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6 Mar 2024

Playing with the stars: 5 games that rocked, rapped, or popped!

Amy Flower

STACK Senior Editor

The worlds of popular music and games have met several times over the years, but usually just as songs that you can play or sing along with. Some artists, however, have taken it a step further. Here are five of our favourites.

Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

(1985 – Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC)

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While they weren’t the first band to get involved with a video game – arguably that was the weird-out Journey arcade game of 1983 – the Frankie boys certainly took the weird and amped it to 11 with this one.

Developed in the UK for home computers of the time, the game was based in the band’s hometown of Liverpool, where the player had to search out the Pleasuredome – as featured in the title of Frankie’s debut album – to become a “full person”.

It was a combination of action adventure, murder mystery, puzzles, and minigames, and also featured chiptune versions of some classic Frankie tracks, while a cassette tape recording of Relax live was also included in the box. It’s also still one of the oddest games that we’ve ever played.

Mötley Crüe – Crüe Ball

(1992 - SEGA Mega Drive)

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Starting life as a general heavy metal pinball game, the Mötley Crüe license was nabbed down the development track, and the band’s mascot, Alister Fiend, found himself starring in his very own SEGA game.

The story revolved around blasting anti-rock forces and cranking up the volume to the max (as the back of our copy proudly attests) in “The Ultimate Heavy Metal Pinball Concert” (all of that capitalisation is theirs, not ours).

Three Mötley Crüe tracks featured in chiptune form – Dr. Feelgood, Live Wire, and Home Sweet Home.

What separated this from many video pinball games was that its development team included people who’d worked on real life pinballs. While sticking with such conventions as flip screens and various “only in a game” features, it played really, really well.

Spice Girls – Spice World

(1998 - PlayStation)

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We’ll tell you what we want, what we really, really want, and that’s a fun Spice Girls game! Ahem sorry, “interactive magazine”.

Not surprisingly a non-starter for the bloke-dominated games press, the experience - initially inspired by groundbreaking rhythm game PaRappa the Rapper, but not ending up like it much at all – found an audience that enjoyed the top fan service that it had to give.

Players guided caricatures of the girls (all of which were rather 'Scary') through various stages of preparation for a live television performance, from the Mixing Room, where you’d pick a song and do a rough remix from provided snippets, to Dance Practice, where you’d sort their choreography.

Five songs featured – Wannabe, Say You’ll Be There, Who Do You Think You Are, Spice Up Your Life, and Move Over – but only via short snippets, so you could easily tire of hearing the same bits over and over. But hey, you could always check out the included interviews and news snippets, including the infamous Prince Charles botty grope.

Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang: Taste the Pain

(1999 – PlayStation)

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Known in the USA as Shaolin Style, forget taking the rhythm game route, for this Wu-Tang-endorsed game went the classic biffo route, with a vague full motion video story about a Chinese gang wanting to learn the ways of the Wu-Tang fighting discipline, kidnapping Master Xin, and the Wu Tang Clan setting out to rescue their master.

What ensued was a brawler akin to others of the time, be they Street Fighter II, Virtua Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive… and we could, of course, go on.

What upped the awesome was that you could fight as any of the nine members of the Wu-Tang Clan, while their tunes played in the background. Some of the Clan also provided voiceovers within the game. Another cool addition was that four fighters could go at it simultaneously.

Even cooler was the limited-edition fight controller, shaped like the Wu-Tang W. It was a pain to use, but boy it looked the part.

Britney Spears – Britney’s Dance Beat

(2002 – PS2)

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Back in 2002, a certain demographic would pretty much chew their own arm off if it meant that they could join Britney’s dance crew. Thankfully, however, limbs could remain entirely chomp mark-free thanks to the arrival of Britney’s Dance Beat. Even if it was all virtual.

Featuring four Max Martin bangers - Baby One More Time, Oops!... I Did It Again, Stronger, Overprotected – and one by some bloke named Pharrell (I'm a Slave 4 U), players took on the role of an aspiring dancer auditioning for a spot on Britney’s upcoming tour.

While one of Ms Spears’ music vids rolled in the background, gameplay followed a fairly classic rhythm game style, by pressing the right button at the right time, with Brit offering encouragement with such comments as “Way to work it!” and “That was awesome!” as you went. If you were accurate enough, you’d unlock bonus footage of Britney backstage.

Feel the rhythm!

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