Hong Kong 97

[mario_bro2065]

There is a dumb game called Hong Kong 97. Just watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_aXcH1zDEE

Dear god... is this thing even real? I mean, like he said. It's release status is unknown. And there isn't even a single picture of a real copy. So we dunno if that thing was made in 1995 or 2012. It could just be some guy who wrote a dumb story. And then gave a rom he programmed in his spare time. You can only play it on an emulator. EVEN THE NERD IS PLAYING IT ON AN EMULATOR. And we know how the Nerd has gotten his hands on Cheetahmen and Nintendo World Championships. If it's that rare we don't know if it's real or not.

[nerdynebraskan]

Yeah, I was pretty amazed at how bad this game was when I saw AVGN's review the other day. Not a huge surprise, given the poor graphics, gameplay, and content that this one didn't get Nintendo's Seal of Approval.

[Nightstar699]

It's release status is unknown.

No it isn't. I spoke with the creator of this game a few years back, and he cleared things up.

[nerdynebraskan]

That's cool, Nightstar. How'd you track him down? And I wonder who got a hold of this ROM and leaked it to the internet if it never even made it to a cartridge.

[Nightstar699]

Yeah I had an odd fascination with this game a couple years ago, trying to seek out the backstory of this game used to torture me, I even wrote it off as a hoax at one point. Eventually I discovered its creator on his own website, hehehe.net, which has posts dating back to 1993 (!), and he mentions Hong Kong 97 in some of his old posts. So that led to me communicating with him via email a bit, and he was kind enough to answer my questions.

[nerdynebraskan]

Yeah, I can see why the game would excite especially the "so-bad-it's-good" crowd. Was it supposed to be some kind of joke? It seems pretty crassly anti-Chinese, but its overall quality is so spectacularly poor that I wouldn't be shocked if the whole thing wasn't some kind of goof.

[Nightstar699]

Yeah, pretty much. Most of Kurosawa's work is comedic, and I believe this applied to his games as well.

[L___E___T]

 

I wouldn't describe it as a game - it's a product of political feeling, obviously strong in HK at that time.  
Consider what came out of the meeting notes with Thatcher and Din Xiaoping and you'll see why HKers would have been upset.  It's been brewing for years.


Read more here, it's On Topic because it's why the game was made and a very interesting historical point.  I considered seeking it out but owning it could be seen as a political statement, so I'd rather not.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/how-mrs-thatcher-lost-hong-kong-ten-years-ago-fired-up-by-her-triumph-in-the-falklands-war-margaret-thatcher-flew-to-peking-for-a-lastditch-attempt-to-keep-hong-kong-under-british-rule--only-to-meet-her-match-in-deng-xiaoping-two-years-later-she-signed-the-agreement-handing-the-territory-to-china-1543375.html

[mario_bro2065]

If you communicated with him. Please dear god tell me that the game over screen wasn't a real dead body...  *shutters*. Oh yeah and someone should REALLY update the Bootleg Wiki on this. As if the game was made for comedic purposes it might be better to tell. Maybe I'll make a part 2 of my review on my channel. XD I was pretty mean to the game.