If it ain’t funk you don’t feel it.
And we never quite got what went wrong with the Howard the Duck video game.
What if they were being held prisoner in an active volcano by a dark overlord?
What if to save them you had to jump over quicksand.
Fight off an army of mutants.
Brave high winds in an ultralite aircraft.
Parachute into the mouth of a volcano.
Do battle with the Dark Overlord.
And, somehow, stop the volcano from erupting?
Got it figured out?
Now, what if you were a duck…?
Then, this screen appeared:
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Rad.
Howard wont have this, so he sets out to rescue them.
Sounds great, right?
Lets take a look at the gameplay in action:
WAUGH!
As you might imagine, I was heartbroken.
This game was a dud.
As for the actual gameplay, its pretty grim.
Sometimes he is unable to complete jumps, causing his demise.
Other times, he is destroyed by the games mutants, no-frills Goombas.
Its all pretty dire.
Spoiler alert: Its ass…
Womp womp.
We never see him embrace Beverly and Phil, his good pals whose lives he has saved.
There is no valedictorian Cherry Bomb concert a la the film.
So what went wrong here?
First and foremost, the decision to not base this game on the movie was a bad one.
The game as released is all tedium, no entertainment.
Where is the music?
Where are the characters we love?
And again, why is this set on a tropical island?
Actually, I may have an answer for that.
There is the likely prospect thatHoward the Duckwasnt high on Activisions development priority list at the time.
Although my Commodore 64 broke long ago, I still have the game in its original packaging.
I know this world wasnt very kind to Howard, but he saved it, didnt he?
Debate this point with him on Twitter at @bionicbigfoot and @scifiexplosion.
