Nukes and Knives™: Mysterious malfunctions in video game adaptations of film.

Turning a major film licence into a series of video games was always going to work, regardless of the limitations of a particular machine.

All they had to do was to choose the juicy chunks and translate events for you to oversee and decide success or failure.

Okay, we didn't expect pixels to follow them exactly but at least the player should walk away satisfied that whatever they controlled, largely happened.

Yes, it should be really that simple.

In the 80's and 90's, we didn't live and breathe technological wizardry that literally wiped asses, but we had pens, paper, memory, the cinema and VHS...

It appears that having unlimited access to source material couldn't prevent a medley of fuck ups.

Apart from pixels, other unexpected goofs will be mentioned.

There wasn't a video game of First Blood, so the sequel and Rambo III were splattered across home computers on consoles alike.

The 2008 Sega arcade was based on events in the sequel and Rambo III, brilliantly portrayed as a mindless 'hold the trigger down and hope for the fucking best' in a braindead on the rails lightgun shooter.

You could even unleash 'rage' when the gauge filled up which was done by either taking damage or killing enemies. It also joined The House of the Dead 4, Afterburner Climax and Let's Go Jungle, as it ran on the Lindbergh board.

Also, I've no idea if this was released before or after the intelligently named fourth film, 'Rambo'.

I'm in doubt that people across the universe call the sequel Rambo 2, First Blood 2 or what I'd angrily label it - an unnecessary load of shit...

As an example, the C64 had this title by the ass.

A cool loading screen

Title screen

I'm not entirely sure I'd like to place my 'weapon' into a controller port, or anybody else would for that matter.

Right, the title is indeed correct but please tell me why he's handling a gunzooka? I dread to think what would happen if he squeezed the trigger.

It gets worse for the Master System.

The game artist(s) now righted the crazy sleeve art by giving him the correct kick ass tool but now we're playing 'Rambo' (22 years earlier). I can just see Stallone firing up his Master System in 2008 to get divine inspiration.

Incredibly, even a very old DVD trilogy fucked up.

There is simply no excuse.

Now we change the channel to NES in 1988.

Rambo first appeared in David Morrell's 1972 novel - First Blood.

Contrary to what the above believes, he was born on 6 July 1946...

Wow!

At the end of Part 2, Rambo returns to Murdock's hideout and goes crazy ape shit.

Back with the Master System again and what is going on here?

The movie's climax takes an alternative turn and it appears that Rambo is shooting for joy while celebrating with wave happy P.O.W's.

Also, why is his nose so hooked?

I'm hungry. Yer' know I could murder bacon and egg right now.

The Master System is to blame. I wonder why...

Now to see what shit they served in Rambo III.

Arcade

Master System

You'd expect the arcade to be better and it doesn't disappoint, but I'm confused as to why the former has him tying a blue handband and also forgetting about his hand bandages?

The said version was an Operation Wolf rip off.

The Megadrive game sacked that iconic image off and opted for the pose of preparing to fire an explosive tipped arrow.

They were proud to be different.

Now here's how the poster could be translated for the home.

C64

Amiga

I guess his crossbow was too difficult to draw but whatever...

Before moving away from Stallone, let's analyse Balboa.

Master System

The timeline of each film (Rocky V and Rocky Balboa excepted) is:

Rocky - 1976, Rocky II - 1979, Rocky III - 1982 and Rocky IV - 1985.

Why is he draped in the American flag from Rocky IV and what about the year?

It should be 1976-1985 United Artists etc etc.

The omission of the Bill Conti theme is the least of its problems.

We are forced to participate in turgid button mashing training stages and Rocky is wearing the shorts given by Apollo, first seen in the rematch with Clubber from Rocky III.

For the fight with Apollo, he magically wears the correct shorts.

However, there won't be no rematch and Clubber is only fought once.

During an altercation with Clubber, Mickey is taken seriously ill and dies after the defeat by Clubber so how the fuck does he manage to be in his corner as it should be Paulie and one of Mickey's crowd.

