Aladdin (Mega Drive)

In recent years games based on movies have generally been turgid affairs where it's been an obvious cash in, however that's not always been the case. In the early 1990's a number of licenses were taken into the video gaming world and turned into exceptional games and one of the very best was "Aladdin". Whilst this is a review for the Mega Drive version there were other versions available each of which was different to each other (the SNES and Mega Drive games are hugely different but both are excellent).

 In the game the player controls Aladdin who is armed with apples and a sword. You need to use those weapons to defeat enemies as you go through some of the most amazingly crafted levels of any 2D. The levels combine themes of the movie with wonderful gameplay whilst featuring all memorable locations as you attempt to dethrone the evil Jafar.

Where the game really stands out are the amazing graphics that use cel shading to provide a glorious background. The game also uses some of the most fluid animation for the characters and was worked on by Disney animators. This leads to the game having one of the most visually impressive displays on the Mega Drive. This is aided by some wonderful music that again seems amazing for the time and really did stand out on the Mega Drive.

As well as being a smooth game that plays wonderfully, has amazing graphics and amazing sound the game also has moments of brilliant humour and fan service. If you look at the image above you can see an enemy with his pants on show whilst the image on the left show some "Mickey Mouse ears" on the washing line.Whilst these are just extra little bonuses they do bring a little more to the game and help show off the Disney charm.

Although the main gain isn't that long (2-3 hours) you will find yourself coming back and trying to find some of the little secrets that are in the game and this again falls back on the games charm. Although I won't say it's the best platformer on the console it's certainly one of the most fun and one of the very best presented games of the era. It's also one of the greatest games based on the movie so well done the folks at Virgin for not just cashing in.

90%

Details:
Console-Sega Mega Drive (other versions are available, but differ from the Mega Drive version)
Release-1993
Developer-Virgin Interactive
Genre-2D Platformer
Players-1

Trivia:
A number of the developers of the game would later form Shiny Entertainment who created the equally wonder Earthworm Jim games.
Virgin Interactive would also be responsible for "The Lion King" and "The Jungle Book", both highly acclaimed Mega Drive titles based on animated movies.