Men In Black The Game PS1 Review

Video games are very popular format that would see many iterations and adaptions of movie franchises that would also hit mainstream audiences that would start way back primarily from the early adaptions of video games that were going through various generations of consoles but would start to come into its own stage of popularity with the rise of 32-bit consoles during the mid 90s as there were many iconic movies that were appearing at that time. 

When we look back at the history of movie adaptions and video games there's always been somewhat of a disconnect. 

Not all movie adaptions have always been considered to be good or the movies themselves would be terrible but the games would be half decent.

More often than not the movies will be brilliant but the games would be very mediocre at best and unfortunately this next game Men In Black falls under this category.

The Men In Black movie was a very popular movie in its own right when it was released during the mid 90s. So inevitably a game was going to be adapted at some point and that's usually always the case for big budget hitting franchises and men in black the game was predominantly that iteration but at the same time while it did have the name of the franchise itself it would be a very different concept compared to what was seen in the movie which was originally released on the Windows PC in late 1997 and then later ported to the PlayStation in early 1998. 

But unlike the movie that would primarily be more of a comedy that starred Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, the game itself would act as a survival horror game which was completely different from what it would have been seen in the cinema or the movie itself. So while the game flopped in all intents and purposes in a lot of respects to it even though it's not as good compared to when you try to compare to the likes of Resident Evil which again this game in its own right is inspired by the iconic earlier Resident Evil games but just uses the Men In Black movie franchise name. 

There are similarities but yet there are also differences as it's not as well refined and it's interesting to see the characteristics behind what the developers were thinking about. 

But again it really dates back to the likes of the whole concept around early 32-bit games and consoles in general. It was a time when experimental nature was really high in games that even when you look at even likes of the iconic Jurassic Park series which again had many movie adaptions that were ported to games some being decent while others probably not so good but the PlayStation was no exception to this when you had the likes of Jurassic Park the Lost World and among many others. There was even like fighting games and so forth as well so there was loads of different types of these style games that were appearing on 32-bit consoles at the time. 

But when we look back there's very few games really as such that hit the heights of success. 

The only real game as such that really was considered popular in terms of a movie adaption would have been Alien Trilogy that would have been released back in 1996, that would have been more of a doom clone that inspired the events of the original three movies but it was all tied into a video game from a first person shooter perspective. 

But all intents and purposes as it's more like a doom clone that game is phenomenal, that game got everything right it probably is considered for its time the best movie adaption of any type of movie IP ever seen in a video game and it's also considered to be one of the best FPS Shooters pretty much of all time and it's definitely one of the best on the PlayStation as it gets everything right. 

It captures all of the elements from the movies while also having a very dark gritty and unnerving atmosphere that's very few games were ever able to replicate back then. 

But unfortunately Men In Black isn't able to follow the same feat but in saying that while it's not as reflective of other iconic survival horror titles that would have been seen on the system, it does have some unique quirks to it while it's not as well refined it does have unique ambience and atmosphere to it that does suit what the game is going for and it does have some unique level design. 

Many ideas of which I actually have seen and covered even in a previous video I did not too long ago where various developers and creators use many backgrounds variations and scenes from the Men in Black game to create a mod for a Resident Evil Style game but uses the Men in Black offset in terms of his levels because while Men In Black the game itself wasn't considered great it did have some really good backdrops and scenery in the game. 

That's one of its highlights and was very atmospheric. 

If anything the best point that the game did have aside from all of its controls and features it definitely had a good ambience and unnerving tone to the game. 

It definitely managed to capture that element survival horror right in most regards. 

But in saying that it does utilize the characters from the movie itself but has a different kind of outlay in terms of its own story it kind of acts as its own individual story as such in many ways where you have to interact with different environmental hazards, you also have to look for clues, you have to dispatch enemies using the variety of different weapons and upgrades that you will acquire throughout the game and while it's not considered a success the game did sell in fairly decent numbers across the board selling 100 000 units within its first couple of months in the United States alone and by 1998 it managed to sell another 50 000 copies and then counting as of that point but even with that as you all know because the game is considered to be one of the worst movie iterations seen on a video game especially on the PlayStation. 

It was very reflective also in its reviews at the time as well, it didn't get good reviews at all because the gameplay when it does use fixed camera perspective styles with pre-rendered backgrounds and so forth which for my own personal opinion I think it's cool because I love those style games but there are better games on the system that definitely have better control systems because the control system in Men In Black is very very clunky and poor especially when you consider it to the likes of Resident Evil and other types of clones similar to it, it's not as well put together but you can see what the developers were trying to do. 

