Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Ripping off a Ripoff



Most will be familiar with these two pictures. They're always brought up when someone questions Hideo Kojima's originality, to feed the argument that he's just ripping off american movies most of the time. Stuff like that was actually a somewhat common practice among video game cover/poster artists in the 80s.

Well if you think that is hilarious, wait till you see...





... this ad for the Korean MSX game Devil Zone. It is clearly recognizable as stealing from the Metal Gear cover and not Terminator itself. The game has actually little else in common with Metal Gear, it's a sidescrolling action game with little actual level design, like a more elaborate variant on the NES Kung Fu.
Posted by derboo at 11:23 AM
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5 comments:

  1. Fascinating insight to Korea as always, Derboo.
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  2. I personally dig the Swamp Thing outside the triangle, but I have one question; who in the hell is the poorly drawn guy in lower right corner?
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  3. Ha, that's awesome. Don't forget that Metal Gear was originally an MSX title, making the ripoff all the more apparent (though I'm not sure if Koreans were particularly aware of Metal Gear at the time).

    Looking into it further (for emulation purposes) I found this: http://comandgame.tistory.com/61 which features an alternate cover for this same game featuring Charles Bronson, Captain Power, some 19th century cavalry, and a demon ripped straight from a Mercyful Fate album cover.

    Never did find that rom, though.
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  4. the only outright rip from kojima is snatcher and you know it.
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  5. I'm amazed one SNATCHER "homage" that no one seems to mention is that Blade Runner-light movie "Runaway", starring Tom Selleck. The insectors in the game are clearly copied from Gene Simmons' evil robot spiders in that movie.

    Another one is from the opening cinematic (and American cover) to the PC-Engine version of YS III: Wanderers from YS. The picture of the legendary warrior standing atop a lofty peak is clearly ripping off this Frank Frazetta painting of a Roman legion: http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/fantasy/images/FrankFrazetta-Seven-Romans-1979.jpg
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