What makes it even stranger is that we fight the rematch because Clubber is wearing black shorts (blue in the first fight) but Apollo, Tony and Paulie are missing.

The reanimated corpse even features in the final training stage and is also present in the Drago fight.

Remarkable. Tony and Paulie were obviously expendable.

It's just a shame that we don't have Apollo to further boost authenticity.

When you defeat Drago, you are apparently the World Champion but this was a non-sanctioned match and not for any kind of title.

Here's the end screen.

Remember that? Didn't think so.

Is this romantic embrace supposed to be outside the Whitehouse?

It's a decent bet.

Having raided the Skynet archives, I found this.

The Terminator ending (NES)

Yes it's the correct way to go but why is the light still on?

Released in 1993, the SNES version was equally awful but at least the light does go out (shortly after).

This is followed by a 'didn't fucking happen screen' because while The Terminator's vision is seen throughout the 1984 film, this doesn't occur after the crushing end.
Such a turn off is only briefly shown after the steel lowering sequence at the end of the blockbusting sequel.
It gets weird as we can clearly see numerous names such as Jasper, Craig, Doug, Claire, Bob, Jack etc etc.
The lunatics responsible also forgot to complete an exciting game of Noughts and Crosses.

Speaking of which, let's switch over.

Appliances can cause an unavoidable mistake.

His left eye should move accordingly with his right eye, as Go motion in the fantastic original demonstrates.

Yes I am a picky bugger.

The torture of T2 games won't be entertained so I'm only having a laugh, sorry look, at the Game Boy bits.

This is where you reprogram the Terminator and what the Cyberdyne? He looks more like the back of Peter Weller from Robocop

The cheesy ending message.

If the unknown future rolling towards us is a variation of Sarah's nightmare, then I don't want any part of it.

Der der de der, der de der, der der de der etc etc

Is that how you'd 'hum' the famous Indy march in words? Maybe.

Despite several 'issues', Factor 5 gave SNES owners a great excuse to relive elements of the first three films in 1994.

The artwork uses a bite from the original film's poster

The obligatory junk before play and contrary to box art, Jones is now missing the apostrophe after the 's'.

The title screen is automatically wrong for Raiders as they should have just used the Raiders writing from the poster.

The rest run perfectly as they didn't need to get rid of 'Indiana Jones'.

The Adventures of Indiana Jones DVD boxset happened in 2003 so I guess this was when the original was remarketed with a new stupid title.

All this did was make everybody concerned look like assholes as they didn't bother changing the title for the film in the said boxset and beyond.

I mean come on, anybody who confidently claims that they now call the original, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark is if you'll forgive me, talking bollocks.

Indy dressed in white, with a matching hat on C64.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

Indy, or should I say Atari, blurts out what you're reading during the climax of the 1985 arcade but unless you're smoking something dangerous, it should be:
"Molo Ram... prepare to meet Kali, in Hell!"

How they fucked up such a simple quote is beyond me.

Before you get close enough, you have to whip flaming hearts that Molo Ram throws.

Yeah, the drugs are on fire.

Back to Greatest Adventures.

In fright he turns into a skeleton (and attacks Indy as a poor excuse for a Castlevania boss).
In fear, I tell them all to go screw.

This isn't a criticism and used for comparison purposes only.

The 1989 film.

After Aliens, David Fincher's Alien 3 was never going to work and so it proved.

Regardless of this, it didn't stop Probe having a pot shot on various systems including Amiga, NES, Mega Drive and even C64.

Ripley 'leaves' Fury 161.

The Game Boy equivalent has an 'interesting' script.

Why isn't Clemens here to give you a cocktail of his own mix?

Superintendent Andrews effectively quarantines Ripley.

What key?

Andrews continues...

I totally recall that but then they just got fucking bored.

Ha ha ha!

Dillon hallucinates the Cap'n. Who is the Cap'n and where does he come from?

I'm liking it.