If you're a fan of these type of games in all respects to it, it's still worth a try I think just to at least witness what early ideas and games of that generation had to offer in most respect but I will admit it isn't for everybody and not everybody will like it. 

Only select few gamers pretty much like myself would have the patience to sit down and play something like this which doesn't often happen and even for myself going back I played a lot of these type of games growing up and if I did get into a game regardless of how bad or how good it was I would always give it the benefit of doubt and I would always try to see the game for what it was and while the PlayStation does have some phenomenal games it also does have some very mediocre and poor games. 

But at the same time most of them are playable and depending on how much time you put into them and depending on your patience level you can get something out of them and see for me personally from my own experience I originally played this way back, a mate of mine had rented it out one weekend and he took it down to the house one evening and I was interested to play it because again we were all mad into anything that was like Resident Evil any game that pretty much used pre-rendered backgrounds and fixed camera angles regardless of whether it was Resident Evil or not we were interested because we were intrigued by these style of games because again they had all of the unique elements that we all liked especially for myself that had the ambience, that had the atmosphere and especially with the fixed cameras you couldn't really see what was there or what wasn't there until you come into the next scene. 

So there was always that air of curiosity around each of the elements in the game which is what I always enjoyed about them. 

There was always that level of uncertainty that just always left you guessing plus these games even though this game here itself isn't considered to be good but it was creepy, it definitely had many elements like that and that's why I enjoyed them so much and I would always try to give them a go and I remember then a couple of years later I managed to get the game cheap in a local game store and I got it for like about eight Irish pounds or something like that like I got it really cheap so when they seen it in the bargin bin, I was like you know what I'm gonna pick it up and play it because again I knew from playing it before I had managed to get into it to some degree and I was like you know what it's worthwhile giving a go but in saying that the game is relatively short in terms of its story. 

There's only a handful of levels in the game and I could always get to the last area or the last level of the game but there was always that one part in the game where you had to jump across like a cliff and it was all like these moving platforms because that was the thing the game while they did have like beat them up and combat style elements in certain instances you had to use platforming elements which, that was definitely it's achilles heel. 

It just wasn't as well executed, it was very clunky it's very sluggish and that part no matter how many times I've played the game even up until this day I've still never managed to get past that but I'm gonna change that. 

I'm gonna make sure that I play that and now obviously we can play it to emulation, we can use quick saves or save states to again save at different points so I'm going to make my goal to finally get further in this game and finally finish it because that's the one part of the game especially in the last level with those moving platforms because the way the camera angles are situated because it's so far away. 

You think you're jumping on a moving platform to think that you're going to get to it but you don't always fall through and you'll end up losing all your lives and that was always so frustrating you get so far in the game and then you would literally lose it all just to win that one part and I think only ever once, yeah only ever once did I ever get past this when I really think about it but what happened was then they literally no health left so I died on the first enemy that came my way the second I got on to the next scene so yeah I just never really got that opportunity because I literally would be gone and there's all my lives before that point. 

I would always do so well leading up to that but then I would loose all my lives in that one bit so that was easily the most frustrating part of the game for me. 

I'm sure it probably is for many but then I'm sure the game just was frustrating in general for a lot of people but I would always persist with it but it was the one game that I'd be honest did defeat me back then. 

I couldn't finish no matter what it did that one part and it was just ridiculous it was just far too difficult but alas I'm willing to give it a go again and torture myself so here goes nothing as they say but regardless of what I think about the game yes it is very hit and miss it's definitely not the best of these style of games even I'll admit that but there's a enough unique quirks about it that I personally like but then it just has elements in it that reminds me of other games that I like of that era. 

I like the experimental nature of it while it's not executed great at all but it does have some unique quirks and elements plus I like the background scenery and the levels as well that for me is the key feature because it definitely provides that Ambience an atmosphere that I like in those type of games but then that's just my personal opinion of it so. 

But it is what it is you know it's not for everybody but regardless I would love to hear your thoughts of Men In Black the game for the PlayStation and if so what did you think of this game overall so be sure to share it in the comments below and be sure to keep watching to see more content on other games similar to Men in Black, you can check out the blog where we will be diving into the iconic elements of these classic video games and as always keep those gaming memories alive...