Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. You’d think that with the many successful action films of Arnold Schwarzenegger out there, it would be a no-brainer that there’d be at least some decent video games to represent him. Well, that is far from the truth, as it seems that everything from Predator to Last Action Hero have been handled by companies that just didn’t know what to do with the license, or just slapped something together to make a quick buck. So with this week’s review of the NES version of the classic film Total Recall, does that terrible trend continue? Let’s find out.
YEAR OF RELEASE: 1991
PUBLISHER: Acclaim
GENRE: Action Platformer
Total Recall was a 1990 action sci-fi film directed by Paul Verhoven, who had earned some notoriety for directing Robocop, another gory action flick with heavy science fiction elements. The film was based loosely on the Phillip K Dick story “We Can Remember it For You Wholesale” . The film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was still in the peak of popularity. And that peak helped bring Total Recall to #1 at the box office upon its opening weekend, grossing over 260 million dollars worldwide. And while critics were mixed on the film, it has remained a beloved film. So beloved that the attempt at a remake in 2012 starring Colin Farrell, and has been for the most part panned by critics and fans of the original.
As with most blockbuster films at the time, there were several video game adaptations. But the one we’re talking about this week is the one published by Acclaim, who like their partner company LJN, knew how to sink their claws into many popular licenses, and make for the most part mediocre games. The game was developed by Interplay, who would later go on to make games like Boogerman, ClayFighter, and the cult classic “The Lost Vikings”. This game is often considered by many as one of the worst on the NES. But does that hold true?
COVER STORY
Not an overly amazing cover. Just Arnold’s face with the Total Recall logo and the Schwarzenegger name put on the top just in case you weren’t aware that’s Arnie on the box. It’s pretty much just the movie poster. This is nothing new to Acclaim or LJN, who almost always used movie poster art for their game boxes. Which obviously worked to reel in fans of the film to buy the game.
STORY
Douglas Quaid is just an ordinary construction worker with dreams of going to Mars. When he learns of the company Rekall, which can implant memories of your wildest dreams, he takes up the offer of a virtual vacation to the red planet. But in the middle of being implanted, something goes wrong. Suddenly Quaid is a wanted man, and it seems that someone wants Quaid to forget something from his past. All Quaid knows is that he has to get his ass to Mars. Can Quaid find out exactly what is going on?
GAMEPLAY:
Total Recall is a 1 player action platformer. You control Quaid as he must make it from level to level as he tries to learn just what is going on and who doesn’t want you to remember. You move Quaid with the D-Pad, jump with the A button, and punch/shoot with the B button.
The game for the most part follows the primary scenes of the movie. Quaid must go through the streets to make it to his apartment. From the get go, you’ll see the problems with this game. You get pulled into alley ways by these weird short guys. The game likes to be extremely finicky with how you can hit them. Sometimes it fails to even register a hit until after the A.I gets a shot in first, which can be annoying.
When Quaid gets home, his wife begins to fire at him. And Quaid has to defeat her quickly before Richter shows up and instantly kills you with his shots. It wouldn’t be so bad, but she takes an annoying amount of hits to take her down, and her being so jumpy leads to her missing a lot of your shots, or the game just doesn’t want to register any clear hits. Already you can sense the pattern of annoyance in this game. You then go to the subway, where you have to survive as you pass through the X-ray scanner.
After beating up more cops and dogs, you get to the construction site, where you’ll have to gun down fire wielding hobos,. This is also one large construction site, filled with falling and rising spiked balls, and ladders to go up and down on. You will eventually make it to the boss, this guy who throws his deadly hat at you. You get to Mars, and upon arrival have to shoot more robots that attack you. However if you shoot too many times at the windows, you get sucked out and lose a life.
And then we get into the most annoying level in the game, the car stage. The game detours from its normal platforming, and puts you in a green car as you must avoid enemy cars, mines, and just crashing into walls. Not to mention Richter’s car that can one hit kill you. To move the car, you use the D-pad. You increase speed with the A button, and fire with the B. You have to learn when to speed up and slow down, but even then, it’s not a fail safe method.
You’ll go to the slums of Mars, where zombies, flame throwers, and the deadliest enemy of all… cats. Afterdefeating the boss at the end, it’s down to the final level, where you face off with the main villain, Cohaagen. Beat him, and you win the game, as Mars is now filled with fresh oxygen.
You do get a few items to help you. Main item is the soda cans which will refill a portion of your health. These can be found idle, or randomly dropped from enemies. You do get extra lives, but there are very few to be found. You also get weapons like the pistol and machine guns. Pistols shoot slower, and the machine guns much faster. Other than that, it’s mainly fisticuffs for Arnold.
The game is rather short, only a few quick levels. But they are crazy hard, often with cheap death areas, like in the first boss fight with Quaid’s wife. Much like another game I reviewed, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Total Recall uses high difficulty to cover the fact that the game is lacking in a lot of content. And like Home Alone 2, the game has awful controls, and some of the worst hit detection in any game I’ve played. The timing of the strikes feels off, and it’s not clear if that’s just a fault of the game itself, or if Interplay’s choice of having Quaid be able to randomly punch with either arm has something to do with it.
But one thing I can’t fault is the fact that the game for the most part does stay faithful to the film, representing scenes and moments from the movie. Like the X-Ray scene for example. A lot of licensed games barely focus on key elements from the movie, or in the case of another Schwarzenegger game, Predator, they flat out clearly never saw the movie and took liberties to create something random.
POWER TIP
Total Recall is a hard game. And of course, like most of these games there are no continues, meaning you have to start at the beginning if you die. But the game does throw you a bit of a bone. If you complete the construction site, and make it to Mars, you’ll see a message in a cut scene that mentions that if you hold A&B while watching the movie, you’ll go to Mars. What this means is that if you should die when you make it to any point past the construction site, when you restart the game at the first level, go into the cinema. Hold A&B while watching the credits, and the game will warp you to the first stage of Mars, complete with an extra life for your troubles.
GRAPHICS
The graphics are par for the course. Nothing that’s terrible to look at, but nothing that really shows off the greatness of what the NES can do. The best parts of the game do come from the cut scenes which do a great job of capturing key scenes from the film and do have some well done caricatures of Schwarzenegger. In the end, there’s really nothing bad with the game, even if like a lot of these games, they overdo it on the gray and red, but for the levels they’re intended for, it’s not a major complaint.
MUSIC
The game has rather forgettable music. The title theme is decent, and the stage music while far from the worst ever is also nothing amazing. The lack of the title theme from the film is a bit disappointing, but since it seems like a Rarity with Acclaim and LJN movie games to get the soundtrack right, it’s also expected. In the end, it’s nothing offensive to the ears, but nothing you’ll be humming after playing.
OVERALL THOUGHTS
Total Recall, while it earns major brownie points for sticking close to the source material(though Quaid saying “I’ll be back” when he dies makes no sense), is still a bad game in a lot of ways. The gameplay is annoying with extremely infuriating hit detection, enemies that often don’t die fast enough, leading you to take too much damage, and the game suffers from high difficulty due to limited content. The graphics and sound are nothing special either. This is another fine example of the poor quality that Acclaim was known for, and how more often than not they robbed people out of hard earned money with an inferior game based on a popular license. And while Total Recall fares better in some areas than annoyances like Bart Vs. The World, it’s still a game that could be better, but isn’t. I’d say it’s best not to recall this game, and move on to better titles.
RATING: Thumbs Down