Suburban Commando

Hulk Hogan on my monitor. 1993, Alternative Software, and I didn't know whether to laugh or shut down the computer. In the end, I didn't shut it down.

Suburban Commando is an action platformer loosely based on the 1991 film of the same name, starring professional wrestler Hulk Hogan as an intergalactic warrior stranded in the suburbs of planet Earth. The movie was light, B-movie fare that didn't strain the brain cells — and the game faithfully follows it in every respect. So you control an alien commando and make your way through levels packed with enemies who clearly have it out for you.

Gameplay is as straightforward as a slap in the face. Go right, punch, jump occasionally, shoot occasionally. Alternative Software weren't harboring any grand illusions about depth back then — this was a movie tie-in product, basically disposable merchandise. Keyboard controls worked as well as they could, but character responsiveness was one of those cases where enough time passed between pressing a key and seeing a reaction on screen to contemplate the meaning of life. Enemies come in waves, level design is average, and nothing surprises you after seeing the first couple of screens.

Why do I even remember this? Because this was exactly the kind of game you'd borrow from a classmate on a floppy disk, spend a Saturday afternoon with, and return on Monday without a second thought. It wasn't bad in a painful way — it was simply average in a quiet way. The graphics handled what DOS in 1993 expected of them, the soundtrack was functional, and Hogan looked Hogan enough to justify the license. Today it's aged exactly as it had to: like a postcard from an era when movie tie-ins didn't need to be good, just timely.

Today you play Suburban Commando for two reasons: either you actually made it through the movie in the nineties and want to close your eyes and take a moment to catch a whiff of that era, or you're simply curious about what average action platformers looked like on PC back then. As a historical document of the genre, it's a fair example. As a game that could hook you today — hardly. But in your browser, no installation required, and completely free, you can get through everything this game has to offer in half an hour. And that might be exactly the time it deserves.