Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch: Make My Video

"Please don't "Make My Video""

I wanted to make this review tongue-in-cheek. I wanted to write a review that used a lot of terms from the late '80s and early '90s, such as "mondo tubulouso" and "babe-a-rino." But honestly, I just can't. I can't do that because this game sucks that much.

First, I want you to look at the score I gave it. A "3." Now look at all of my other reviews and see the scores that I gave them. I gave both the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers game and Back to the Future a 5, and most people would agree that those games suck. The point I'm trying to make is that as a reviewer, I'm pretty soft. So, what makes this game so bad that I would rate it "Bad - not a very enjoyable game?" The answer may not be what you would expect.

It's not the overuse of FMVs. Yes, much like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, this game is almost exclusively made out of FMVs. The game starts out with the most uninteresting FMV in which a kid (played by Michael Bacall, who apparently played such roles as "Perry" in Free Willy, "Torvald" in Hey, Arnold, and "Omar" in Grindhouse) searching around his room for a video camera (or possibly the TV that's playing Marky Mark's "Good Vibrations, but how stupid can you be to not be able to find a TV in your own room?) while the credits role. It is monotonous, but it can be skipped, so I'll let this one slide. The camera then pans to a shot of Marky Mark rapping, then back to the boy watching said video, until his sister (played by Stephanie Furst, who can be found as a mermaid in Hook, "Jennifer Wade" in one episode of Saved by the Bell, and "Former Girlfriend" in Jerry Maguire) comes into the room and swoons over Marky Mark. She wants a hunky Marky Mark, he wants a tough Marky Mark. Stupid jokes ensue, until they demand that you make their desired video.

And there's your premise to the game. In theory it sounds like a good idea: you're supposed to make a music video given one of three song choices and certain specifications. These specifications are given to you by one of four different groups of people: a boxer, the sister's friends, the brother's band friends, and the parents of the brother and sister. At this point I'd like to note how weird these choices are. The boxer I just don't get. Were boxers "rad" to kids back in '93? I guess Mike Tyson was somewhat popular, but I don't remember any boxer craze. The band is awesome because it contains not only the guy who played "Duane" in Full House, but also Seth Green of Robot Chicken and Family Guy fame. Between this game and the Nerf commercial he did, I'd imagine that he was at that point in his career when he'd do anything for money and experience. More power to him. I'd imagine the parents are lame in that '90s type of way, but I never tried to make a video with them. In fact, the only group I did try to make a video with was the sister's friends, so I'll just explain that experience in detail.

There are three girls in the group (who, oddly enough, all have somewhat respectable acting careers. Was this game supposed to be the next big thing?? I hope not.), but I don't get the friendship at all. Okay, so the rich, ditzy white girl and the Lisa Turtle wannabe black girl makes sense, since they both seem superficial enough, but a goth girl??? Why would they bother to hang out with a goth girl? I know that it's a video game and they're just actors, but it just doesn't sit right with me. But you know what, who cares? Anyway, you select the song that you want, and they tell you what they want in it. One time they showed me five images of god-knows-what (more on that later) and said they wanted to see Marky Mark green and blue, another time they wanted shots of the city (told to me via horrible singing by the white chicks) and frozen shots of Marky Mark, and a third time they wanted lots of shots of Marky Mark and buildings and very few shots of women (because "they didn't want to see Marky Mark with other women").

This is where the game starts to suck. Yes, the part of the game where you actually get to play the game is where it starts to suck. If this game was more powerful and had more options, it could have been a good game. But the given system just sucks. There are three different scenes playing out on the bottom of the screen, and you have to choose which one you want to use in your video. There are effects that you can add to the video, but they're pointless unless the game specifically requests it (ie., the freeze option is only necessary when the game tells you it wants frozen pictures of Marky Mark). So for most of the game you just switch from one video to the next to make sure you include what they want and don't include what they don't want. This is difficult for two reasons. First, the stuff that you want doesn't appear for very long, so you'll find yourself realizing that what you want has appeared, but by the time you switch the video you're recording to that video, what you want has already vanished. Second, as I said before, it is sometimes hard as hell to see what's going on since the screens are very small and grainy.

What makes it even worse is that you have to listen to the song at least twice before you are judged: once to make the video and once more to see the finished results. Considering that I had to play the game three times before I made a video that they liked and that I heard the opening credits a couple of times and you'll realize that I listened to "Good Vibrations" eight times. EIGHT TIMES. Now, I don't hate the song; it has that nostalgia factor to it that makes me enjoy hearing it now and again. But EIGHT times just to complete this game? That's not worth it.

Which brings me to why I think this game is bad: even when you beat it, you don't feel like you've accomplished anything. The last time I played this game, I honestly muted the sound and just kept switching the video. It was then that I realized how stupid this game really is. It's a music game that makes the player want to mute the sound to complete it. And do you know what you get? A "good job" from the girls and your name in the list of people who can beat this game. Hell, at least in Power Rangers I had the satisfaction of watching a TV show.

This game is just pointless. The FMV is more enjoyable than the game itself, and that's not saying much. Don't spend any money on this game. Go to youtube, watch the intro, and forget about this game. Or just watch "Good Vibrations" eight times in a row. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/08

Game Release: Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch: Make My Video (US, 1992)