The Angry Outlaw Episode #2 LJN Games

Ladies & Gentleman the unholy company known as the Laughing Joking Numnuts (LJN). They are perhaps the most notorious for its poorly made licensed video games on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The Early Years: The company formed in 1970 and was originally for just selling toys yeah nothing wrong with that now. 15 years later a group called MCA purchased LJN for $67 Million to publish and develop games.

NES Days: After getting the chance to develop games in 1987 their 1st release would be based on Jaws. For a 1st attempt this didn't exactly impress audiences with it really doesn't resemble any of the Jaws flicks. The enemies consist of a small poorly drawn diver, shooting harpoons at jelly fish, sting rays, & of course the shark. Gameplay is boring, sound is very poor & the graphics don't look good for a 8- bit game yea and that Jaws game was just terrible. Next we tackle Back to the future and once again what effort did they put into this game? Let's see Looping music, You have a time limit, WHY DOES MARTY HAVE A BLACK JACKET? The ending is nothing special & leaves thinking ''this sucks!'' They even put a sequel out for the love of WHY? If the first was so god awful why would anyone want another with 2 in one game. Well I start and it's like the world of action 52 with tons of randomness enemies that isn't related to the movie WHY DO THIS? There are other notable titles but I thought I mention the ones that do stick out, I'll just sum those others up in what all these games have in common Friday the 13th, Karate kid, Nightmare On Elm Street, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, & Who Framed Roger Rabbit. All these games that were all horrifyingly bad licensed games by LJN.

16 Bit Era: Enter the year 1991 While games like Spider man & Venom: Maximum Carnage & WWF Raw were the better games they put out it still isn't forgiven for what would come in the form of Terminator 2: Judgement Day on the Super Nintendo. It is literally one of the worst terminator games ever made, the driving controls are atrocious, the shooting & punching are awful. For a sidescroller this has to be up there with the worst ever.

Hiatus & Ultimate Demise: It was the year 2000 After having a five year break the company decided to try one more time with the release of spirit of speed 1937, A racing game and quite a uninteresting one at best. Horrible load times, Lame designs of tracks, and a bad frame rate. This is an awful game but will be only remembered because it had the dreaded logo on there the rainbow of death has been slayed in a coffin for all of eternity never to risen again!

General Assumptions: What is there to say about the infamous LJN? They started out with hope only to just flat out be absolutely horrible no matter what generation of gaming they would be at in the period. Bottom Line is that they will go down as one of the worst developers of all time.

Comments

Interesting review, better than mine - Martinglez

To be quite honest, I actually liked A Nightmare on Elm Street, sure it's flawed, oh definitely, but no game is flawless anyway. The rest however are below average at best. - LarryLarrington