Shortly after we got our Master System, we put aside our pocket money (the money we borrow from people’s pockets in town) every week until we could afford a new game! After six long years of saving, we sent our bloody Mum off to Tandy (we were too busy seeing how many Lego bricks we could fit in the dog) to get us a new, exciting game. Later that day she had the nerve to walk in and present us with a fresh copy of “Alex Kidd in Miracle World”. Honestly, the cheek of it! Of all the games she could’ve bought she had to get us the only one we already had, even our bloated dead dog knows it’s built into the console!! As we rained blows down on her face and neck she protested that she honestly didn’t know and she had the receipt. That’s incredibly fortunate, we thought, so we ironed it onto her forehead as she slept as lasting reminder to her immense stupidity. Bloody Mum.
Bloody Mum. Hopefully she’s learned her lesson, otherwise she’ll be waking up in the bin lorry again.
I’m actually quite surprised that they bundled this game with the Master System due to its adult nature and stark depiction of the consequences of heavy and prolonged drug use. It follows the story of the eponymous hero as he is lost within his own violent and disturbing hallucinations, what he dubs the “Miracle World”. He spends the game following a trail of hamburgers, which act as his link to reality and hopefully eventual escape from this nightmarish drug trip. He suffers many common health problems associated with heavy drug users, including a terrible paranoia that if he touches any other living creature he will die immediately. To combat this he uses his massive swollen fists (due to blood pooling caused by years of IV drug abuse) to crush everyone he meets into dust. To be fair, some of this is open to interpretation, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s about. Steve flushed the manual down the toilet as the printed word offends him.
We’ve all been there – overdone it one night and ended up punching Pterodactyls in the snout in a nightmarish drug induced fantasy world.
But just because it’s a gritty thriller that doesn’t mean there’s no fun to be had. Did you know the currency of Miracle World is called “Baums”? Every time Alex collects some money we enjoy laughing until our throats are sore and bleeding because it sounds a bit like “Bum”.
Despite this, it’s still pale in comparison to anything on the 16 bit consoles. We have more fun staring for hours at the copy of Sonic 2 for the Megadrive they’ve got running on demo mode in Woolworths. We once asked if we could buy it with some funny looking money our Nan brought back fromYugoslaviaand they called the Police! Joke’s on them though, we did a big beefy blow off in the Manager’s office and now he has to breathe in our rotten bottom gas. (Steve’s have a tendency to discolour the walls). More fool him.
To be fair, this is one of the best games for the Master System, which is also deeply depressing. Even though it’s an early release, games for this console really don’t get much better than this. I suppose on the plus side it means there’s no point in going to work and earning money. We’ll just sit here and play Alex Kidd until we die of old age, laughing at the word “Buam” and punching our Mum in the face. It’s a good life.
And that’s why we’ll give this game 5/5.
