Wayne's World (yes, it was made into a video game)
1993
THQ
SNES,Genesis,Gameboy,NES (maybe others but who would care?)
Before comedian Mike Myers was 'shagadelic' and 'randy' as Austin Powers, he was Wayne Campbell of Aurora Illinois, a lovable loser that hosted a public access cable show along side his shy and quirky companion, Garth Algar. A running skit on Saturday Night Live like this didn't really NEED a movie behind it, but people loved the mullet-headed-hair-metal-loving dofuses that looked as if they were making a show while inside of a nogahide walled Midwestern family room basement, surrounded by the very things that made them losers: Their mom and dads antique collection, sports equipment, and 1980's rock memorabilia. These two lovable doucebags sat on a presumably smelly davenport and talked about rock, babes, and... rock. Hollywood of course HAD to squeeze pennies from this half-baked idea.
After the movie was out and was a hit, the other Hollywood; Video games, needed to cash in as well, and thus brings us to the subject at hand: Wayne's World: the video game. That sudden scream of horror or perhaps that quick burst of WTF laughter was you.
I don't know what is worse so please feel free to tell me:
A mediocre movie based on a crappy comedy sketch or...
A Video game about a mediocre movie, based on a crappy comedy sketch?
Whatever- the point is, this game sucked. Wayne is a large-headed bobble doll that runs around with his guitar. Not that cool white Fender Stratocaster that he bought in the film but a really horrible green pawn shop fodder guitar. Hit the attack button and he unleashes a riff that sends out killer sound waves that destroy evil. He jumps incredible distances around levels that sorta resemble guitar shops and rock clubs, defending the world-Wayne's World- from what is presumably evil,... bad,... things. He does all this with a sarcastic grin on his face that just fuckin BEGS to have a foot violently shoved in it heel first.
I have played this catastrophe and haven't even made it past level one. This is somewhat due to bad playability, but its mostly due to just the absolute horror on screen. I would rather watch a a farmer have sex a dead goat than play this waste of electricity. OH I forgot, did i mention WHAT KIND of evil your fighting and jumping around about? MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS!! but these are not 'cool' musical instruments like guitars or basses, oh no! These are lame ones like bag pipe with evil eyes on them that float around and assault you with noise. Drum sets that pummel you, and who wouldn't fear the mighty accordion that whacks you when you get too close? I didn't even lose at this game and I wanted to stomp a mud hole into my controller after playing. I think the only high point is hearing the sound clip of Wayne saying 'Shawing!' Wow thats pretty risky, a video game penis joke in 1993 didn't happen.
The gameplay is muddy, frustrating, and very untested. It seems like this was a rock and roll platformer that just had Wayne's annoying smile pasted to the character. This game features odd cut scenes that contain sketch inspired dialogue, but none of it is funny. There was no need for this game, and no reason to believe it would convince gamers to spend $50 or even $10 on the cart. This is the kind of game cart you accidentally steal while at a Goodwill when you were looking at the suspecting old bag behind the counter and were reaching for that must-have Gradius 3 cart but missed your mark, you get home pull the plastic box out from inside the crotch of your baggy jeans and DAMMIT you got the wrong one.
Now as I write this I realize that games and failure of this kind wasn't uncommon in gaming back in the 90's or even now. A lot of bad games are games based on movies, a movie comes out, people like it, and they want to experience it at home. No problem, but why do games based on movies usually SUCK?
Remember ET? Atari, armed with its 2600 console made a game based on the successful 1982 film and rushed its release date and gave the poor programmer only 6 weeks to build the game. The end result was appalling, the game made little sense, the graphics were ugly and made ET look like a mangled green cock. The gameplay consisted of falling in about 200 holes in order to find pieces of his phone to 'phone home'. This game was loaded on millions of cartridges and all of them came back to Atari. Along with that, Atari was in a financial crisis due to banking way too much on this game and the success that it never had a snowballs chance in hell of receiving. The video game crash was now in full swing and 1982-83 became a dark 2 years for gaming. It might not be ET's fault alone, but you don't end up burying millions of carts in New Mexico on 'just a bad call'. Its true. Atari broke and overstocked buried millions of ET carts, when faced with dire circumstances.
Things are different nowadays but very little has actually changed. Total Recall on the NES, Wayne's World on the SNES, Genesis, and Gameboy, Waterworld- and in this modern age- Enter The Matrix. The industry just hasn't learned its lesson. Very rarely does a video game based on a movie do well in the eyes of gamers. I myself think we all could do without it, we don't need crap based on crap, it just piles higher and higher.
Thank God Lucasarts makes Starwars games that deliver the goods, so maybe I'm wrong. But come on- WAYNE'S WORLD? Why?
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