celebrities will smack her face on anything to make a buck or two. Like George Foreman and his grills, or the late Wilford Brimley and his Liberty Medical commercials. So it’s no surprise that they’ve also appeared in video games. Nowadays, celebrity games are more likely to appear in the mobile market because large console games take too long to develop.
Today’s hotness could become tomorrow’s old news when her game comes out. But it used to be different. Whether it was a major sports star, a music icon, or an action hero, her looks landed in quite a few weird video games.
GAMERANT VIDEO OF THE DAY
8/8 Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee needs no introduction, especially since he’s appeared in so many games…sort of. Games like Street Fighter, World Heroes, Tekken, and more used different names for their proxies. But the similarities between Fei Long, Kim Dragon, Marshall & Forest Law and the Hong Kong legend were undeniable. But how many games does Bruce Lee himself appear in? He appeared in EA Sports UFC 2 and Xbox brawler Bruce Lee: Quest for the Dragon.
Perhaps most inexplicable is his video game debut: Bruce Lee for the Atari 8-bit machines and the Commodore 64. Players controlled a blocky version of Bruce as he went from chamber to chamber, leaping off platforms and bashing enemies in a quest for infinity Wealth and the Mystery of Immortality. It was also hugely popular at the time, and received a fan-made sequel, Bruce Lee 2, in 2013.
7/8 Jackie Chan in Fists of Fire
Jackie Chan hasn’t had as many game proxies as Bruce Lee (Tekken’s Lei Wulong is perhaps the most famous), but he has appeared in more games than himself. Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu put him in a cartoon action platformer that is quite charming. Jackie Chan’s stuntmaster had him beating up thugs all over New York. While Jackie Chan J-Mat Fitness predated WiiFit in that Chan would guide the player through exercises. However, those games weren’t as weird as Jackie Chan in Fists of Fire.
It was a fighting game by Kaneko that mixed Fatal Fury-style controls with Mortal Kombat-style digitized graphics and deadly finishing moves. The game was made to promote Chan’s film Thunderbolt as all of the characters were played by the actors in that film, including Chan himself. He has three different characters who act as bosses, each portraying one of his classic film roles (Drunken Master, Project A etc.).
6/8 Wu-Tang: Taste the pain
Anyone remember Thrill Kill? It was supposed to be a gory arena brawler for the PS1, with insane characters slashing, dicing and dismembering each other for the amusement of the player. While almost complete versions of the game can now be found online, it was never released. EA obtained the game’s publishing rights and decided to discontinue it due to its gory content. That’s how the story goes.
But it wasn’t quite dead. Developers Paradox Entertainment would remake the game with the Wu-Tang Clan in Wu-Tang: Taste the Pain. It saw the RZA, the GZA, the Ghostface Killah, and the others fight each other in the same 4-Way style as Thrill Kill. There wasn’t a drop of blood either, unless players looked in the manual and found the cheat code. Play it with the Wu-Tang controller for maximum impact! Or stick with Def Jam Vendetta.
5/8 Frankie goes to Hollywood
Imagine a game where the player has to complete objectives and minigames to get their stats high enough to gain access to a fun little place called the Pleasuredome. You have to explore such strange places as the Sea of Holes, the Cybernetic Outbreak and the Merseyside Raid. Then, just to spice things up, they must solve a murder for a massive stat boost that can open the Pleasuredome all at once.
This game was developed back in 1985 for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC and somehow the 80’s group Frankie Goes to Hollywood was involved. Aside from the name and cover, the connections aren’t particularly obvious. However, there are a few subtleties here and there. “Relax” and “Two Tribes” were converted to 8-bit melodies for the game. The Pleasuredome is a reference to the song “Welcome to the Pleasuredome” and the game takes place in Liverpool, the band’s hometown.
4/8 Trip
If 1980s British synth-pop isn’t to your liking, maybe some good old-fashioned rock music will. Many famous rock stars have lent themselves to video games in one form or another. Brütal Legend had a veritable who’s who of metal legends, from Ozzy Osbourne to Lemmy Kilmister. Revolution X had players shoot records at people to bring Aerosmith’s music back to the masses. While KISS: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child did the same thing but with KISS and magical powers.
But why settle for these softies when the hardest rockers of them all had a game? Yes, in 1983 there was an arcade game based on Journey! Players went to one of five planets and then played a mini-game in which each member of the band recovered their stolen instruments from aliens. The action is set to squeaky versions of their biggest hits like ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ and ‘Wheel in the Sky’. Developed by Bally Midway, it was the first game to use digitized graphics, which would make later games like Mortal Kombat famous.
3/8 do my video
But why listen to dusty old rock tunes when the Sega CD has the latest hits from the hottest acts of 1992! Digital Pictures has developed a game each for Kriss Kross, INXS, the C&C Music Factory and Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch, each with the same goal. Players had to make new music video edits for three of their biggest songs via in-game request.
They’ve been linked through odd cutscenes, whether it’s a brother and sister brushing up on Marky Mark videos with a previously known Seth Green, or Phil LaMarr working in a literal music factory. Both didn’t fare well, requiring random effects and stock footage to be cut into grainy FMV footage during execution. Video editors don’t usually work live and typically take more than 3-4 minutes per project. But that’s exactly what the games asked of the players, which is probably why they bombed hard.
2/8 Fight Basketball by Bill Laimbeer
Sports games were full of celebrity royalty, spawning Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out and Shaq Fu. Even people better known for commenting on games won, like the late John Madden, who lends his name and face to the Madden series. You can also buy curios like Go! Walk! Beckham! Adventure on Soccer Island or Chris Kamara’s Street Soccer… in which Chris Kamara wasn’t really in the game itself.
But how did Bill Laimbeer get into a video game? The notoriously heavy-hitting Detroit Pistons player was one of the team’s “bad boys” in the early 1990s alongside Dennis Rodman. So when a basketball game about slamming dunks and players came up, he was a fair (and comparatively cheap) choice to be his face. Set in 2030, he’s somehow still young and athletic enough to take on younger players in this hard-hitting twist on basketball. Still, there’s another futuristic basketball game that tops Laimbeer’s game.
1/8 Barkley Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden
Normally, unlicensed freeware games wouldn’t count. Otherwise this list would just be a bunch of flash games from early 2000s Newgrounds. However, Tales of Game’s Studios work has evolved through its originally licensed ancestor, Barkley Shut Up & Jam! This was a simple 2v2 basketball game for Genesis and SNES.
Their spin-off was a turn-based RPG about Charles Barkley and other ex-basketball players who saved the planet from the terrorist organization BLOODMOSES in the 2050s. It’s basically a collection of gags and memes based on Barkley, Space Jam, and RPG conventions. For a fan game made in Game Maker, it’s a fun and solid RPG, even if the gags are a bit odd (one character makes the average otaku look like the Fonz).
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