The game for this week is (oh boy...):

Shaq Fu

Developer: Delphine Software
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Year: 1994
Systems: SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear, Amiga
Links: Gameplay Video - Destroy Shaq Fu website

How do you know when a game is tremendously bad? Maybe when it features a great NBA player but jack-of-all-trades wannabe like Shaquille O'Neil. Or maybe when it sheds a terrible shadow over the curriculum of Delphine Software, the guys responsible for legacy masterpieces such as Another World, Flashback, Cruise for a Corpse and Operation Stealth. Or perhaps when a group of people forms an association dedicated to purchasing and publicly destroying all existing copies of the game.
In any case, the game that graces this feature today is, beyond any rational doubt, a terrible mess that we'd all be better off without.



You may be familiar with the Angry Videogame Nerd's short review of Shaq Fu, you probably know about a few of the biggest problems of this title, but let me go the extra mile, by saying a playthrough of Shaq Fu will leave scars. maybe it's the excessive speed at which the game moves, or the irresponsive controls that make it impossible to do anything on purpose, or the pathetic hit detection that will send half your blows punching nothing but air, or the absurd cast of characters that seem to have come straight out of the Power Rangers discarded enemies bin.
The Graphics look pretty good on the SNES with big (though poorly animated) sprites and nice parallax backgrounds, while on the Genesis, they downright stink, with lower-res characters and an even laggier gameplay. The music is boring and repetitive, with constantly looping midis and horrible sound effects, especially the occasional voice sample.



The gameplay is atrocious: all you do is jump around the screen awkwardly trying to avoid taking punishment from the overpowered opponents. Yes, the opponents will wreck you, tear you apart from the very first stage. There is no learning curve to speak of, you start and get clobbered. The best strategy is to jump around, try to kick the opponent once, and then flee for the rest of the round until the timer runs out. Not very fun, you say? Well damn right, I say.
The story mode is demented: basically you can only use Shaq, while all the other characters are only available in the versus mode, dropping the replay value below zero. Even more demented, though the SNES and Genesis versions came out at the same time, the Genesis version had 12 characters, while on the SNES there were only 7 of them! Why? Also, the ending is ridiculous.
As already mentioned, there is a website (linked above) dedicated to finding and destroying all copies of Shaq Fu. Drastic, but we could never blame them. Ever. Don't play this game...