Sunday, February 26, 2017

Shaq-Fu (Super NES, 1994)

Shaq-Fu is a legendary game starring one of the NBA's most beloved players: Shaquille O' Neal. It exposes his secret double life, which consists of saving orphans from nefarious aliens and looking out for his neighborhood. A Boston Celtic (and formerly LA Laker and Orlando....uh...Magician), Shaq recently celebrated his birthday at the Boston Children's Museum with a bunch of kids. So basically the Shaq in the game is pretty similar to the real one... just with mad Kung Fu skills. With everything he does for this city, I'm surprised that Shaq isn't an honorary Boston Red Sock.
All of this should not be confused with former Chicago Bulls superstar Dennis Rodman's double life, which consisted of penis tattoos and doing drugs that haven't even been named yet. To put this in perspective, if we could get back all the money that was wasted keeping Rodman under lockdown at Animal Control, the United States would be on Mars.


One man who certainly is no fan of Shaq-Fu? Kobe Bryant.


"Where's MY Kung Fu game, bitch? I'm Kobe Bryant!"

The story begins with Shaq on his way to a charity game, because he is a hero to MILLIONS.

But wait! If there's any one thing that can distract our hero from helping raise money to save orphanages, it's Kung-Fu.

Stuff happens, and Mrs. O'Neal's Baby Boy gets warped to some sort of hell dimension. I hope it's one where the time passes differently than here, or else Shaq might miss the game. The orphans may forgive, but they NEVER FORGET!

It seems Shaq has to rescue a child that got kidnapped by the fiendish aliens/demons/whatever that inhabit this strange new dimension.

Sword Haduken! It's approaching his shins at nearly 1 MPH! Quick, Shaq! Jump! JUMP!!

After a pitched battle, I barely win my first match. The control in this game is pretty awful... but that said, it ain't the worst game ever. It's kind of fun and entertaining. Then again, I paid nothing for this game except a few minutes of my life. If I'd paid $60 for it back in the day I'd be singing a different tune.

Next, Shaq encounters a dastardly cat woman, and she wants to do stuff to his body.

Too bad for her that unlike most athletes, Shaq STAYS LOYAL TO HIS WIFE!

Because attractive characters are never actually evil, she turns out to only be under mind control. Of course!

 Whisper it in his ear after you slap him silly? That's a little bit fruity, bro.

The guy proceeds to administer a firm THWAP to our hero. "Take that!"


 He called her "girlfriend"? That's...that's a little fruity, dude. Next thing we know he'll be snapping his fingers and telling her not to go there.

She's easily the game's resident sex symbol, with the most obnoxious boobs I've seen in a game since the last time I played Kirby.

After losing she cops a feel on herself. Now if only our senators could do that, we wouldn't have all these scandals.

The other side of the overworld... and the final area is a pyramid. This puts Shaq-Fu in the company of other great classics like A Link to the Past.

You know, I heard the terms "first world" and "third world" many times in college, but never "second world". Now I know why: schools don't need to talk about it, because the second world is already covered by Shaq-Fu.

Our hero fights The Beast next. He's basically the game's Goro, and he's pretty tough.

He'll be back. That just leaves the leader of the villains between Shaq and world peace. Why did they kidnap this boy in the first place? Because he is The Golden Child, starring Eddie Murphy.

Here's the bastardly Sett Ra. He's like a combination of Shishio and the Road Warriors/Legion of Doom. And it suddenly occurs to me that this may well be one of the weirdest games I've ever played.

BOOM! How can Shaq battle a foe who throws waves of energy?

::orphans, sick children, and poor urchins everywhere begin to pray for Shaq::

Unfortunately their prayers don't have any effect. WELL THANKS FOR NOTHING, KIDS!

Shaq raps too? I hope so, because otherwise the bad guy is referring to a rap sheet, clearly confusing Shaq with Dennis Rodman (who once made love to a cabbage mid-game).

The battle rolls on! THIS is Shaq-Fu intensity!

...finally I take the guy down. It involved a lot of spamming of strong kicks and the fact that my jump kicks always seemed to beat his jump attacks. It's all the button-pressing of Street Fighter II with none of the strategy or responsiveness!

SHAQ IS A TRUE HERO!

He sure DID have to "fight" some traffic! ::laugh track is heard::

The Beast appears! DUN DUN DUNNNN!
 
...and he wants to shoot some hoops?! ::laugh track is heard::

With that, I am the champion! I'll celebrate by enjoying a frosty bottle of Rolling Rock™.

Opinions on this game? Yeah, it was pretty bad. But considering it took me like 20 minutes to finish, it's not like I had any real problem with it.
Will we ever see Shaq-Fu 2? Time will te... .........no. No we won't.

5 comments:

  1. Hell yes! Thanks for bringing this classic online, and I'll send it around!

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  2. LOL... Only in the 90s would something like this fly...

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  3. awesome. I need to find a way to play this game again.

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  4. "With everything he does for this city, I'm surprised that Shaq isn't an honorary Boston Red Sock."

    He's already a Celtic, isn't that enough?

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  5. This plot in this game is way ahead of its time.

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