Taste is a tricky thing. Sometimes you want something that’s not technically the best thing available, but it just sounds good, damn it. Case in point, I know I should be much farther along into Tears of the Kingdom right now, from an academic standpoint, but I just keep playing Brotato on the couch at the end of the day. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just what I feel like. I’ve heard things like this talked about in terms of games being like fast food, because sometimes you just want a quick and easy time and aren’t trying to have a life changing experience.
Makes sense to me, but what about the actual fast food games? Did you know there were a handful of them? It’s not the most robust genre or anything. Basically McDonald’s did it first and then Burger King did a weird version later. Imagine that!
I got curious about all of these insane sounding games, and thought I’d unearth at least one or two things worth writing about along the way if I dove into them. I wasn’t disappointed. Let’s see who made better video games, McDonald’s or Burger King.
Note: I’m just doing three console games for each. There’s some other McDonald’s software I’m excluding that will certainly still be pointed out in the comments despite my acknowledgement of this, but I just didn’t feel like it was worth including any of it here. Oh, except for the DS software they used to train employees in Japan. What?!
MC Kids
The first McDonald’s game sort of feels like they were testing the water, unsure if they were ok to go full insane McDonald’s lore and set a game in the mystical world occupied by the bizarre assortment of McDonald’s characters. This game opted for a bit more realistic setting, opening on two boys hanging out in their backyard in a tent. Ah yes, the tent hang. An odd springboard into the world of fast food video games, but a warm childhood memory nonetheless. I remember eating S’mores and playing my Game Boy when I would do this as a boy, but what happens to these two kids is Ronald McDonald rolls up on them (they’re unsupervised as hell!) and pleas with them to find his hidden bullshit so that he can go crack Hamburglar a good one right in his jaw. I’m paraphrasing some of that, but you get it.
From there the game launches into a pretty fun NES-era platformer. The overworld and controls are very Super Mario Bros. 3, but the game also has more depth than it might appear. I finished the first six levels and expected to move onto the next larger overworld, only to discover that I had to find four hidden cards in the previous levels before I could advance to the next level. I had noticed a few extra platforms here and there, but honestly had no idea the game offered and expected so much exploration. I went back to the first level, figuring there would be some easy treasure to find there, and I discovered upon screwing around some more a little thing you run over that inverts the gravity of the room and now you’re running around on the ceiling! Of all the NES games I thought M.C. Kids might remind me of, the often overlooked Metal Storm was not even on the list. Very nice surprise. There’s a lot of them in here.
This game is to top tier NES games like StarTropics and the Mario games what McDonald’s is to a nice burger. You won’t mistake it for the real thing, but it’ll do if sounds like the sort of thing you’ll like.
McDonald’s Treasure Land Adventure
This is the shit right here. I think part of the reason I’m fascinated by weird licensed games is that the diamonds in the rough just fucking HIT. For every dozen awful games based on beloved movies, shows, or eateries, there is one that is just mind blowing in its mere above-averageness. And when you find that one, it’s some crazy shit like Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker or the Goof Troop game that the Resident Evil guy made. Just unfathomably weird stuff. This particular game is an adventure that stars Ronnie McDanny himself and that I’m 50 percent sure is inspired by a bad gas huffing experience one of the people at Tresure once had.
That’s right, Treasure! The same folks that brought us Gunstar Heroes which is known as one of the best shooters of the 16-bit era, a personal favorite of mine, and a game that helped cement them as premiere developers of their era. This was their first game! They didn’t want you to know that, so they put it on the shelf until after Gunstar came out, but this McDonald’s game is the true debut of a legendary game studio.
The side scrolling nature gives it a similarity to Gunstar Heroes, but it recalls another iconic Sega game right out of the gate. The green, grassy ledges will remind you of Sonic the Hedgehog’s Green Hill Zone. As will the fast, bouncy soundtrack. And the red robotic turtles. Ok, they’re doing a whole Sonic thing, alright? It’s like Sonic turned into Ronald McDonald and now he has magical powers he can shoot out of his fingers. Reread that sentence, and you know everything you need to know about whether or not you should play this game. I don’t know what more I can tell you.
Global Gladiators
This Genesis sequel to M.C. Kids takes all the dangling plot threads left by the original and answers once and for all what happened to Mick and Mack after the events of the first game. Namely, they ditched the moniker that was blatantly advertising McDonald’s and now they sit around the booth in McDonald’s like a couple of old booze hounds daydreaming about becoming something called a Global Gladiator. This pisses Ronald off so much that he finds them McDonald’s and sends their ass into a book they have to fight their way out of.
I liked M.C. Kids, but I think this is an improvement. It looks and plays better, and the squirt gun is ten times less frustrating to use than the hard to aim blocks you shot at enemies in the original. The animations and sprites are great too, with my personal favorite being a pumped up Ronald McDonald waving a checkered flag at the end of the level if you’ve found enough little Golden Arches to advance. It’s great. This is a fun little run and gun platformer that’s at least as fun as I remember Earthworm Jim being. Not bad for a game meant to make me hungry for McNuggets.
Continue Reading:
1 2