r/80s

Tales From the Darkside

If you know who this is, what was your favorite project produced?

I never would've guessed that TNG, would be this iconic next to a titan of the OG series.

I watched this movie around 84, when My mom decided to rent it. Rodney was an absolute comedic monster in this. Joe Pesci, pre tough guy persona, awesome as well.

I always thought it was ironic he was the one without the beard. He will be missed…

First film I saw with Batman. My mom rented this movie when it was available. I didn't know what to make of it since I was 8 or so at the time, but I liked Keaton and the stupid things he'd do. He has that charisma thing going for him to this day

95cents was a bit pricey for the time, but damn, I'd wish I eaten there earlier....that's when they had quality

The Cavity Creeps. We all know and love them. For decades people have dressed as them for Halloween, worn apparel bearing their resemblance, thrown themed parties and weddings based upon them, and who among us doesn't break out a "we make holes in teeth!" chant at social events?

But what are the Cavity Creeps motivation? Making holes in teeth sounds pretty rad...but it is very unclear why they would even attack Toothopolis (if that's even a real place.) Their hatred of the crestopians or whatever their name is seems irrational. Making holes in teeth doesn't provide spoils of any sort, put food on the table, or make any money.

Unless....

The Cavity Creeps do not have a lustin' for crustin' teeth. They do not exist solely to create cavities. No, that's just what BIG TOOTHPASTE wants you to think. Crest wants to shove our mouths full of their minty splooge through any means possible, including deception. Profit is their only motive. Here we were as children, believing we were keeping ourselves safe from the Cavity Creeps, only to learn the real enemy is the one who has been exploiting our fears all along.

Damn you crest. Damn you corporate America. You took my idols and turned them against me.

I was good, but just hated to see Patricia not return and also the killing off of the surviving members of the nuthouse club from the previous movie, and offed them unceremoniously. It was good though.

First time seeing him, was Red Dawn on cable, then his face all over Dirty Dancing promos. Awesome actor.

TL;WR -> A nice journey through boomboxes, crazy clowns and wild farting ladies. I did enjoy what little the game had to offer, but even for 1989 it wasn’t enough to gain some roller skate traction. An (8.5) game, very good in my Arcade Book. Wouldn’t replay it though, as I’m better off taking my roller skates and proceeding to knock on the sequel’s gates! 

I’d recommend listening to this music while reading. 

GAMEPLAY (6/10) 

• Storytelling was pretty basic with Bob and Tom (if you chose CO-OP) trying to recover his boombox, yet had an awesome presentation with hip hop aesthetics and a lot of roller skates! 
• The controls themselves were basic too, with a punch, kick, jump or special attack. If you combined some air kicks with ground ones, you could do recovery attacks as well. Besides, hitting enemies with roller skates must’ve been painful. 
• Apart from the normal controls, when you were skating you could slow down, increase your speed or even kick backwards for a change! 
• Problem was, many hits didn’t connect with the enemies, which required precise timings and perfect placements. 
• By collecting cats hidden in barrels or crates, you regained some health back. Unfortunately that wasn’t nearly as enough when the enemies slam dunked you in Greco Roman style or threw explosive briefcases at you! 
• Speaking of enemy variety, they were outstanding. Each level featured unique types with normal schmucks, robots, clowns, police with whips, near naked posers, fire breathing creatures, farting ladies or even slot machines throwing your own coins back at you! 
• Traversal was seamless without any interruptions. You could complete the game in less than 20m, but that required some hard bucks! 
• Speaking of hard, the game was pretty much a coin sucker. I don’t know how many coins I threw in, but from my own feeling, way too many!

 

AUDIO (9/10) 

• Sound design had an awesome stereo output with crunchy punches and cool Wolfman Jack digitised lines. “Yeah I’d say alright, shake it baby!” 
• The soundtrack itself was very good, giving you pleasant vibes while fighting crazy roller skater clowns!

 

VISUALS (10/10) 

• Fidelity was very impressive for 1989, even though the US version was released in 1990. It combined the punk art direction with its visual effects perfectly, as well as the marvellous backgrounds with unique sceneries! 
• Character models were spectacular. Your own character had a 360 sprite rotation with different animations, as well as the enemies themselves. Finishing a level with a wild dance was super fun! 
• Performance was solid for the whole play-through, not dropping a single frame!

 

WORLD DESIGN (9/10) 

• Level design had an amazing progression with skating or “walking” sections. But the best part was going through the city streets, unfriendly neighbourhoods, train stations, underground, casino, scrapyard or even a Wild West themed area while looking at beautiful animated backgrounds and spectacular landscapes! 
• The atmosphere was perfect. Having a punk on roller skates was more than enough, but the game expanded beyond that with a Casino owner kicking you back into inserting another coin! 
• World destruction while not extensive, did provide some destructible crates or barrels. Quite sad you couldn’t destroy those coin spitting slot machines, would’ve been spicier!

 

Found these in my mom's basement last week. Hindsight, I shoulda gotten that third shot of the ©1985.

It's been a long while, but I love the animation, using real models to get the actual feel for more realism on animation.