Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City

Honest and Unpopular Reviews No. 57 Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City (SNES) Back in the 90s it felt like every famous athlete got a video game, whether it made sense or not. I was all in on Michael Jordan as a kid. If it had his name on it I wanted it. Jordan is the reason why I rooted for the Chicago Bulls even though I was a Kings fan growing up just south of SacTown. This one started out as a Blockbuster rental until I finally talked my mom into buying it. EA released this game in 1994 while Jordan was off playing baseball. Which, by the way, I think if MJ had stuck with baseball, he would have been pretty good. Just needed to learn how to hit the curveball. Chaos in the Windy City is a side scrolling platformer where a mad scientist named Dr. Maximus Cranium kidnaps the other players before an All-Star charity game, leaving Jordan to rescue them with nothing but basketballs. If you don't think this is the greatest plotline for a video game, I don't know what to tell you. You find different basketballs as you go, like an ice ball that freezes enemies or a gold one that chases them down. There's even one called the Knuckle Ball that's white and looks just like a baseball. Not sure if that was a nod to Jordan playing baseball at the time. My only knock on this game is there's no battery save, so you're stuck relying on passwords. In 1997 Nintendo Power ranked it the seventh worst game of all time, right there with Shaq Fu. They got this one wrong. The game is as weird as anything that came out in the 90s, but it showed how good some of those weird games could be. To me, this is a top 10 SNES game that doesn't deserve the slander it receives. It's a fantastic 2D exploration platformer that isn't afraid to be different. I rate Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City a 4.5 out of 5.

Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City A mad scientist kidnaps the Chicago Bulls players and Michael Jordan goes in alone to save them. Equipped with a duffel bag of trick basketballs. He's in a tank top and basketball shorts the entire time, dribbling the ball constantly as you move throughout the game. This is one of the weirdest but best platformers on the system.