached of course.
But wait, there’s more! Your enemies include Kamikaze Bats, Giant Spiders, Eyeballs, Robotic Monkeys, Mutants, Cyborgs, Snakes, and the Paparazzi. I know what you’re asking yourself: how does one defeat these terrifying hordes? With a variety of sporting equipment! Most notably, you have basketballs. There are regular basketballs, frozen basketballs, flaming basketballs, and basketballs in a variety of colors, but there are also bowling balls, and baseballs that seem to function like boomerangs.
The game also contains a healthy amount of in-game advertisement. You can boost your health as you journey through the game by finding Gatorade and Wheaties.
While others might find this to be a prime example of licensing run amok, I can’t help but find this disjointed and truly bizarre nonsense charming. Then again, I own a comic book featuring the Green Lanterns adventures with Colonel Sanders, so maybe I’m not the best judge of these things.
Until next time, I remain…
Just Another Geek in the Geek Kingdom
