# He-Man,Thundercats & Co: Videogames of 80s cartoons - Discuss and share your ideas!



## Cherno (Feb 14, 2014)

This has bugged my recently, especially since I started programming games myself and noticed that it isn't THAT hard to make small, fun games by yourself, even less so if you have some people to help you out.

What I want to see:

1. A third-person "RPG Lite" in the Masters of the Universe... universe  Play as Prince Adam and explore Castle Grayskull, lounge in the park with your cowardly pet pal Gringer, and annoy Men-at-Arms by stealing from his armory. But of course, soon enough Skeletor (or Hordak, or King Hiss) sets in motion another dastardly plan for domination over Eternia! Gather your party of loyal followers like Stonedar and Rokkon, Orco, and others, and receive your quest from the Sorceress or the King himself. Transform into He-Man, greatest warrior of all time, ride into battle on fiercesome Battle-Cat, and show that witch Evil-Lynn that on Eternia, only muscle-bound males may wear revealing clothing!

(Pic from some kind of model viewer as far as I can tell)




2. What about Thundercats? The gameplay is like the old arcade classic Golden Axe (or the recent Sacred: Citadel), simple side-scroling beat-em-up button-mashing action! Tigro's sword is of course the best weapon in the game and it can be upgraded until you are ready to defeat Mumm-Ra.

Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats! Ahoooooow!


3. No mention of Thundercats without talking about Silverhawks as well! The cartoon series with the arguably most awesome, most 80s intro song, plus it has a cyber-cowboy playing his electric guitar... while sitting in the cockpit of his hawk-spaceship! You can't get any more rad than that. For a Silverhawks videogame, I imagine a simple action game with some themed mechanics, like sending out your cyber-hawk companion to scout or attack like a drone, and alternating between ground fights on the series' trademark locations like Starship Casino and Limbo, and spacefights against Mon*Star riding his space-squid.

Tally Hawk!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzAQu23t19A

4. MASK! How cool were all those transformable cars? Matt Tracker's Thunderbird, Miles Mayhem's Switchblade, and so on. I was always intrigued by the one toy in particular, a highway advertising sign on a pole in which one of Tracker's men hid with a laser cannon. What's the deal with that? Does he really sit in there for days until some villain stumbles through the desert into range of his cannon? 

 

Also of note is the ridiculous incompetence of Miles Mayhem himself, he regularly invests billion of dollars into far-fetched plans and equipment, only to have it all crsh down on him minutes of his similarly inept troops meeting Tracker's team. Seriously, a ginourmous submarine, and it is destroyed after only one engagement? He's gotta have  some very generous creditors.

It's Rhino Rig! O M G!!!



And hey... we ALL know where Colin Powell got the the idea that Saddam was hiding his WMDs inside trucks from!

***

There have been so many Turtles games, but what about the other excellent franchises? Farcry: Blood Dragon was pretty hyped before it came out because of it's 80s aestethics, and the people who were kids in the 80s and grew up with all these thinly-veiled and sometimes glorified toy-commercials are in their 30s and 40s now, perfect for selling videogames to!

Any other ideas for videogames based on classic saturday morning cartoons?


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## kimikodesu (Feb 14, 2014)

Haha, I'd love a "now" version of a He-Man game. That would be awesome. I remember as a kid playing He-Man on my dad's old Intellivision.


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## Cherno (Feb 14, 2014)

For shizzle, I would love to visit a 3D version of Snake Mountain and  especially Fright Zone (that swampy rocky prison with a huge snake in a  cave). 

Also, remember the "Eternia" playset? This had to be the  biggest plastic toyset ever, with multiple buildings all connected by  some kind of maglev!
I mean, what the hell.






I always wanted to have Monstroid but couldn't find it anywhere






Here's a cool site with all the He-Man and MOTUS toys:

http://www.he-man.org/collecting/toycollection.php?id=1


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## Cherno (Feb 14, 2014)

Looks like there's actually a He-Man game for Android and iPhone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIen72HWy5o


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## Morrus (Feb 14, 2014)

He's amazing. He's fantastic! Wherever there is danger, he'll be there!

DANGERMOUSE!


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## sabrinathecat (Feb 15, 2014)

I remember entering a "Design a character" contest for He-Man. Sent in over a dozen ideas. An eye-ball with arms and legs won. Funny thing: I did see one of my designs a few months later. I was pissed. But there you go. Technically, I wasn't a valid entry because you had to be 12 or younger as of XXX which was my 13th birthday. And all entries become property of Mattel anyway.

Transformers has had some good video games, but how about GIJoe? No, not ones based on the crappy new movies, but based on the 80s cartoon. Better yet: based on the comic books.

That MASK billboard Blast had big turbine things. Were they just ventilation, or were they strong enough to make it fly?

Insectaurs had potential.

Inhumanoids and Centurians were kinds goofy, but certainly could have worked well.

Don't forget Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light.

Thumbs-up for Silver-Hawks. I remember seeing the pilot, then the cut-down version for the 2-parter. It wasn't until Flashback came around that the cut scenes from the pilot were re-used.

Robotech. There's got to be a good robotech game. And if not, someone needs to get on it. (Yes, I know, Macross, Southern Cross, Mospeada)


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## kimikodesu (Feb 15, 2014)

I wish I still had my old He-Man toys from when I was a kid xD

But wow sabrinathecat, that really sucks! It's still pretty cool you saw one of your designs though.

