The story of games-based-on-films I’ve been able to tell so far has not been a positive one. Aladdin is a different type of film to Robocop or Terminator 2, though. Could it be an equally different kind of game?
To a point, the answer is no. The old model of walking around locations from the film and shooting people is back. Sure, you’re throwing apples at people rather than firing a gun, and your targets just vanish into a puff of magical nothing rather than slumping to the ground. The small differences that can keep this more officially suitable for children are there, even if you’re taking out just as many people on your way.
More than those games, though, Aladdin is foremost a platform game, as would be the new orthodoxy for movie games including future Disney ones. Movement around the screen between platforms is more important still than apple-ing those who get in the way. It’s not the most inventive or complicated platform game, but even as linear as it is, its gameplay involves a lot more juggling different types of movement and actions in interesting environments. A sequence with various charmed ropes that fly you to different locations is a lot of fun. There are various secrets to find which take you to bonus stages which offer variety without outstaying their welcome or forcing you to master different types of gameplay to get anywhere.
The liveliness of the gameplay goes hand in hand with a wider liveliness. Trying to turn live action films into Spectrum (or even Amiga) games while applying limited imagination meant flat looks that couldn’t compare to the original films, even the bits of them made on computers. Those films tending towards the dark and grim made things worse. Aladdin’s animation is closer to being within the reach of the Mega Drive’s capabilities, and the developers worked with Disney to make the most of what they could manage. The result is something that reflects a good proportion of the time and skill that went into the film’s animation, and which is a joy to look at, bursting with life. The movement is fluid and rarely frustrating even when contending with old challenges like platforms which collapse under you. There’s a lot to enjoy in all the small details, my favourite being the way that enemies’ thrown knives cut apart your applies in mid-air, the pieces falling around.
The downside of Importing so much of the film is that it inevitably means bringing in the orientalism and racism along with anything else. You could hold that up against the fact that positive elements of representation were rare in mainstream games even in comparison to in Hollywood – the most obvious comparison in the world of games would be Prince of Persia, and at least Aladdin doesn’t have a blond white guy as its hero. That’s a pretty low bar, though. Aladdin showed that even licensed games could be more than just inferior souvenirs of movies, and surely then they could seek to exceed them in all terms, not just their own more generous ones.
PC chart, Edge 008, May 1994