How Kid Chameleon illustrates the death of the arcade
Kid Chameleon (1992)
Kid Chameleon (1992)
It’s a sad and true fact that, unfortunately, the arcade is indeed dead. And it has been for a long time now. But it’s not as if we’re totally bereft of coin-operated gaming - ever heard of a barcade?
It’s a terrific idea, actually: a drinking bar that also boasts arcade games. And barcades just might have a chance at survival, since this generation is increasingly comprised of manchildren and… whatever the female equivalent of a manchild is. Shebabies?
Well, bringing retro games to adults is great news for me, because it means that I can come home from work, play with my colourful little video games every night and not feel a crumb of shame.
We’ve got one in Dublin that opened a number of years ago, called Token. I’m not on any kind of commission from them or anything, but it’s definitely worth a look if you’re in the area - and if not for the arcade machines, then for the beautiful food. Their bacon jam fries go wonderfully with a pint of Guinness and an enormous spicy chicken burger.
See, that’s what any establishment’s gotta offer these days. The games they have in Token, even those juicy ones like Donkey Kong, Metal Slug 3, Time Crisis and Mario Kart Arcade GP, they still aren’t enough. If you really wanna make money in the arcade business nowadays, you gotta have food and drink. And perhaps a bit of pinball for the masochists.
See, it all comes back to nostalgia. Kids like us are growing up and getting a bit of disposable income in our pocket, wanting to go back to an era that better accepted us, when everything made more sense.
If you’re old enough to remember your local arcade, and assuming you never made it out of your childhood town, then you’ve probably seen the place be transformed. They’ve probably turned it into a grubby, neon-lit den of gambling machines and penny-stakes card games, right?
Unfortunately, and I have been using that word a lot here, but unfortunately that’s where the margin is at now. Coin-operated machines are no good anymore. Home console gaming simply became too good, too affordable, too aesthetically pleasing. Nowadays, the idea of beating all comers at Street Fighter… well, maybe still appeals, but it’s more about eSports, if you can believe that.
All of this really does make Kid Chameleon for Sega Mega Drive look like an absolute relic of the 90s, if the radical and way past cool cover art didn’t already give off that impression. It features your guy, the Kid Chameleon, and he’s got a leather jacket, denim jeans, big white sneakers, what might be a skateboard, and most importantly, a pair of dark shades over the classic, “constipated cool” look.
Ingame, the Kid Chameleon doesn’t look so cool. Half of his body is taken up by his enormous head, and he runs around the screen way too fast. And, even with his shades, it’s tough to look cool when you get quite literally swatted out of the stage, and he lets out a heavily digitised squeal.
Quite honestly, I could see why somebody, looking for a bit of 90s nostalgia, would dig out their LA Lights shoes and their 3D specs, a flashy tracksuit, and want to finish off the ensemble by sticking on Kid Chameleon. But I’m here to tell you, for the love of God, don’t. Just watch Saved by the Bell instead.
The game is pretty accessible today. After all, it seems that Sega release a new compilation of all their old Mega Drive games every couple of weeks, just in case some gamers in Outer Mongolia have missed out. You could also pick up the original cartridge for nothing on eBay. Either way, you’re getting the most moribund platforming game, a real miserable experience all around.
You’ll probably only play it for a few minutes, but that’ll still be quite an unnerving experience. If Kid Chameleon were more popular, this would be the type of game that people would have invented urban legends about, creepypastas and all that. Really, it plays like a bootleg game, or a game that hasn’t been finished.
There was always something quite dark and gritty about the old Sega machine’s colour and sound, and Kid Chameleon exemplifies this fully. Which is great if you’re into that, though personally I prefer a bit of brightness and clarity. This is very much a quintessential Mega Drive / Genesis game, which I mean in the worst possible way.
The game boasts over a hundred levels, although what really happens is that you’ll go from one random level to the next without any rhyme or reason, or even find yourself going backwards in the order. The levels are also pretty short, and they tell me that this brings Kid Chameleon close to the Super Mario Bros. 3 style of gameplay. I’m sorry, but that is nonsense. Wouldn’t an overworld map have been nice?
You do get Mario style power-ups in this drab game anyway, or more like transformations. You can become a samurai, a knight, a futuristic soldier and more. This adds a bit of fun, but not much. All you really need from these transformations is a bit more durability, a better chance at making it through the tons of levels, assuming you don’t fall victim to instant deathtraps.
The controls are so slippery and imprecise that you won’t make it too far through this game anyway, but if you do, then God help you when you eventually run upon a hellish level like Bloody Swamp - all your precious continues will wash away in an instant.
Such levels, and the whole game really, are just full of everything trying to kill you. It really is an unrelentingly difficult game to finish, and probably 99% of players have never managed it. Incidentally, you can forget about savefiles, or even passwords. You’ll have to rely on hidden level warps, which is a laugh - the levels are cryptic and mysterious enough when you play through them normally, so forget about finding any secrets.
Something is seriously wrong with this game. It is hateful, and it really does have this foreboding atmosphere, depressing almost. I know that this game would most certainly have frightened the bejeebus out of me as a child. And, before you call me wetty, you should take a look at it for yourself.
Alright, I’ll brave up and describe it: the colours are off, the sound is whack, and many of the enemies and bosses are disembodied heads, each with a dozen eyes, moving eerily around the screen with a voice sample repeating the word “die” at you. It’s pretty hardcore, I’ll accept that. But just what on earth kind of thing is going on here?
I didn’t mention that the story involves you, the Kid Chameleon, king of the local arcade, getting sucked into a vicious arcade machine and trying to fight your way through it. And all of us kids of a certain age, we’ve all wanted to be brought into the gameworld of an arcade machine.
I reckon it would have been great fun to visit the world of Super Off Road. And I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to be there with the girls in Gals Panic, so long as the big spider wasn’t there to join me. But Kid Chameleon, no thank you. Leave this one unplugged, unplayed, and forever unloved.
29 March 2024