 S- S- S- S- NESTRUNK! I really enjoy the heck out of Demolition Man. It's one of the most underappreciated action movies of the 90s. Sure, everyone digs Terminator 2, True Lies, Eraser, Total Recall. Oh, wait, those are all Arnold movies. What happened to 80s action icon Sly Stallone? Well, he kind of tapered off a bit with stuff like Stopper My Mom Will Shoot, Oscar, and the abysmal Rocky 5 that everyone collectively wants to erase from history. Out of this stretch of crappy movies, though, came Demolition Man, and it still holds up today as a completely silly, yet fun and well-made action movie featuring a great villain with Wesley Snipes as Simon Phoenix. And I mean, come on, the movie relied on Rob Schneider for comic relief, and somehow it's still a good movie. I'm not sure whether that's more impressive than Arnie carrying Tom Arnold of all people in True Lies, but it's still a Herculean effort. Of course, since it's a Stallone flick, it came paired with several video games on a bunch of platforms. We got Demolition Man on Sega CD, Panasonic 3DO, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo, which is what you're seeing here. And yeah, this game is yet another solid but unspectacular licensed game in a long line of them. It's not quite as good as Stuff Like True Lies, Alien 3, or Judge Dread, but it's definitely better than Stuff Like Terminator 2 and Last Action Hero. Heh, take that, Arnold. The main thing Demolition Man has going for it is that it's a run-and-gun title that gives your character quite a bit of flexibility. Sure, there's your typical running and jumping and shooting everything that moves, but you can also ride a zipline while firing at everything, which seriously seems like it came right out of a Contra game, so cool. There's also some platforming here, and the jump, uh, isn't the greatest, but you can roll an even bungee jump, and you also do a fair share of scaling walls and ceilings, too. And, most importantly, there's two top-down shooter stages, which are pretty dang fun, especially when you upgrade your weapon to something stronger. You get three lives and three continues to get through 10 total levels with no saves or passwords. The controls are reasonably intuitive, B jumps, Y shoots, A throws a grenade, and the X button actually allows you to stand still and shoot while using the D-pad to aim instead of move, which a lot of games of this nature at the time lacked. The way this game starts is just awesome. I mean, you're jumping out of a helicopter firing at bad guys. How can you top that? Oh, you top it by doing a Karim Abdul-Jabbar skyhook with a grenade into an enemy's face? Wow, that's how. The side-scrolling levels consist of your typical stuff, like maintaining a health bar and upgrading your weapon with the level culminating in a boss fight. But the top-down levels have you recovering hostages, which, uh, unlocks doors somehow. Unfortunately, Demolition Man has some big-time flaws you gotta deal with to enjoy this one. I mentioned how wonky the jump is already, and, yeah, it makes the game feel extremely rigid at times, but worst of all is that jumping and landing from too high of a spot deals damage. Ugh, I hate crap like that. If Mario can land just fine from 80 feet in the air, then what's Sylvester Stallone's problem? Also, I'm sure you've noticed this by now, but enemy projectiles here are extremely tiny. I'm talking, like, one pixel wide. It's frickin' ridiculous. I feel like I need to strap onto my TV an oversized version of one of those old Game Boy magnifier adapter things with the light on it that never worked, just to see anything coming at me. There's also good old-fashioned Ninja Gaiden-style enemy respawning here as well, combine that with a good amount of slowdown and no way to save your game, and you're in for one loooong playthrough. The Sega Genesis Edition of Demolition Man is nearly identical, but it offers much better performance. Yeah, the jump still sucks, but everything is faster and more intense. Also, the soundtrack just feels like it belongs on Genesis. The SNES music by comparison sounds like it was merely ported from the Genesis Edition because it really sounds muffled. I don't know if that's actually the case, but I do know that Tommy Tallarico of Video Games Live had a hand of creating the music on Genesis, so that's probably why it sounds a lot better. I should mention that the Panasonic 3DO version actually has scenes that were shot exclusively for the game, too, which is kinda interesting. So yeah, Demolition Man on Super Nintendo is fine, I guess? I'm running out of ways to call something a good game, despite it not being that good. Uh, Demolition Man is an okay-ish, average-ish, decent-ish game-ish? It definitely has its problems, but I still had fun playing it. There, does that work? The controls feel stiff when you first play, but at least they're consistent, and hey, every level has plenty of stuff laying around that's primed to explode when you shoot at it. So how can you go wrong with making all this stuff go boom, or should I say making everything a murder-death kill? I do think the Sega Genesis game is a bit better, and if you dig that and you want even more Demolition Man content, then you'll want to check out the Sega CD version, as well, since that edition is pretty much identical, but with a CD quality soundtrack and tons of scenes lifted straight from the movie. Regardless, if you're sticking with the Super Nintendo, which, you know, I tend to do for some reason, then that version of Demolition Man is perfectly fine, too. I mean, hey, it beats trying to figure out how to use the three seashells. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.