Well, well, it seems that Michael Jackson, the proclaimed "King of Pop" has well..finally popped, at the age of 50. World renown for his songs and music videos, and also known in the U.S. for his supposed kiddy fucking and bizarre appearence and behavior, he did things here and there in the gaming industry that while, not very remarkable, are somewhat memorable. What are they? Well, I guess I should go into them, to justify this post.


First of all, I have to admit, I didn't grow up a Michael Jackson fan. By the time I began noticing music, it was the mid 90's, and by then, Michael Jackson had formed his creepy, bizarre, pedophile image he's known for (in the U.S. at least) nowadays. I remember the first time I saw him was when my older sister was watching the music video Scream on MTV, and I asked my mom, who was watching it with her, why this certain woman in the video was so ugly. She turned to me and told me it was not a woman, but a man, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop no less, and that he was not ugly. I was shocked such an ugly, creepy looking person was so popular. Then I pretty much didn't hear of him until years later when Michael Jackson did that whole baby fiasco, and can remember almost wanting to puke when seeing pictures of his face, and I pretty much decided this was one sick freak that somehow captivated the world, and then lost it all by being having his sick actions revealed to the world. Fast foward years after that, well, okay fast foward pretty much to now, and I decide to look into the infamous Sega Genesis (Mega Drive..whatever) titled Moonwalker (based on the musical), and well after discovering it was a popular yet mediocre game, I found the soundtrack super catchy despite being done with the shitty FM and PSG chips the Genesis was equipped with. So naturally, I decided to check out the source material, and well, I became a fan. Mostly of Thriller, Beat it and Smooth Criminal. Well, pretty much all of his stuff from the 80's. Don't get me wrong, his songs from the 90's are good, but they're also bizarre and cheesy, to say the least, so I prefer his work from the 80's. In fact, I consider growing up in the 80's a sort of lost opportunity, partially because I would have liked growing up with the image of Michael Jackson being a cool pop star rather than being a creepy maniac with a tad bit more fascination with little boys than he should, but anyway, let's talk about his involvement with video games, shall we?


Let's start off with Moonwalker, and no I don't mean the Sega Genesis game or the Sega arcade game, I mean the Commodore 64 and Amiga one. You're probably thinking, "What the hell?"


Yes, just a year after Sega had worked with Jackson to make not one, but two Moonwalker games, the rights were acquired by U.S. Gold (don't remember them? Remember Putty? No? Nevermind.) and they went ahead and made a completely different game that was released on the PC and on various computer game consoles.


The game was completely different from Sega's side-scrolling action games. It was mostly a top down maze game in which you had to find pieces of CD's to advance to the next level. Yes, that is really the objective of most of the levels. However, this is one side-scrolling (sort of) stage where you get a gun and start shooting at random gangsters. Again, seriously. Not really much more to say on this game, there's really nothing significant about it. Since it's on hardware even inferior to the Genesis, the musical translations are not very good and are not worth a listen.


Okay now on to the infamous Genesis game. Released in 1990 and designed by, well Michael Jackson. Yeah, he actually designed the game. This wasn't some cheap licensed game, it was actually the video game version of Moonwalker designed by Michael Jackson, with help from Sega. So to the unknowing person, you'd think this would mean this is by far a good and faithful game to the King of Kings, of Pop? Nope. On the surface, it would Jacko was as bad at game design as we was good at music, however, the game really is nothing more than a mediocre knock-off of Shinobi, another Sega game, so it begs the question how much involvement did he actually have with the game design. He didn't even remix the music in the game, it was done by a composer named Hiroshi Kubota.


The game is as redunant as hell, but it also switches an objective or two around in every level, without any hint, so it gets confusing as well. The controls are also a bitch to master, and the boss fights are ridiculously brainless, sometimes amounting to just a barage of normal enemies at the end of the stage. Michael really put his creative edge into this, didn't he? And what the fuck is up with those kids? They all look like blonde boys in female cheerleading outfits, and the way they say Michael after you go "rescue" them? Disturbing as hell.


The only good part of the game honestly is the music. As I've mentioned before, despite the horrible sound processing on the Genesis, the instrumental remixes of Jackson's songs are really catchy and overall, very good. That's really all I have to say on the game. I could review it, but it's already been reviewed thoroughly, such as here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2MI73_ueMQ&feature=channel_page, and I really don't have anything that different to say about it. Okay, moving on.



The next game we are going to discuss is Super Metroid, and again, I bet you're thinking, "What the hell?" Yes, Michael Jackson sort of has something to do with Super Metroid. What, you ask? Well, he didn't have any involvement with the games development or anything like that, but the game does feature his signature moonwalk. Yep, and is it a hidden feature? Nope, it's accessible from the beginning, and its main purpose is to allow you to shoot backwards. Cool, eh? Nothing more to say on that.


Now on to one of the most famous relationships between Michael Jackson and video games, and we're going back to Sega here. Supposedly, according to some (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbVM-l2Oku4&feature=fvst) Michael Jackson was asked by Sega to do the entire music for Sonic 3, but after the whole kiddy fucking scandal happened in '93, he decided to scrap the idea. When I first learned of this, it seemed to make sense, as the music in Sonic 3 and in Sonic and Knuckles sounds very much like Michaels music. And even more so, many people who worked with him in the past actually worked on Sonic 3 to the end. So it seemed like a cool collaboration that just officially see the light of day. But still, the idea of Michael Jackson doing the entire soundtrack to a video game is pretty awesome.

However, it seems, according to some (http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=392&title=Sega%20Legends:%20Michael%20Jackson%20&%20Sonic%203), most of these claims are exaggerations and just urban legends, and the King of Pop didn't pop his way into Sonic 3 after all. But you know, whether that's true or not, this makes a perfect sort of mix, don't you think? You have a pop music sensation turned into creepy pedophile pariah and you have a cool, edgy video game series turned into a creepy bestiality and anime ridden embarassement. Both things were once kings in their respective fields, and now, more or less, cannot be mentioned without someone making a wisecrack or a joke about them. And furthermore, the music in the Genesis Sonic games really do resemble Jackson's music, in all of them. Hell, when I play them, oftentimes I mute the music and just play Jackson in the background. It's fitting, both being pop culture icons of their times. I have no idea if he did do the music and it simply got remixed or that he had little to no involvement and it is just urban legends on the internet, but it's interesting nonetheless. However, it is certain Jackson was making music for an Adam Familys game (wait, what?) for the Genesis that did get scrapped.


Well, he'd do very little involvement with games after the early 90's, helping Sega yet again with a game called Space Channel 5, which he actually was featured in. There was even rumors that EA was working with him to make a Thriller 2, to help with his massive world tour that was planned in July. Damn, that would have been awesome.


Well, that's it. Yeah, nothing too special, so I guess I should end this with some sort of closing message of some sort. Well, here it goes: Whether you remember him as a excellent singler, popular culture sensation and an excellent entertainer, or some creepy, bizarre, mentally disturbed freak who ended up molesting children and deserved all the ridicule he got, please stop telling those tired jokes about him. They're not funny. "LOL, did you hear, Michael Jackson blah blah blah cummed on some kids face, LOL!" No.






..Okay, the posters can be kind of funny.

I just mentioned rape twice already on this blog.