#happysoft

I Love Beijing Tiananmen

“Wipe out all 1.2 billion of the red communists!”

There’s not really a sense of mystery as to “how games get made” any more. On the AAA level, it’s all pretty straightforward: A developer is tasked with producing a game, said developer develops said game, and a publisher makes sure it lands on store shelves. On the independent level nowadays, you probably picture smaller teams pouring their hearts into their passion projects, before selling and marketing their own wares online via itch.io or Steam or wherever else have you. Of course, it isn’t always quite that simple. And back in the days before modern distribution methods? It was neverthat simple.

For years, the origins of the infamous Super Famicom title Hong Kong 97 seemed to be a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. There are some who believe that it never actually existed in any sort of purchasable form — that it only ever existed as a download on ROM repositories and whatnot. Others might actually believe that it was somehow stocked alongside the likes of Super Mario World on store shelves, left wondering how the hell it could have wound up there? Naturally, neither of these theories are quite right, as we’ll discover together over the course of this article.

This is the story of one of the crudest, most amateur video games ever sold. But it’s more than just that: It’s also a story about the spirit of the indie developer, a history lesson on video game bootleggery, and a parable on how there are some bells that can’t be unrung. It’s a story I’m actually almost hesitant to write, given that the man most closely associated with the game has recently been quoting as saying that he would prefer that it fade into obscurity once again (and for good reason). But it’s also a game that mined shock value and racism for comedy, so I’m plenty content to say “heck it, let’s rake it over the coals.” This is the story of Hong Kong 97.

Name: Hong Kong 97

Developed By: HappySoft

Platform: Super Famicon Disc Drive

Hong Kong 97 (HappySoft - Super Famicom - 1995)

suggested by videogamesprites

Game = Hong Kong '97 by HappySoft Obtained Via = Emulator cause I wasnt paying THAT for THAT!!

Video Footage = http://youtu.be/oka1XfJuSc8 (Warning : Contains Racial Slurs)             It's not often you encounter a game that makes you want to rip off your ears in a fury and destroy all trace of the Cartridge with some manner of sledgehammer. Now you may ask what manner of game could evoke such a violent response, Introducing~ Hong Kong '97 for the Super Nintendo.

         Made in 1995 by ironically titled Development group "HappySoft" in the dying days of the Super Famicom, the game, set during the transfer of sovereignty to Hong Kong, places us in the role of Chin (Apparently Bruce Lee's Cousin as touted by the  introduction) who has been hired by the Hong Kong Government to wipe out the entire Chinese nation's populace to  halt the wave of crime striking the newly sovereign country. Yet meanwhile in China research was underway to create the worlds greatest weapon... the reanimated severed head of Deng Xiaoping (The Guy hadn't even died yet) ...when it comes to Bio-weapons.. wow even by disater movie standards that's a stupid one.

           Upon switching on the game the player is bombarded by the shrill track of "I love Beijing Tiananmen" in a 3 second loop that will remain with you until you finish and haunt you for days (See ripping off your ears above) but like most horror movies the horrible music is but a prelude to what the player is about to have done to them. After the rather short and baffling intro to the story the game begins very abruptly, as Chin, who simply stands out as being the only person on screen wearing white, begins his crusade of shooting Chinese policemen, and if you figure out any of this before you get an instant game over, fair play to ya.

               The game's health system is..well absent, there is none, no extra lives no continues, only a rather grusome Game Over Screen of a pixelated corpse, and here's the kicker, Everything kills you in one shot, sometimes even items that the dead folks drop that are meant to help you. So you toil away, shooting and avoiding everything for fear of death by doughnut (I'm not kidding) until after many shootouts with cars IT appears the severed head of Deng Xiaoping complete with badly drawn ms-paint blood just in case the giant head trying to squish you wasn't evidence enough that it had been detatched from its body. After a rather pointless bout with the dismembered photo, it explodes in a cheap rectangle gif of an explosion like everything else you shot with your fist and you're treated to a lavish ending sequence where all that horrible gameplay was justified by the engorging story of Chin's pursuit of happiness, except I'm totally lying and the game just starts all over again, same Maoist propaganda backdrop and all. If at this point your brain hasn't imploded in protest to the music you'll want to turn off the power, remove the cartridge and place on a burning pyre Darth Vader style just so it can't hurt anyone else.. or sell it on Ebay to some guy in Taiwan willing to shell out big bucks for an actual copy.