I was roaming around on retro video game message boards when I discovered a topic entitled "The Worst SNES Game Ever Made". Naturally, I read it. Most of the users posted completely obvious and unoriginal games, such as Home Improvement, Ballz 3D, and Bebe's Kids, then a user named "DingleBerry_Dragon" mentioned Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City. Naturally, I immediately downloaded the ROM. I opened my SNES emulator, loaded up the game, and all my expectations melted away when I noticed that it was published by Electronic Arts. Any similarities to another game that also includes a popular black basketball personality of the 90s? Yeah. But, I pressed the start button anyway, and was greeted by maybe the worst opening in a video game ever, which I will explain in detail during the Story section. I will again be reviewing this game on a scale from 1-10. 1 being Cliffhanger, 10 being Super Mario Bros. Let the dunking begin!
STORY: I am obligated to yet again compare this title to a certain game that rhymes with Shaq-Fu. Mike is at the court, ready to practice for the charity basketball game. You gotta give EA points for originality. But wait! The team isn't there! Then... BAM! A basketball with a note taped on it crashes through the skylight. Michael reads the note and finds out that a guy who calls himself Dr. Cranium says that if Mike really wants to save his teammates, he should come to the museum at midnight. Not scared easily, Michael goes to the museum and finds a secret door that
leads to an underground prison. A prison filled with basketball-headed scarecrows, strongmen, evil baseballs, robots orangutans, and sexy, naked, lesbian convicts. Okay, I made that part up. There is no ending whatsoever and the only reward you're given for beating the game are credits, with Michael Jordan dancing and dribbling in the background. Thanks for the fucking closure, EA.
CHARACTERS: Very few. Michael Jordan, of course. Dr. Max Cranium, the evil midget genius who unleashes his boss monsters on you. These bosses include: a weird monster
made of basketballs, a floating head zombie thing that spits blue fire balls at you, and Uber-Jordan, a bizarro version of Michael that tries to kill you. Other characters include the teammates that Michael frees throughout the various levels in the game. They spout out cheesy 90s dialogue and have no real purpose in the game other than acting as hidden items. Shaq-Fu had better characters.SOUND: Average. There is nothing original about the sound effects. You hear the balls you throw hit enemies and the environments with a dull popping sound. There is one awesome thing, though: when you pause the game, Michael exclaims, "TIME OUT!" in his deep, awesome voice.
MUSIC: Maybe the most uninspired music in a video game. Haunted house music plagues the entire game and is just as uninspired as the level design. Lame, with a capital 'gay'. After two hours of playing, I turned off the in-game music and cranked Disturbed.
CONTROLS: One of the few great things about this game. The controls are fluid and do what you want them to do. The platforming is usually precise and dependable. Slam-dunking is fucking awesome.
GAMEPLAY: Remember the terrible gameplay in Shaq-Fu? This is nothing like that. Not only are the controls great, but Chaos in the Windy City actually brings something new to the table as far as gameplay mechanics go. Remember the bricks in Super Mario Bros, and when you jumped up from under them, items came out? Yeah, this game has something like that, except instead of item bricks, there's item basketball hoops.
Pressing the X button and left or right on the D-Pad causes M.J. to jump in the air and slam-dunk his basketball. Of course, an item comes out, usually a ball of some kind. It truly makes the player feel "like Mike." Another thing, this game has balls. The game's main source of useful items consist of balls. Balls are the weapons in the game, and there sure is a lot of variety. You never run out of the regular orange basketballs, but you can obtain flaming orange basketballs, magic yellow sparkly basketballs, bowling balls, green balls, red balls, and of course, blue balls. Yes, I can honestly say that Michael Jordan has blue balls. One real problem with the gameplay is that all you really do is collect different colored keys to get access to different areas of the level, i.e. Doom. It gets very monotonous after awhile. Also, the locales in the game are boring and completely uninspired. A haunted prison, a haunted house, a haunted laboratory. They try to switch things up in between worlds by letting you play a short minigame where you fight paparazzi on the top of a moving train. Yeah, I know. The game also has a world map similar to Super Mario Bros. 3/Super Mario World. On the whole though, the gameplay is pretty decent. Except for the health items. Gatorade and Wheaties!?! Unacceptable, EA.GRAPHICS: Not great. For one, Mike's facial animations make him look like an ape. Not only that, but the backgrounds aren't really animated much. However, if you leave the controller alone for a while, he'll dribble his basketball. The enemies aren't animated that well either. Except for the bosses, the bosses look pretty cool. For instance, the basketball Frankenstein monster looks pretty badass as he throws his body parts at you. They also add a cool 3D look to the bosses. Pretty average otherwise, though.
OVERALL: It seems that EA came to their senses after the release of Shaq-Fu and gave us a game that was, at the least, playable. Sure, the story is terrible and the in-game advertising is absolutely shameless, but the decent gameplay and the fun slam-dunking gimmick make this game worth the admission price. Be warned though, this game does get old a little too fast. Most of the levels have too much key-searching and backtracking for it's own good. I've been comparing this game to Shaq-Fu alot, but in all honesty, they have not much in common as far as gameplay goes. This game is a cheesy good time if you're not expecting Super Mario World or fast-paced gameplay. I really could give you a better reccommendation, such as Donkey Kong Country, Yoshi's Island, or Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but they don't have the awesome oneliners and that cool slam-dunking mechanic, so I will leave you with a low-reccommendation. Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City gets a 6 out of 10.
P.S.,
I know I've done two games about African-American basketball players, and I wanted
to review RapJam: Vol. 1 for SNES after this, and they're all corny/cheesy 90s games, but I think I'll save RapJam for Black History Month. P.P.S., If the above comment offended you, I'm sorry, I was only kidding. I don't believe in Black History Month.
Sincerely,
Mr. Retro
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