Stephen King and merritt k discuss bizarre Stephen King video game tie-ins, including The Lawnmower Man, The Running Man, The Dark Half, and F13. They reminisce about childhood gaming, their experiences with Stephen King, and their opinions on horror video games. They critique The Dark Half's puzzles and praise its visuals. They explore Stephen King's crime novels and the importance of displaying action figures. They highlight The Lumbar Man's surprising quality and discuss Stephen King's F 13 as a CD-ROM game. They also mention a poorly connected video game based on Stephen King.
The Dark Half video game is considered one of the worst adventure games due to illogical puzzles and poor execution.
The Lawnmower Man video game offers ambitious gameplay but suffers from awkward controls and frustrating difficulty.
The Running Man video game, despite its flaws, is better than The Lawnmower Man and features a well-composed soundtrack.
The podcast explores horror gaming, Stephen King's influence on the genre, and the potential for Stephen King adaptations in the gaming industry.
Deep dives
The Dark Half: A Point-and-Click Adventure Game
The Dark Half is a point-and-click adventure game based on the Stephen King novel and movie. The game follows the story of an author who creates an alter ego and stages his alter ego's death, only for the alter ego to come to life and seek revenge. The game features illogical puzzles, frustrating gameplay, and poor execution, making it one of the worst adventure games in recent memory.
The Lawnmower Man: A Platformer Adventure Game
The Lawnmower Man is a platformer adventure game based on the movie of the same name. It offers a mix of side-scrolling shooting sequences, first-person flying sections, and third-person rail shooter segments. While the gameplay is ambitious for a licensed game, it suffers from awkward controls and frustrating difficulty. However, it does feature a co-op mode and a solid soundtrack, making it slightly more enjoyable.
The Running Man: A Platformer Adventure Game
The Running Man is a platformer adventure game based on the movie of the same name. It features side-scrolling shooting sequences, first-person flying sections, and third-person rail shooter segments. The game is challenging and has frustrating controls, but it offers co-op mode and a well-composed soundtrack. Despite its flaws, it's better than its counterpart, The Lawnmower Man.
Insight into Horror Gaming and Stephen King's Influence
The podcast episode explores horror gaming and Stephen King's influence on the genre. It touches upon various horror games like Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill, discussing their mechanics and themes. The hosts also share their personal experiences with horror gaming and their thoughts on Stephen King's works and movie adaptations. Overall, the episode provides insights into the relationship between horror, gaming, and Stephen King's captivating storytelling.
The Lawnmower Man: A Disconnected Adaptation from the Short Story
The podcast episode discusses how the movie adaptation of The Lawnmower Man differs greatly from the original short story by Stephen King. The movie bears little resemblance to the story, to the point where King sued to have his name removed. The movie heavily relied on early 90s CGI and explored the fascination with virtual reality during that time. Despite the movie's flaws, the podcast recommends watching it for its unique experience. Additionally, the podcast explores the lack of Stephen King video game adaptations and the potential for Stephen King to collaborate on a story-driven video game.
Stephen King F13: A Compilation of Horror Mini-Games
The podcast delves into Stephen King F13, a CD-ROM that features three horror mini-games, screen savers, and sounds. The games have no direct connection to Stephen King's work and lack thematic ties to his stories. The mini-games include features like smashing cockroaches and fighting skeletons. The podcast questions the decision to not make the games more closely related to his vast catalog. Despite the game's limited appeal, the novella included in the CD-ROM adds some King-related content. The podcast highlights the missed opportunity for Stephen King adaptations in the gaming industry.
Future Possibilities: Stephen King Collaboration in Video Game or It Game
The podcast speculates on the prospect of Stephen King collaborating on a video game or an 'It Game.' While there are currently few King video game adaptations, the podcast discusses the potential for a story-driven game similar to 'The Last of Us' or 'Alan Wake.' The discussion also touches upon the lack of interest from major game developers or apprehension due to previous underwhelming King adaptations. The podcast aims to gauge listener interest and ideas for potential video game adaptations of King's work, or even an endurance-style pledge drive for their Patreon subscribers.
Stephen King doesn't have much presence in the video game world, but the notable exceptions to this provide some absolutely bizarre King/Video Game tie-ins. The focus of this episode is on four of these weirdos: The Lawnmower Man, The Running Man, The Dark Half, and the CD-ROM collection of oddities known as F13.
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