Home Alone retrospective: Doing hard time in solitary | Super NES Works
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2024
- Young Kevin McAllister had it rough being stuck all by himself with a house full of crooks for Christmas, but really that was nothing compared to the suffering experienced by anyone who played his game. Home Alone leads into the final run of 1991 Super NES games, and... they aren't great.
In 1991, me and my friends found the Gameboy version of this game in the school yard. I wanted to keep it, but they decided to bring it to our teacher.
"Thanks for bringing it over to me", he said "I'll take care that it returns to its rightful owner". With disappointment I saw the game disappear into his desk drawer.
One or two months later it was still right there in the drawer. Since no one seemed to claim the cartridge, I decided that it should make its way into my pocket.
The teacher never noticed that it was gone, but for my heinous theft I was still punished with an incredibly boring game and a nightmare inducing soundtrack.
But at least I learned something: Stay the hell away from THQ games.
1:40 Cheap shot on Bethesda here, and so well-deserved.
I was born in 1985, and I had such a bad reaction to the digitized AUGH face in the NES version that I begged my parents to go back to the video store so I could rent something else. It's the only rental I ever returned before the due date!
“Upper middle-class”
They’re basically on the cusp of being able to buy a mega-yacht
7:29 Man, Jeremy, don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.
He had me at people born in 1985 and I was born in 84. This game tho😒 I had it and I wont defend it.
As someone born in 1985, I can testify that what you said is accurate. My friends and I did seem to enjoy movie lisence games for the brand recognition. This resulted in us renting such games as Home Alone, Bram Stokers Dracula, Cool World, and even a game based on the Robin William's movie Toys. Toys is probably the worst out of the bunch but I remember having fun trying to figure this game out and still have a soft spot for it to this day.
I love that the life-lost screen is basically a YTMND
Released the same day Macaulay Culkin guest stars on RLM' Best of the Worst. Good timing!
And today on AVGN. He's makin' the rounds!
I was born in 1984 myself - LOVED the Home Alone movie, but when I saw the first screenshot for this atrocity, even gullible little kid me knew to stay the hell away.
1984 guy here. I agree the game is pretty bad but to be honest I did like it enough back then. I mean, I hated how hard it was and I never beat it but there was something charming and fun about it back then. I especially loved the stages where you collected electronics and animals!
Another 1984 kid here that loved the movie but knew the game was trash. The Home Alone 2 game also looked bad but I never tried it.
ANOTHER 1984 kid here. I got the Gameboy version of this, which might be more appropriate. Still very mediocre. Nonetheless, I didn't get a SNES until Christmas 1994 (though I always wanted it) and during those years pining for a sexy SNES, any game on the system looked like the bee's knees, including this. Even Rocko's Modern Life looked desirable on this! I just wanted the sixteen bits.
1985 guy here and was 6 in that theater. A better off neighbour hood kid rented it and I was like what I the hell is this?
@@rezterralico4369 ProtonJon and Vinesauce's Vinny were both born in 85 and dislike the game despite liking the movie. My cousin who somehow also was born in 85 and introduced me to gaming with Super Mario World would not have liked the game either if I know her right.
Everything you said about this game is absolutely true. But I still l love it.
Perhaps because I was born in 1985.
I remember renting this as a kid and being devastated. It was meant to be my game for the weekend.
Are you kidding? this game set the baseline for what would constitute a good game in the future. for every game released after it, all you had to do was ask "does this game have toilet pizza?" if the answer was No, then it was not a good game.
I feel like toilet pizza was the tragic but inevitable outcome of Turtlemania. "They live in the sewers... and they like pizza... so..."
File for D-Force - Gotta love it
I was born in 86, and I loved it... At least I remember loving it.. my god it's so bad, what was I thinking.. lol
Born in '85 here. I only rented the Genesis Home Alone 2 game once, and knew subconsciously it was a mistake, since I never made it past level 2. The only THQ purchases I was really fooled on back then were a couple of Ren & Stimpy games on Game Boy.
Also, if they were going to go that ridiculous with the enemies in the basement, they should have at least made the Furnace into a boss fight.
I was born ten years after and ended up with a Ren & Stimpy Gameboy game in my collection thanks to games my brother held onto. Playing that Space Cadet game was a real headache every time I attempted it.