Can you indeed? Oh goodie.

Yeah Ripley, you lure that bitch that didn't exist into the containment chamber.

Dillon advises against it.

However, Ripley is very headstrong...

Now it follows a different path, that still didn't happen.

She checks out by making her escape in the EEV.

Oh dear! I don't know what's worse? Leaving on foot or by air.

Now for the climax that isn't anti.

It is my great pleasure to present to you... Robocop.

Paul Vehoeven's 1987 sci-fi classic refuses to show its age and remains simply brilliant.

I've covered the lunacy of Data East's arcade so just one snippit from insert coin.

Robcop 2 and 3 will also feature.

After Die Hard Arcade, I did promise exploration of another and that's coming, hopefully this year.

For now though, your move... creep!

Arcade
Directive 4?

Amiga
Still no Directive 4.

Spectrum
Well, it's still not right but we're getting there.

NES
At fucking last.

Now your laughing tackle should get a work out.

During the photo ID part, the Spectrum version tasks you recreate Murphy's memory and when successfully matched, is identified as Emil Antonowsky.

Yes, this is awesome as per the film.

This can be random so here are two examples.

Eye brows

Just above his forehead, this Emil seems to have a very small meat and two veg.

So here is Paul McCrane as Emil.

I wouldn't buy that for a dollar.

His crimes include software piracy. Wait a minute, what? Were they trying to be ironic?
You can also add a spelling error to his reccord.

His known assoc[iates] are perfect.

Here's a lovely movie still.

Searching....
Found 'mistakes'.

1. Antonowsky, Emil M.
2. File No. FS05438562
3. Known accomplices, not associates

I continue with the Amiga port that throws Emil out of the window and introduces an unknown.

It later demands a thermal check on the same dude.

He only used his thermograph once in the entire film and that was to surprise Ron Miller who was holding the Mayor and his staff hostage.

Robocop is apparently attacking OCP H.Q.
Nope, he's not.

Dick Jones applies Just for Blondes, or is it a toupee?

I'm sure it's only a glitch, a temporary setback.

The NES talks more shit.

Could Kurtwood Smith look any more goofy and as for Jones, holy shit.
He never gave Clarence any kind of chance as it was to his benefit for him to destroy Robocop. Oh, it's actually the Cobra Assault Cannon.

Dick Jones is indeed wanted for murder but Robert 'Bob' Morton was not a police officer and worked for OCP.
Research costs time, not money.

Irvin Kershner's sequel was very average but Tom Noonan was an acceptable villain and most adverts amused.

Let's take a look at the 1991 Data East arcade, the C64 and selected others.

First off, the 'man' is Hob. Just say his fucking name already.
The script is similar but wrong as it goes like this:
Robocop: "Who did this?"
Hob: "It was big, bigger than... you. It was Cain."
The little shit isn't even near the hole when found by Robocop, he's inside one of his trucks, surrounded by at least 50 million dollars.

Once inside Robocop 2, he never spoke so this is automatically bullshit.

So being human is all about enduring pain? Now I'm really fucking depressed.

Okay, it never happened but ED-209 looks good.
Look to the top right corner and compare it to the logo below.

What a weird mistake. No excuses offered or accepted, they just fucked up.

I think I paid about £20 for the cart only version on C64 and in 1990, that was a shitload of money to shell out for an 8 bit game.

First off, why is Robocop sparkling?
Robocop 2 definitely didn't shoot anybody from the rooftop as he preferred a grounded massacre.

His nemesis looks pretty decent.

Robocop Two? I wouldn't mind but they got it right in the above screen...
What's with the face? For the first time ever, I just want to slap him.

In the arcade, he looked nearly as good as its movie counterpart.

On the Amiga, they should be frankly embarrassed.

Robocop 3 was a train wreck. It made the ears and eyes bleed.

On C64, the title screen was based around Robocop 2 which makes lots of sense.
For the time, 3D was impressively displayed on formats such as the Amiga while others had to settle for crappy 2D action.