Retroulette #23: Lethal Weapon

Another Nintendo game, another movie. This one based on the classic 80's buddy cop flick pairing up a guy who's just too old for this shit and a racist. To be honest, I haven't seen this movie. I did however see Lethal Weapon 4, but for the life of me I can't even remember Riggs or Murtaugh even being in that movie. In my recollection of it, it's all about Jet Li and Joe Pesci.

Of particular note is the scene where Joe tells Jet to dance by shooting at his feet, and then Jet Li kicks him in the face.

What does Lethal Weapon for the Nintendo Entertainment System have in store for us?

The main menu of this game is boring as hell.

LETHAL WEAPON it says, with the rest of the screen taken up by ©'s and ™''s. Usually a movie game will attempt to do a pixelated version of its well known stars for the main screen, but this game just knows it would fuck it up. Having seen some poor attempts I must say they made the right call.

After that, the game just...starts. You begin in the game's recreation of the no doubt classic jungle scene.

Our hero, Martin Riggs, is armed only with shiny pants, a mullet, and a flesh colored gun.

Ladies.

There's little chunks of orange on the ground, and when I pick them up, they somehow become knifes. These knives suck major ass though, because when I try to throw them, he just sort of lazily tosses them forward.

To his credit, I probably couldn't punch a knife very far either.

Right in front of me there is a log clubhouse of some sort. It has a man with a tank top and a gun standing on it. He's darker skinned than me, so that's the games way of saying he has to die.

GET HIM!!

Right away, he summons some homies from inside the "building". They proceed to fire what I assume is bullets from their guns, only they are slower than I can walk so I can't say they are much of a threat.

And King Tank Top just watches from his throne at the top of the world.

I dispatch them with a mix of  martial arts and gunplay, which I just invented and will call "Gun Kata" I did invent that right? Let me just look it up...........


shit


Anyway, this is one of those games that is just a series of short single screen fights broken up every once in a while by a few seconds of walking. A few steps after the last confrontation and I'm ambushed by some delivery men.

Special delivery! Of death.

The level continues like this, with a screen of AC Slaters, then a screen of Fed Ex guys, repeat repeat repeat. I somehow kick some Kevlar armor off a guy and it makes me invincible for a few seconds.

Maybe invisible too. I think I'm pretty much the Predator at this point. That would explain why I'm in Central America.

Later in this level I find myself next to a truck filled to the brim with dudes. I can't imagine what 30 men would be doing in the back of a truck in the middle of the woods, but the sound of my kicking piques their curiosity. I stand next to the door and button mash the kick button and one by one whole families meet their end at the hands of...my feet.

Note the shower of power ups. Trophies to my many sacrifices.

After that a fucking helicopter shows up. Or, I assume it's a helicopter. You only see the very bottom of it. It could be a snowmobile for all I know.

It looks intimidating, but after jumping on top of the trucks I kick it once and it explodes. Even fucking Van Damme would be like "Dat shit is retarded."

After this the level just stops making sense. There's a wall, and after you jump over it, the game just decides you're in god damn Egypt now.

That's one lush-ass desert.

Here, another helicopter appears. Since there's no platforms to jump on, this one is a bitch.

Even my might kicks fail me.

I eventually give up trying to kick and shoot at this thing and try to continue on with the level. No dice, it won't let me go forward. Then I try to go back the way I can. It let's me leave the screen, but the screen doesn't come with me so I come back and-WHAT THE HELL?

Best Transformer ever!

 Ok, so I guess I'm Murtaugh now. Was he always standing just offscreen? Just hanging back and watching as I got shot and stabbed and shit. Anyway, he doesn't have much more luck with the chopper for a long time.

After a long time, and I still have no idea how I did it, I blow up the helicopter by somehow throwing one of its own grenades at it.

After that it's more of the same guys for a few minutes until I get to a truck that spits out a spinning Asian man.

This is the "boss" of this level. Although all that means is he takes two punches instead of one. After defeating him the level is over. The next level is-

Oh fuck this shit.

HOW MUCH DID THE COVER ART LIE?

This is probably just the poster for the movie, so I can't say it's very misleading. Other than the fact that it isn't the movie.

This game can't seem to decide if it wants to be Predator 1 or 2. You start out in the jungle stalking buff dudes with guns and then all of a sudden Danny Glover shows up!