You were so close to a good game. The one and only good Home Alone game across all platforms and sequels was Home Alone (1) for the Genesis. It was developed and published by Sega (of America) themselves, and features tons of replayability and painfully corny puns. You build a bunch of weapons from scratch MacGyver-style, and inflict enough pain on the wet bandits to make them abandon the current home they are burgling, and wait for them to strike again at one of five homes in the game, all while managing ammo conservation, and waiting out the clock for the police to show up. Easy mode lasts 20 minutes, while Hard mode lasts 40 minutes and also features more weapon parts/types. Fail to bring the hurt to the wet bandits before they completely loot a house and they will flood it and you lose that house for the rest of that playthrough. (which affects your end-score) I highly recommend trying it out. It'd not just the best of a bunch of bad games; The Genesis version of 1 actually stands apart from the rest by being a genuinely fun and fairly-decently made game. Unfortunately, the sequel they made was not so great, because they basically made it like everyone else did instead of sticking with their original formula.
I'm really glad these 2 stinkers are back to back. I rented these a ton as a kid and worked really hard to beat them. I gave up on D-Force but Home Alone will always have this weird place in my heart of being one of my first bad game experiences. Not like offensively bad, but bad enough to stick. Also I'm glad you showed Daniel Stern on the shelf by himself and showed off the terrible enemy death noise.
I remember the mega drive version, you could slide around the neighborhood on a snow sledge.
I remember renting this as a kid. It was one of those games where you tried to be patient and give it the benefit of the doubt, but deep down, you knew within seconds that it was a dud. The slippery controls were always a dead giveaway.
Wow, the snark is strong with this review. Good stuff!
The mindnumbing body horror inflicted on that dinosaur at the end though.
I never played Home Alone but I do remember learning to give THQ the sideeye from the box and hard earned experience with LJN and Acclaim that some publishers and most movie tie-ins tended towards a certain quality ceiling.
It's funny that THQ, LJN, and Acclaim are often mentioned as the worst video game publishers of that era. THQ was founded by Jack Friedman after he left LJN, and LJN was bought by Acclaim.
I loved the movie as a kid so a few years back I endured this game just to say I beat it.
great review as always! i love this game for nostalgic reasons, but i can’t deny how broken it is...
Wow. As a 1984 birth, I had the Home Alone 2 Gameboy game. It was a mess, and I couldn’t stop playing it. Mostly because it was either that, Tetris, or Super Mario Land for the umpteenth time.
Just wanna point oput the italian title for Home Alone: "Mom, I missed the plane!", which led to a decade full of title centered around exclamations to relative about the plot of the movie.
This is the best game channel ive ever come across. Its easy, informational and cozy. Please dont stop!
That ending bit is so preemptively savage to hypothetical fans, I love it.
Aw, I was trying to be cheeky, not savage.
@@JeremyParish Yeeeah, that was kinda brutal. You're curbstomping someone's childhood memory.
I apologize. I was lashing out in a blind rage, thirsty for vengeance, raging for the wounds inflicted on my own soul
Did not expect Fallout 76 to come up during this episode, but there it is LOL. On Home Alone though.... never played it. I learned my lesson with THQ's own Ren & Stimpy:Veediots! that their MO was garbage licensed games being sold on the name alone! At least back then anyway, I think THQ Nordic is faring at least a little bit better?
You released this video the same day Red Letter Media released a Best of the Worst episode guest-starring Macaulay Culkin, and three days before AVGN's Home Alone episode that also guest-stars Culkin, but there's no mention here of the website he's promoting on those other two videos. Is this part of Mac's website promotion campaign, or just a bizarre coincidence?
Home Alone was the next entry in a chronological video series, so it's a coincidence besides the fact that I held the episode back a few weeks to arrive closer to Christmas. I WISH I were raking in the sweet Macaulay Culkin promobuxx for this.
I was 6 when I saw home alone in the theater in the single screen theater. I didn't think I got an NES until the year later.
Pretty sure I remember it being garbage when I rented it.
Looking forward to discussion next year of Barry Leitch's music for Top Gear.
The audience for this game, I think, was rentals stores who bought and distributed everything remotely familiar.
"Next on Super NES Works, it's time to file for D-Force"
hahahaha. too cheesy... but I love silly puns, so it's all good. Nice retrospective.
Love it. This was one of the first games I received for my Super NES when I was eight. (That's why I bought your copy on eBay. Nostalgia is a bitch.)
It's very bad.
I was born around the year you mentioned, and I played this game at a friends house in the early or mid 90s. I hated it then, too. The game is good enough to trick you into thinking its a good game when you watch somebody else play it, but its absolutely terrible for the reasons you mentioned. It could have been an okay game, but some of the enemies/obstacles are pretty unforgiving and you take a lot of damage on just not knowing what you can actually platform off of, and bad enemy placement you can't work your way around or over.
