 Everyone's familiar with the old angry video game nerd running gag, right? When it comes to games based on a movie and it's made by LJN, the game has no chance of being good. Unless that game is true lies. Yeah, that's right. A movie-licensed LJN game that's worth playing. How about that? This game is a true hidden gem. I mean, it doesn't get any more hidden than seeing a movie title next to the LJN logo, right? And not only that, but this game prominently features Tom Arnold's face. That sounds like a nightmare. But don't be fooled, this game is a lot of fun. Don't believe me? Just look at the footage here. You get to play as Arnold, you get to shoot bad guys with an oozie and a shotgun, you can dodge stuff by doing a dramatic epic maneuver. You remember that meme? YTMND 2006? No? Okay. Anyway, you can fire in eight directions, you can throw grenades, you gotta watch out for civilians if you kill three of them your mission is over. The graphics aren't a disaster and the sound is functional. There's even a crazy shoot-em-up style level where you control a fighter jet. That's nuts. The game is kinda like Super Smash TV, but starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which is an odd coincidence considering that Smash TV was inspired by another Arnold movie, The Running Man. The best thing about this game is that it knows what it is and it's comfortable with that. It doesn't try to get cutesy or ambitious, and I appreciate that. The game doesn't bother with realistic notions like reloading your weapon or anything, although you can run out of ammo, but you always default to a pistol, so you're always able to shoot stuff. Self-awareness in a game like this is always a positive. There's even hidden weapons, like this flamethrower here. Yeeeaaah. And there's tons of passwords that give you infinite lives, infinite weapons, and stage select. That gives the player the freedom to mess around and experience this game at its best. Board with one mission, switch to another. Okay, so do you have to see the movie to play this game? Well, no. There's no prerequisite to shooting bad guys. The game barely follows the movie anyway, and it's missing a couple major characters, but who cares? However, the movie is arguably Arnold's last great action flick, so it's worth seeing if you haven't. True Lies does have its flaws. The soundtrack is extremely repetitive, and gets old real quick. And some of the levels and maps are mind-dullingly repetitive, like this snow level, where all you really have to do is just get to the bottom as quickly as possible. It's pointless to even shoot stuff, but whatever. Some of the other missions are just way too long, like the subway mission here. There's nine missions total, and there's some that are definitely better than the others. Despite that, True Lies is a lot of fun. I was seriously amazed the first time I played this game, because my expectations were as low as you could possibly get. But go check out True Lies, it's shockingly good. It's also worth noting real quick that this game is also available for the Sega Genesis, and is nearly the exact same game. So even if you're more of a Genesis guy, you can check it out there too.