Hi folks!
Here we are with another addition to the vast world of the columns of this blog. [Games of the Week] will be a quick dive into my collection, focusing on a different game every week (you don’t say!?) that I phisycally own. It could be a game that I love, or that I hate for some particular reason, a game I own since I was a kid or a new addition but it will be surely a game that has its own peculiarity, at least for me.
This project represents a sort of “joint venture” between WordPress and Instagram. My IG page is dormant and it’s time to revive it a bit so every week when a [Game of the Week] post will be online on WP, will be posted also a pic on my IG: maybe some of the few IG followers will discover the blog or some WP readers will get in touch with my other page, who knows…
[Game of the Week] will be a “light” column: no long review, no thing challenging; it’s intended like a momentary still image of a part of my collection and it’s a way for me to keep this blog updated with new contents everyday. I hope you’ll like it 🙂
For this first entry the game is Judge Dredd for the SNES.
Developer: Probe Software
Publisher: Acclaim Enterainment
Platforms: SNES (pictured), Mega Drive/Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear, MS-DOS
Genre: Action, Platform
Release Date: 16 June 1995
Judge Dredd is the last game added to my big family of games (I’m at 645 in the very moment you’re reading this post) and it’s a game that, although not one that I wanted the most, was on my radar since a couple of years.
The games adapted from movies are always a double edged sword: for sure they have “appeal” because they (kinda) follow the plot of a movie that even the non-gamers got in touch with and in some cases they also sell a lot of copies; on the other side their quality is generally low, they thend to become quickly outdated and obsolete and on a collecting point of view they quickly become cheap “fillers”.
In the late 80s and early 90s, games adapted from movies were quite a thing and they were everywhere, from old micros to state-of-the-art consoles: Action was the defining movie genre of the 80s and early 90s and therefore a legion of games based on Schwarzenegger and Stallone movies started to appear. Judge Dredd is one of these, coming from 1995 movie starring Sylverster Stallone, in turn adapted from the eponymous 1977 comic book.
The movie bombed with an average rating of 3,5 and an aggregate score on Rotten Tomatoes of less than 20%, but Dredd received also 4 niminations for 1995 Saturn Awards and its worldwide total gross reached 113 millions $.
And now back to the game. Judge Dredd is a rather standard action-platformer like tons of others of the same era (for example Alien, Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge or Robocop vs. Temrinator) and follow a tried and tested formula that ensures little innovation but good playability.
The SNES port was probably the best one and it received mixed to good reviews. The game is quite fun, sometimes you get a bit lost but you have plenty of freedom of movement, you can kick, punch, shoot, throw grenades, arrest and kill thugs. You control the titular Judge Dredd through 12 levels with the objective of defeating Judge Rico and the Dark Judges. Although Nintendo is famous for its strict policy in terms of violence in video games, Judge Dredd is quite crude and it shows even some blood, but we have also to consider that violence on Nintendo consoles already broke the censorship wall in games like Mortal Kombat II released in 1993, mainly because the gamers were shifring to the uncensored Mega Drive/Genesis version.
Do you own this game? Have you ever played it? Tell me more in the comments section, let’s discuss!
I heard this is a case in which the game is better than the film on which it’s based (not a super-difficult accomplishment, to be fair though).
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The game is a mixed bag but it’s an honest example of its genre. And yes, being better than the original movie is not quite an accomplishment…
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I have this game, and while it looks cool, and has some fun stuff, it’s a slog to get through. I have a soft spot for the movie. It isn’t particularly great, but it is on par with most other Comic book movies of the time. A blend of camp, action, and a hint of brooding. The newer movie from a few years ago did it far better. But at least it wasn’t Batman, and Robin bad.
As for the game, it takes a lot of liberties which is fine. But it’s also nearly impossible thanks to a massive difficulty spike in the last level. Artificially so. Enemy health is insanely high, and even your best weapons do jack. Plus the swarms of Dark Judges make stuff really brutal. It can be done, but you have to be prepared to want to break something.
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Thanks for your “confession” 🙂 I find the game, as you said, not so close to the movie, but with these kind of game is not necessarily a bad thing otherwise it’s like playing a movie where you already know the end. For me it’s very complicated to run through the levels because I easily get lost (probably I have a severe deficit of attention…) and given that I’ve only briefly played in the past and I own it since less than a week I’ve never seen the final part of the game. And I know myself enough to tell you that I doubt I’ll ever see it…
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Great idea for a new column! 🙂 I have this game for the Game Gear. I’ve only played it a couple times (I picked it up for like $2 at a flea market) but it wasn’t too bad when I played it!
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Yes it’s one of those game that are not so bad and that you find yourself playing sometimes but without that much dedication. A good one on the SNES tho…
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