This curiosity hails from 1996 on the SNES. We’re familiar with it thanks to the NMS issue #46 our mother bought us back then. But we never played it, yet decided to relive the weirdness for you all.
Mohawk & Headphone Jack
From the (presumably now defunct) Solid Software we have this splodge of oddness. First off, that title – catchy, yeah?
Full credit to the company for trying something new with this game, but a more memorable name perhaps would have been wise.
We remember labouring over whether we wanted the game or not (as in, whether we should pester our parents to buy it). But the mediocre score from NMS – the official Nintendo magazine of the day – put us off.
And it’s an unholy mishmash of everything, watching the trailer made us a bit queasy.
But you can see elements of Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Metroid in there. And it looks mental – there’s a lot going on there.
The idea, apparently, is collect a load of CDs (for your CD player – remember them?). Get enough and you pass through to the next level.
There are 14 levels and you clearly need to use a variety of leaping, flying, and sprinting tactics to collect as many items as possible.
So you beat the usual assortment of bosses to win the game, after which you may be treated to this “bad ending”.
And, by cripes, just to add to the nausea factor you get this vomit-inducing mess. What was the idea behind this?!
You can see what Solid Software was aiming for. A “cool” character along the lines of Sonic – the hair, the hip CD player (all the rage back in 1996), and the rock soundtrack.
But it falls a bit flat, mainly with that music choice. Are “cool kids” really into rock music like that?
Perhaps it’s hypocritical of us to state so – we’ve not played the game. But reviews at the time were distinctly unenthusiastic. 3/5s and 70% was general consensus.
Whatever, as a concept we just find the whole Mohawk & Headphone Jack aiming high to become an icon.
Yet it falls short. It resembles more of a Simpsons knock off here to induce motion sickness on us all.