We need a Jem and the Holograms game


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## sabrinathecat (Feb 16, 2014)

Mad_Jack said:


> I had to write a business letter for English class in junior high, and I sent in several Transformers designs to Hasbro, complete with exact technical drawings... One of my designs was a dophin. (This was before the Dinobots came out, right around the time that Takara was first popping out the Dino Robo figures in Japan.) They sent me a nice letter explaining that they didn't accept outside designs.
> Later on, when I first saw the Dinobot Grimlock, there were... similarities... in the way the body and legs transformed and in how the ends of the tail ended up on the outside of his lower legs. < insert rolleyes smiley here... >
> 
> 
> Bastards.




Only thing they changed on my design was to turn the sword into a shield (ok, durability and play value) and to change the color scheme from my classy red, blue, silver to a pearlescent champaign gold.


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## Cherno (Feb 16, 2014)

sabrinathecat said:


> That MASK billboard Blast had big turbine things. Were they just ventilation, or were they strong enough to make it fly?




Now that you mention them I see those turbines as well, I guess they're there to provide ventilation in the Nevada Desert heat... Imagine sitting in a <2 cubic metres enclosed metal space in a combat suit and a big honking mask on, all in a climate that's known for being hot as hell at day 



sabrinathecat said:


> Robotech. There's got to be a good robotech game. And if not, someone needs to get on it. (Yes, I know, Macross, Southern Cross, Mospeada)




I think there have been several Robotech, Macross etc. games, but they were never released outside Japan?

Also, WHY IN THE HOLY MOTHER OF... JESUS  do we not have a game of the arguably most ridiculous-but-most-awesomest cartoon and toy series of all time:

DINO RIDERS!
















Imagine a game like the late-90s BattleZone, with you controlling a creature from third person view as in a vehicle simulator, but also being able to order your troops around, build bases etc. like an action-real-time-strategy hybrid. I want to steer that T-Rex (over)loaded with laser guns damnit!!!

I had several of these toys, most weapon mounts etc. broke easily but the dinosaurs themselves were of an extremely high quality and with realistic colors and texture; Some kind of museum of something actually licensed the sculpts from the toy creators for their educational program.

My favourite character was the bad guy with hammerhead shark head. He had a laser bazooka thing, wrist crossbow and various whip-like weapons. Great stuff.

It looks like there is actually a game similar to Dino Riders:

http://www.dinoridersworld.com/Miscellaneous/Miscellaneous(ParaWorld).html


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## bone_naga (Feb 16, 2014)

This thread made me want to find Dino-Riders. Sadly, Netflix does not have it.


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## The_Silversword (Feb 16, 2014)

There's a Voltron game available on PSN, it seems pretty decent, played through the demo. Its pretty standard arcade fare, you pick a lion and then blast away at bad guys until you get to the boss battle, if youre playing multiplayer you can appreantly join up to form Voltron: Defender of the Universe!

One of the coolest parts of the game, I thought, was when you pause it, you hear Optimus Prime say, "Voltron will be right back after these important messages" and then "We now return to Voltron: Defender of the Universe!" when you unpause it. Pretty kool.


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## Cherno (Feb 16, 2014)

I forgot that there's also a Thundercats game on the Amiga and other game system of the era (around 1990), I had it as a kid and playedit back then, sadly it's pretty sucky and it loops endlessly but hey, at least it's Thundercats


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Feb 16, 2014)

Cherno said:


> I think there have been several Robotech, Macross etc. games, but they were never released outside Japan?




I take it you didn't play the Mechwarrior franchise that was released for the PC in the '90s?  There were several games which included first-person mech combat and an RTS/RPG combo.  Great games.

Doing the same in DinoRiders would be awesome, though.


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## GMforPowergamers (Feb 17, 2014)

bone_naga said:


> This thread made me want to find Dino-Riders. Sadly, Netflix does not have it.




was there ever more then just the one story of them crashing? I have a vhs of that, and I didn't think there ever was a series...

now I want a cross over with transformers beast wars


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## Cherno (Feb 17, 2014)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I take it you didn't play the Mechwarrior franchise that was released for the PC in the '90s?  There were several games which included first-person mech combat and an RTS/RPG combo.  Great games.
> 
> Doing the same in DinoRiders would be awesome, though.




I played almost every MechWarrior game starting with MW2 and before that the Crescent Hawk's Inception on the Amiga, good games but apart from CHI there wasn't many RTS or RPG elements, were they?


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## sabrinathecat (Feb 17, 2014)

CHI was good, but there was never much point to upgrading your mech, because it wasn't needed to win the game. I did like the bit about the arms dealers selling Infernos, and using them against human targets.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Feb 17, 2014)

Cherno said:


> I played almost every MechWarrior game starting with MW2 and before that the Crescent Hawk's Inception on the Amiga, good games but apart from CHI there wasn't many RTS or RPG elements, were they?




CHI was the one I was thinking of, but Crescent Hawk's Revenge was also a RTS, followed by MechCommander and its sequel.


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## Cherno (Feb 17, 2014)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> CHI was the one I was thinking of, but Crescent Hawk's Revenge was also a RTS, followed by MechCommander and its sequel.




Ah yes, I totally forgot abiout Mech Commander.


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## Cherno (Feb 19, 2014)

I also want to see a Marshal Bravestarr game, basically like Red Dead Redemption (I never played it but it looks cool in videos). 80-80 would make the perfect companion/mount!


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## Cherno (Apr 26, 2014)

Incrediby enough, there is actually not only a He-Man game, but it's a He-Man vs. Lion-O crossover! How awesome is that? Very, I'd say. It seems to be a multiplayer beat-em-up game that looks pretty decent, development is still ongoing I guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMw5vcuzuAk

http://youtu.be/WMw5vcuzuAk


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