After seeing numerous games about the withdrawal of a group from the authority of a state and the subsequent transfer of sovereignty to their former Union, I have concluded that most of them suck, whether they be evil businesses plotting to wipe out a country's entire population, the deployment of murderous agents to carry out the equally gruesome duty or the resulting fracas being the main plot of a misbegotten game. Unfortunately for the elements populating this game, all three happened in a terrible unison. Things do not bode well for the target audience (if there ever was any).
Hong Kong 97 is a 1995 game by HappySoft, a homebrew game company for the SNES. A game designed through means that many would consider criminal. The in-game plot involve the return of Hong Kong to their rightful sovereign state, the People's Republic of China after years under the rule of the Brits. This took place in 1997, at the same time that crime rates were on the rise. This was pegged to the fact that people from the Chinese mainland started to mass immigrate to the tiny nation, forcing the local government to cast about for a solution. They do find one in the hope of using the services of Chin (Jackie Chan in his Wheels on Meals persona). He makes for the stricken country with one instruction only: to eliminate all 1.2 billion people of China. The plot alone is enough to make the game atrocious enough. But Chinese's hubris won't allow them to make light of the situation. They have been overseeing the whole situation all along and have plotted to offset the scheduled mass killing with a lethal weapon of their own: the resurrection of "Tong Shau Ping" (actually played by Deng Xiaoping). Curious tidbit:
"When the game was released in 1995, Deng Xiaoping, said to be dead in the game, was still alive. However, he did die months before the handover, which is when the game's plot actually takes place."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_97_%28video_game%29
Now on to gameplay.
Upon turning on the game a short rendition of I love Beijing Tiananmen plays relentlessly in a loop. They could have made the loop longer, but I guess that making it the way they did made it somewhat amusing. The voiced sample of this sung track also provides a worthy distraction from the threadbare tone of the game. It'd become unplayable if they had put on something else than this soundtrack. However, the game doesn't contain any sound effect, so making a sound test option would be redundant.
With the helpful addition of this tune, it's time to select which language to play the game in. At least the game offers 3 options for the linguistic savvy, although this might put people off a bit because the text in the English version contains some easy to catch flubs. I wasn't able to judge the textual quality in the Japanese and Chinese scripts, but if they're on par with their Anglicized counterpart, things would look gloomy for those wanting to practice either Japanese or Chinese (or both).
Next up is the storyline. The basic premise is the concern brought on by droves of people rushing in from the mainland. That would be China. So the government strikes a deal with the protagonist and off he goes. The action stage kicks off without any prompting whatsoever so if the player is careless he could easily have his ass handed to him. He is supposed to be ready to dodge awkward sprites of people, cars and bullets, sometimes in a wiggling pattern. The enemies' post-death animation comprises at times of something that I could not describe. It seems to be a bloody likeliness of something, but I was unable to discern further. Some enemies (using indefinite pronouns this often makes me uncomfortable, but this helps define the path that this game has taken so far) drop pellets of invincibility. That or instant death. Again, I was at a loss to differentiate one from the other. After defeating enough enemies, a boss battle takes place. The MS Paint-style severed head of (presumably) Deng Xiaoping. It's a hard boss battle and I couldn't vanquish him to find out what wondrous mysteries awaits me. Most likely, you'll die too, and then back to the tile screen you go. Then the big wheel turns.
Dismal Charnel extends its deepest sympathy and condolence to the victims, condemning the ruthless attack this game brought on the bereft families.
Listen to the soundtrack here.
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