Close but off by 4 years. I got this when I was 2 and it passed some time between me being bored with SMW and going back to SMW. It actually wasn't that hard and I was able to beat it pretty easy from what I remember. I think there's some kind of cheap exploit a bored kid would figure out but I can't remember. I think I just memorized the pizza locations and went back when I needed them. I'm glad I spent my formative years earning a grainy, pixelated screen shot of Catherine O'Hara instead of learning a second language.
"It's time to file for D-Force." Now that's the stuff of legends. D-Force is one of the games that I got with my SNES as a kid, I've always hated it, yet I never thought of that.
Only Jeremy Parish knows how to roast an old game with style.
I'm amused by how this game's rendition of the main Home Alone theme is JUST good enough to be noticeably really bad.
It ain't no Addams Family, that's for sure.
Home Alone is one of those films that with a bit of creativity should REALLY work pretty well as a game if handled well, but because of it's nature, it never got the game that the film's premise could've allowed.
Imagine if you will, the absurd trap building that the Dungeon Keeper clone 'Evil Genius' focused on, combined (given it's target audience's likely young age), a simplified version of the concepts behind metal gear.
You set up traps throughout whatever scenes the game is using, then use stealth to go around the crooks trying to break in, as they set off the traps, or you set off traps in their face.
Along the way you can taunt them into doing stupid things or running into a trap they'd otherwise avoid.
Done well, this would be amazing.
Alas it's one of those things that never happened, and likely never will, unless some random developers REALLY feel like pulling an old license and dusting it off. (not like this has never happened. Back to the Future effectively got an unofficial 4th installment in the form of an adventure game some time around 2010 or so, a good 20 years after the last film. - but it's still not a particularly likely thing to happen. Especially with a property like Home Alone...)
I’ve always wanted to ask this but what is the credits music
Co-sign.
It's the next episode music from Evangelion.
@@EmmBee27 Sounds upbeat for Evangelion.
I was born in 1995 and I love collecting Toilet Pizza. However, I recognize that I'm an outlier.
I was born in 84. My parents got me this with my snes for Christmas 92. I suspect it was quite cheap. I've beat it several times, because why not? But definitely not recommended
So I saw Patrick Willems do Home Alone, I just saw Red Letter Media's Best of the worst with Macaulay Culkin doing Home Alone 4 and now I have to watch this? What is it, Christmas season???
"And the American middle class still exists here!" It hurts because it's true.
Actually, stats show pretty much the opposite. Despite the scumbag in the White House, jobs and salaries are way up in the past couple years. The idea that the middle class doesn't exist/is struggling is largely just demagoguery from politicians. It's not backed up by the numbers.
@@kyleolson8977 www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/ ok sure
There's a lot of complexity in why this is, at best, not really right, but if I allow what you said you've actually just proved that the original statement is false. If you say "real wages" haven't changed, the exact same middle class exists. It doesn't matter how much richer some other class is (which is also problematic but I could concede without changing the argument) if the middle class still has the same wages. You have to start doing some gymnastics to get anywhere else.
Actually, the study you quote mentions that the top tenth of wage earners in the U.S. have seen the biggest growth in real wages over the last 40 years. That would be the "upper middle class" that Jeremy was talking about. There's no way Kevin McCallister's family makes less than $100,000 a year. Based on those statistics, people like his dad are doing fine.
_Another_ interesting thing about the Pew study is that it points out that non-wage costs related to providing employee benefits have increased an *inflation-adjusted* 22.5% in the last two decades. If most people's real wages have stayed pretty much the same as 40 years ago, but they also receive additional services that they don't have to pay for, aren't they better off than they were?
Kyle Olson idk i have a degree in economics and that sounds entirely wrong, “fractal income inequality” and regressive taxation policies are du jior.....
I can assure you, sir, as a child playing this, I indeed knew it belonged in a rubbish bin. This is the type of game I would have to take back to the video rental store to get something better
33 here. I did own this one on gameboy and nes, but never understood how it was considered a game. My 6 year old self was more into kwirk for short car rides, watching my brother play final fantasy, and perfecting my Super Mario speed run.
Ohhhh... an overachiever, eh?
@@JeremyParish When I was 6, I couldn't even figure out E.T. for the Atari!
No one can figure out E.T.
@@JeremyParish Oh well! I suppose I was trying to say I was out of this game's demographic at least!
I was born in 1984. Even as a kid I knew the THQ logo on a game box meant to stay away.
I still played this on a rental though. Beat it in an hour and was extremely glad I never considered buying it. Not sure what sort of maniacs would consider defending it!
