Funny Games - Smash TV - Classic Funny Game

Smash TV Arcade Game
The classic arcade game from Williams was released back in 1990.

This game combined fast paced arcade gaming, humorous voice overs and over the top violence to create a gaming experience that was addictive, great to play and also made you laugh.

The game was also converted to a host of home computers such as the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC 464, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. These home conversions were published by Ocean Software.



The arcade game 'plot line' borrowed heavily from the movie 'The Running Man'; in this game you took part in a futuristic game show based on ultra violence, mass weapons, destruction, big prizes, lots of cash and 'total carnage'.
(We LOVE it!)

This game was a total laugh (in a slightly sick way) from beginning to end. With it's cheesy game-show host, voice over samples shouting 'Total carnage... I love it!', over the top violence and crazy body count that John Woo would be proud of, it was graphical humorous eyeball popping deaths whilst you won yourself a new toaster.

For one or two players (best fun with two players) you took part in this futuristic game show laying waste to hordes of 'bad guys' collecting money and prizes from the game arena.

Armed with powerful weapons such as grenade launchers, spinning discs of death and three way firing handguns you could mow down the masses relentlessley.

Each end of level boss was funny (check out Mutoid Man at the end of level one) and took a fair amount of killing.



Gruesome deaths saw footwear and eyeballs flying through the air, and the fact that you earned tons of cash and a countless amount of white-goods for basically murdering people was always worth a laugh.

This is one of my favourite arcade games of all time (and I also loved Amiga Smash TV) - to sum up; 'I'd buy that for a dollar!'

Classic Arcade Action:


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Funny Games - Rise Of The Robots - Classic Funny Game

Rise Of The Robots
This game was never supposed to be funny - but it was so bad it was almost good.

Hyped up more than the next release from Ultimate, this was supposed to be the best ever fighting game featuring advanced opponent AI, a huge variety of game characters, superb backdrops, adrenaline pumping arcade action and the ultimate animated ray traced characters.

One out of five wasn't bad I suppose...

The characters looked cool when they were stationary.

Anyway - this game was released on the Commodore Amiga, A1200, Amiga CD32, SNES, Megadrive and more. It was even given the classic arcade cabinet treatment - how this happened I'll never know.

Here is a 'teaser trailer' for the game hyping up just how great this was going to be:

The latest development in arcade game technology:


As far as I remember the game ended up being pretty similar to the 'work in progress' screens shown in the video above.

There was no enemy AI (which had been done years earlier in Karate Champ and Way Of The Exploding Fist), no real variety of moves (each move pretty much did the same thing and it was a lottery if a blow was landed or not)

I played it on a friends SEGA Mega Drive - and you guessed it, I laughed my ass off. I found that pressing the same joypad and buttons repeatedly got me through round after round as I defeated each opponent with ease.

I was either I was the greatest ever arcade gamer or the game was extremely sh*t. I vote for the latter.

This game was sooo bad it was funny. We've all played some dross over the years (Flight Path 737 anyone?), and this one is up there with the best / worst of 'em.

Of course this (now classic game for all the wrong reasons) has been slated to the max over the years (and rightly so) - and for me it's the video game equivalent of a golden raspberry. A real funny game - no matter what system you played it on - they were all equally as bad as each other.

There were poor games, there were crap games, there were sh*t games, and then there was RISE OF THE ROBOTS. To this day it remains funny.

Classic Arcade Action (ahem) on the Amiga:


Classic Arcade Action on the Megadrive:


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Funny Games - Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun - Classic Funny Game

Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun
Ahh now Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun was a hilarious arcade game, no matter what system you played it on.

It originally appeared on the Atari ST, IBM PC and Commodore Amiga, before later being converted to 8-bit machines such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC 464.

For the purposes of this I think the Amiga version is the best to look at - the machine had the qualities to create the right sort of cartoony and carnival atmoshpere. It's a real funny game...

Basically the game was pure slapstick from start to finish - and you had to perform six acts to perfection. The reason why was shown to you in a humorous opening scene that was straight out of Warner Bros Cartoons with the 'contract' shown and the speedy way the characters exited the screen.

The game was similar to many of the multi-event sports games of the time (such as Hypersports).

However, Fiendish Freddy differed not only by its surroundings (circus events) offering a comedy element, it also offered a loose plot and a clear goal of winning $10,000. Bring it on!

It's all slapstick action for each event. Watch your high-diver being blown off course by a giant hair dryer, check out your tight-rope walker as his fingers are removed from the rope one by one (even if you win you loose!), see the ridiculous items you have to juggle whilst riding a unicycle and so on.

The funniest thing for me in this classic game was the judges. Instead of giving accurate scores for each event they resort to poking each other in the eyes, punching each other, choking each other and flinging custard pies across the screen. Still, they are more sensible than Louis Walsh.

All in all this is the type of game the Commodore Amiga was built for; the graphics, sound effects and music are all spot on - and it ran even better on an A1200 with a hard-disk as the amount of disk swapping got a little annoying on a single drive machine.

Make sure you see the end of game sequence, it'll make you chortle.

Classic Game Action - Funny Stuff (Amiga Version):


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Funny Games - Terrormolinos - Classic ZX Spectrum Game

Terrormolinos ZX Spectrum
Another funny game on my beloved ZX Spectrum (don't worry I'll be covering other formats, honest!) that really did make me laugh back in '86.

This classic game from Melbourne House was a text adventure based around the classic British package holiday abroad. It was released towards the end of 1985.

The aim of the game was to survive a two-week family package holiday (in the fictional resort of Terrormolinos - note the play on words in the title) with your wife Beryl and the kids Doreen and Ken.

They even got the characters names just right for a Speccy game like this.

This classic game was completed by taking ten photographs - allowing for a variety of snaps depending on when and where you chose to take them.

This is where the real character and humour of the game stood out. At the end of the game your snaps could be viewed in a slide-show style giving you reminders of your trip.

At points during the game you were bound to make a fatal mistake, and a nice snap would appear (perhaps of you being burned to a crisp by the sun) showing your error.

Even the cassette inlay had a suitably cheesy design:

Terrormolinos was a funny game from beginning to end. From your house in Slough with it's tacky wallpaper, paintings and ornaments, the typical resort hotel, the nightclubs complete with dancers throwing their 'moves' and so on.

The developers paid a lot of attention to detail and got the tone, jokes and atmosphere of the game just right.

In fact, you would probably have more fun playing this text adventure than the real thing!

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