Hello. It has been a while since I last did a review. I have been pretty busy with school and stuff like that. One of these days I will go through my other reviews and fix spelling, grammar, etc, but for the time being, I dug up this review that was started almost 2 years ago and was only half-finished.

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Moonwalker? More like KIDSTALKER. WAHAHAHAHA!

            Okay, I got my Michael Jackson joke out of the way, but hey, I couldn’t resist. “Moonwalker”, while a good game, is a joke in and of itself. You’re Michael Jackson, and you SAVE CHILDREN. That’s the whole premise. How does Michael you save them, you may ask? By shooting lightning out of his hands, moonwalking, utilizing “dance magic”, and turning into a robot. Hoo boy.

            Now before I begin this review, NO, I don’t hate Michael Jackson. His music is beyond awesome and his dance moves were unbelievable. Unfortunately, after his “Dangerous” album, his career and personal life seemed to have taken a very strange turn for the worse. Keep in mind that this game was released before he got in big trouble with the law. With that said, let’s move onto the review.

            “Moonwalker” was released in arcades in 1990 by SEGA and ported to a few home consoles and computers that same year. The game is based off of the final third of the movie “Moonwalker”, while the rest of the movie is pretty much a bunch of high-quality music videos featuring songs from his 1987 album “Bad”. The plot from this part of the movie involves Michael and his children friends (insert punch line here) stumble upon the lair of evil Mr. Big (Joe Pesci), who plans to get everyone on the Earth addicted to drugs. Michael’s cover is blown, and is living life on the lam. After one of his friends is kidnapped, Michael finally fights and defeats Mr. Big and his army by turning into a giant robot. Oh yeah, the famous “Smooth Criminal” music video is thrown in the mix, which is by far the best scene in what really is a pointless movie.

            The arcade game uses a three-quarters view, and is classified as a beat-em-up. Up to three players can play at a time, with the first person playing as Michael wearing his white outfit from the movie, and the other two players playing as a red and black dressed Michael, respectively. Yes, in this game, you can play as a white Michael Jackson and a black Michael Jack-yeah, you know what, forget it. *JOKE ABORTED*

            You have two attacks: your normal attack, where Michael shoots lighting from his hands, and “dance magic”, which eliminates all enemies on the screen. The normal attack has two variations, with the normal attack being the lightning-thing, and the other which is used when enemies are adjacent to Michael. The attack can be charged by holding down the attack button. Michael will start moonwalking as he charges up, and will unleash his attack when the button is released. The only downside to this is when the attack is fully charged, it doesn’t stay fully charged. In a game like “Mega Man”, charging an attack meant the attack would stay fully charged until it is used. In this game, however, it just cycles back to its semi-charged state over and over again. It’s not a fatal flaw, but it can be annoying at times when planning your attacks. While not exactly addicting, it is fun to beat the snot out of people just by spinning and moonwalking.

            “Dance magic” is represented by Michael Jackson logos above the health bar. You are only given one logo at the start of the game, but more can be obtained by rescuing various kids throughout the game (kids will either give you that, health, or nothing at all). Using this magic will not only kill all small enemies on screen, but also severely damage larger enemies and bosses. All enemies will dance along as a spotlight shines on Michael while he dances along to one of three song clips - two from “Smooth Criminal” and the third I can’t decipher (he throws his hat in a huge circle for this one, so if you happen to figure out the name of the song the sound clip belongs to, let me know).

            Michael can turn into a giant robot by collecting Bubbles the chimpanzee. He can shoot missiles and charge them up as well. Unfortunately, that’s the only thing Michael transforms into. They could’ve done the scene from the movie where he turns into a sports car and outruns Mr. Big’s army as a driving stage for some variety, but that’s what this game lacks – variety. No bonus stages, no secrets, no nothing. It’s just a straightforward beat-em-up. The game itself isn’t that long, either. It’s only 5 levels long, and could easily be beaten in about a half-hour – with some co-op, anyways. Playing by yourself is a pretty daunting task, since what it lacks in variety it makes up for in difficulty. Well into the second level I found myself surrounded by 6 enemies, and each one took several hits to kill. If you try to charge your attack or you’re out of Dance Magic, you’re screwed. Thankfully you can just keep pressing 5 to put in as many credits as you want and keep continuing.

            With these more negative aspects out of the way, let’s look at the positives. The graphics are pretty comparable to something you would see in the time period this game was released, and they really lend to the realistic look of the characters and enemies. The soundtrack is awesome; a handful of MJ’s hits have been transposed into 16-bit arrangements that sound great. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself singing along with the instrumentals, because let’s face it, you know these song by heart: Smooth Criminal, Bad, Another Part Of Me, Beat It, and Billie Jean.

            In conclusion, this game is more of a novelty if anything, and it holds up fairly well. Many might be turned off by its difficulty and lack of variety, or just the fact is has “Michael Jackson” written all over it. On the other hand, though, it has “Michael Jackson” written all over it, and whether you find this odd or just plain hilarious, this game is at least worth checking out. HEE-HEE. OOOOOOOOOH!