Developer: Malibu Interactive Publisher: Sony Imagesoft Release: 10/93 Genre: Beat em up
Acclaim were the main arbiters of bad licensed video games but trust me they were not the only ones. Activision, THQ, and Hi-Tech Expressions were right behind them shitting up store shelves with some of the worst games on the planet. Sony Imagesoft’s lineup oddly enough was a mix of good licenses such as Mickey Mania but awful movie tie-ins like 3 Ninjas Kick Back and Last Action Hero. Cliffhanger falls in the second category as one of the worst beat em ups of that era. I do not know how you screw up a simple brawler but somehow they found a way.
Like almost every movie tie-in Cliffhanger loosely follows the plot of the movie. In this case Gabe Walker responds to the distress call before Hal is captured, and now must find the three cases of cash to save his friend’s life before he is killed. Sony was sure Cliffhanger would be a huge hit as they had games prepared for almost every major platform at the time. The NES, Gameboy, Game Gear, and Amiga games are all the same terrible side-scrolling platformer. The 16-bit versions are beat em ups and not particular good ones at that. The Sega CD version has a few extras that stand out and someday I will get to it. But mercifully that day is not today.
Cliffhanger for the most part is a beat em up. While Gabe Walker is a beefy protagonist this is one of the most rudimentary brawlers you will come across. You can punch, kick, and jump kick and have a requisite sweeping special move that consumes health. That is all. You cannot grab enemies to throw or perform grapple moves, just simple two or three hit combos. At least you can block attacks I guess. Someone must have realized how tedious this is as you will almost have a knife of some kind to kill enemies faster. Aside from the knife sometimes an enemy will drop a machine gun with limited ammo.
Despite the game’s simplicity the controls are stiff and unresponsive. Gabe is slow to respond which will lead to many cheap hits. But the worst are the running and jumping controls. The jump distance is imprecise and often feels random, especially when running. Unfortunately the game calls on it heavily in its second half and it is aggravating. The sluggish movement makes basic combat a chore if you do not have a knife and something you will dread. The only good thing about the game is that you face few waves compared to your average brawler. Instead the game relies on platforming heavily. Unfortunately it is awful at it.
Platforming and brawling has never been a good combination. That applies here to a tee. I will say this: I applaud the developers for at least trying to vary the gameplay and incorporate elements of the film in to the game. But man do they botch the execution spectacularly. The many auto scrolling segments suffer from bad collision detection resulting in instant death constantly. These segments should be thrilling. Instead they are frustrating due to little warning of incoming objects. I suppose once you memorize the layout of each segment it becomes a dance with practice. But they are so bad it is not fun. The rock climbing portions are slow and plodding and riddled with near unavoidable instant death. The gotcha moments are strong, almost as if they did it on purpose to stave off weekend rentals.
Beyond anything else, the stale combat and the terrible platforming, more than anything else Cliffhanger is just boring. Let’s be honest; the movie took place in one location so there is no variety in scenery. There are only six enemies in the game and they repeat ad nauseam. To the game’s credit checkpoints are frequent and extends come frequently to help ward off the cheap deaths. Level four in particular will likely drain your lives as it is long with far too many platforming sections that highlight everything wrong with the game. The only reason I bothered to beat the game was for the sake of being thorough. It is a dirty job but someone has to do it. There is a reason why it took so long to get around to this review.
In Closing
Cliffhanger is bad. This is easily one of the worst movie licensed titles of the generation. It is also a bad brawler which fails at even the basic fundamentals. They certainly try to spice up the dry action with platforming but it makes an already insipid game that much worse thanks to the controls. I truly cannot think of one good thing to say about this game other than to avoid it at all costs.
