So MJ passed away recently, the first thing I did was blast some of my favorite hits. Second thing I did was fire up Moonwalker both for Genesis and the old MAME. You see I grew up during the Micheal Jackson rise. Not to be a jerk but I grew up watching him go from black to white. He was larger than life (cliche alert) and I can think of a few things that he probably didn’t make: cereal, underwear and some sort grill.I’ll be shocked to see another pop star do what he did. But you know what that means, he made some video games. I’ll touch on two(bad MJ joke waiting to happen) that I’ve played. They both have the same title Moonwalker. This was based on the movie of the same name.

MJ’s just out enjoying a happy day with the kids and then all of sudden Danny DiVito(who has an obsession with spiders) snatches them. Micheal has to get them back simple right? But along the way we discover good ol’ MJ is capable of transformation. Yes just like in Transformers 2 how the chick turned into a robot or vice versa, you wanna know where she learned that from ? MJ,that’s right. The only difference is that MJ needs his monkey bubbles or a shooting star to transform. Anyway a few music videos later Micheal defeats DiVito and we all live happily ever after. So how does that translate into gaming, pretty well actually depending on what version you’re playing on. Let’s get to that.

The arcade version of Moonwalker was a 3 player machine. 1st player got the Smooth Criminal version of Micheal, the 2nd player got a red variation of this one, 3rd player got the sexy one a black and red ensemble (my favorite). The controls are simple attack and dance(Genesis would add a jump button and change the dance button to magic.more on this later)

Apparently Micheal Jackson knows Kido (Bleach Magic) on top of being a world renown dancer
There were only 5 stages in the game but broken into 3 segments each.Each stage was based on on a song in Mj’s career. 1st level is the song Bad and you’re in a underground cavern,2nd level is Smooth Criminal and you’re outside going to a club, 3rd level is at night and you’re back on the same street but Beat it is playing. 4th level is a cemetery and the song is Another part of me, I don’t know what album is from. The song isn’t bad just obscure anything involving zombies and Micheal Jackson should just be Thriller. I guess there was a problem in making the Midi ? Last stage you’re back in the Cave which makes me wonder why’d you leave in the first place. If you’re in his base why would you not end things there and then, I know I’ve tried too.

Here’s the brief break down.

• The music on this game even though in Midi format is good, you can identify it and when MJ starts bustin’ a move you can jam out a little bit too.
• The sound was however really weird. You’d get some little snippets of MJ and Devito making sound effects. It’s a funny listen, trust me.
• Controls were simple, attack or dance. Like most arcades from this golden era you had a screen clearing attack(dance) that you only have so many of before you died and was refreshed.Finding children could give you some more dance or health depends on which one you find. Holding down the attack button caused MJ to hold his hand over his head and moonwalk. You released it and you hit the enemy with a super powered attack.
• Visuals even now the game doesn’t look that bad. It wouldn’t be bad on a cellphone or something. The sprites move well,you haven’t lived until you see the man in the wheel get down,

Overall it’s a fun arcade game and a definite quarter muncher .It has the feel of Smash Tv a little bit.

Fact: Dogs love to dance.

The other Moonwalker is based on the arcade game. Same concept 5 stages,5 songs rescue kids the order of the stages are Club,street,graveyard,cave,base.The game went from the top down beat em  up to a platformer of sorts. It was really scaled down from the arcade.The songs are pretty much the same. I guess they were trying to push Another part of me.

Protip:You can shove your crotch in little girls faces by pressing up on the D-Pad.

The game  added jumping because MJ needs to err  jump. The dance button becomes the magic button which Micheal spins in place until more than half of his life is gone then, he starts dancing or throws his hat. It’s worth noting that once MJ runs out of magic he takes to the streets and starts punching things the face.  So you go through the game finding kids and beating up bosses and dogs till you show down with Danny Divito, i mean Mr. Big. You defeat him and then he escapes into his space ship. What’s MJ to do? Why transform and chase that mofo down of course. You beat Mr Big again and the end, happy ending!

Quick break down

• The music was actually worse than the arcade due to the quality of the Sega software. It’s still MJ’s good stuff so you can’t really be to down on it.
• The game play was ass. Sorry MJ the arcade blew this away. The game is a lame platformer with a low difficulty. There’s a reason this game is one the worse Celeb endorsed games.
• This game doesn’t look as good as the arcade. Jeez that’s starting to be the theme of this. Not as good as the big brother or sister?This game should have just starred the other 4 brothers of the Jackson 5 and Latoya. Then maybe this would have been an ok game.

I’d recommend people find MAME and this rom before I say get a console version. Who knows we’ll probably be seeing some MJ in DDR and Rock Band(NOT ALIEN ANT FARM). The arcade is worth plugging quarters for this one photo

Gah put that thing away

Fun fact young phire was scared shitless of Thriller.

2 Responses to “Thank you Mike, Retro review :Moonwalker”

1. ForteWally says:

   July 1, 2009 at 9:56 am

   When I was young, I would run out of the room when it came on…you are not alone. (See what I did there)
2. Beast1x5 says:

   July 1, 2009 at 11:59 am

   I say Let’s bring out my modded xbox and play some moonwalker arcade version!! I’m automatically included and so is Phire..who’s the 3rd player??