I played this on the Gameboy and, maybe it's just the nostalgia talking, but it felt like a good fit for that platform. It was simple, both graphically and gameplay wise, and was interesting for short bursts. The art on the gameboy version also seemed a lot more tailored for the platform, while the SNES version feels like it's been sloppily up-res'ed. Which leads me to wonder if the SNES version was just a lazy port of the Gameboy game.
I was born in 1985 and I owned this game as a kid >.>
(And yes, it's a terrible game. I knew it even back then.)
I will definitely avoid that game, thanks for the review.
These 8:36 minutes were painful to watch and I feel no comfort from the fact that you had to suffer for a much longer time to prepare those videos. Thank you for your sacrifice!
Even when I was 10 I knew this game was trash.
Boy & His Blob is a far superior game! :D
I used to rent the NES one all the time. I have a legit cartridge that actually runs ROMs through the actual NES and that is one of the games I just downloaded for it cuz I forgot I didn't have it on there. I will beat it one day of my own volition, dammit. Lol
I'd rather bathe in aftershave and scream then play this game
I was born in 1985 and my brother and I always thought Home Alone 2 on SNES was a bootleg game. Same with this one.
I don't really like this version, but I still enjoy the Game Boy version (non-ironically) every holiday season. I think they're basically the same, but the Game Boy version just feels better to me.
Early Super NES had some awesome titles (Super Mario World, FZero, Super Castlevania IV, Actraiser) and a lot of awkward garbage like this one. It took about a year before more constantly solid titles came out on the console.
I'd say the quality-to-crap ratio got way worse over the system's lifetime, but more games were coming out in general, so the number of worthwhile releases increased.
@@JeremyParish That's a great way of putting it. It seemed the ratio of great titles to bad ones improved, but yes, there were still loads of bad titles that came to the console.
Help I’m being personally attacked
I only hurt you out of love
Jeremy Parish senpai noticed me so I guess it’s a wash
Wait, what do you mean "final episodes"? Are you ending SNES Works?
1991.
@@JeremyParish OK cool. In my defense, you don't actually say that in the video lol
Basically, Techno’s Deception was a better Home Alone game, than Home Alone was. Also, I never stop being amused by what John Hughes considered “low/middle class”, with the poorest souls barely not-scraping-by-at-all with multi-floor houses in prime real estate and several rooms with full front and back yards, all on a meager 1-2 working adult budget.
Oh and uhh, this game really sucks eggs.
This. Was. SAVAGE.
Isn't it the same as the GB game of the same name?
I remember when this came out... it was puzzlingly bad
I think I had Home Alone 2 for the computer and it just seemed so broken and barely playable.
Well this video is timed nicely with the season. Now I need to go watch the movie and avoid this game.
As someone born in 1984, I just dodged this bullet, and instead spent a bunch of time getting caught in various asteroid belts and mine fields in Wing Commander, which is a few months away.
Now this’d be a mobile app, and it wouldn’t be a platformer
Some mobile app tie-in games are good though. You played the Stranger Things mobile game? It's basically a pretty good zelda clone. You can play it with a Bluetooth gamepad too.
5:17 had me laughing :D
God I had this piece of garbage! At least they got the theme tune down...sort of.
Also, how can this have come out in europe in Jan 92 when the SNES itself wasn't released here until April of that year? Is that a general date for the NES game too?
Yikes. I applaud you for playing/reviewing a game so bad that JonTron didn't have to fake his disdain for it (nor would anyone).
As bad as Home Alone is... the game next episode is gonna be even less playable
This game has really stupid enemies. The fedora guys just stand around doing nothing while the actual Wet Bandits blindly walk into your traps that are clearly in front of them.
Sadly, this was like 1 of the 20 or 30 SNES games I owned. Yeah, it's not good at all.
But WHY is it bad?
Please revisit the entire 9-minute running length of this video for more information.
I like home alone it's an excellent Christmas movie and I will not play this game.
I live in Houston the upper middle class is going strong here
Did you just decapitate a dinosaur?
It's not something I took any pleasure in.
It's them or you, @@JeremyParish
im 33. i was in 85. i know this game is trash. blame the 32 year olds Jeremy
Those dumb babies
Despite fitting the target audience perfectly (hey, you only gave a year...) I would not defend this... heck, I'm not even a fan of the movie.
Yup. Born 1985, and I... don't remember if I liked the movie as a kid or just put it in the VCR because it was the Christmas season and therefore Christmas movies, but the game? We rented it once and never again.