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Yes, this is real
Bad games are not hard to come by; really bad games are still nothing special. But an atrocious game? That is something that comes by once every blue moon. What’s even rarer is a game that’s not only atrocious, but offensively atrocious. Custer’s Revenge, Ride to Hell, these are considered the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of quality and good taste. But there is a game so dreadful, so offensive, it even puts those titles to shame. I am talking about the infamous, egregious, hellspawn that is Hong Kong 97. A game so low in quality, it was barely even released in Japan. With the advent of the internet and ROMs, we can now see what a masterpiece of garbage this pile of junk really is.
The Not too Distant Future
Hong Kong 97 is set in the future (the game was released in 95) where British rule of Hong Kong comes to an end. Mainland China, referred to as “F**kin Ugly Reds” (I’m dead serious), is attempting to conquer Hong Kong. The HK government decided that there was only one option left. Send in the big guns; the apex hunter, the ultimate trump card, Bruce Lee’s relative, Chin, played by Jackie Chan (again, dead serious). Chin goes on the ultimate quest to “wipe out all 1.2 billion of the red communists!” (which would be the entire population of China at the time). However, Chin should beware, mainland China is working on a project to transform the deceased Deng Xiaoping (who was actually still alive when this was released) into an “ultimate weapon.”
“Gameplay”
Yes it really looks like that
Hong Kong 97 is a 2D shooter, an extremely basic one. The entire game has Chin on a single screen running around dodging enemies, syringes, and limos. The game backgrounds are Chinese Communist propaganda pictures, Mao, and the Coca-Cola logo (again, dead serious). Chin’s only method of attack is shooting white fireballs, which causes enemies to die in a nuclear explosion. Enemies swarm the screen very quickly, one hit and it’s game over. This will lead to excessive deaths, and every time you die, you have a game-over screen with a real photo of a casualty from the Bosnian War. Yes, they really went that low. Nowhere near as offensive, but extremely irritating, is the soundtrack. The song “I Love Beijing Tiananmen” is played in an infinite 3-second loop, even after you die. It’s so terrible that we actually awarded HK97 the title of worst soundtrack in our Digital Turkey list. If you do manage to survive around five to seven minutes, the final boss, Deng Xiaoping, shows up and is literally just a floating head. There is no real ending to Hong Kong 97; defeating the boss just causes the game to loop endlessly.
Yes, it is THAT Bad
Yes, that’s the final boss
Broken controls, distasteful content, preposterous premise, and short length constitutes one of the most offensively terrible games I have ever played. Some will get a laugh out of the hilariously absurd intro, and ROMs are very easy to come by. But even still, I cannot recommend this in good faith. Roundhouse kick this slop to the curb.
Verdict 0.5/10
