good morrow, and welcome to judging by thecover. forsooth. where we'll be judging... defender of the crown. which i would like to confirm right away isnot a porn game. by the cover. now, i know what you're thinking. of course defender of the crown isn't a porngame, yahtzee croshaw. it's as everybody knows a landmark strategygame released for the commodore amiga in 1986.
well, listener, apparently that wasn't madeentirely clear to whoever designed the box. first of all, get a load of that lady drapedover the armoured bloke's horse, wearing the crown that presumably has gotten all thesedefenders in a tizzy. at first glance, i thought her eyes were glowingwhite pupils on a purple background because she's possessed by satan. then i zoomed closer and realised, oh, she'sjust got her eyes shut and is wearing two spadefuls of eyeshadow. making her eyelids officially the most dressedpart of her. one bump on the road and that outfit goesfrom "off the shoulder" to "off the clitoris".
the last time i saw a cleavage like that,i endeavoured to mine it for rare ore deposits. this is the pc version, and the interestingthing about the nes version is that it's exactly the same scene but entirely redrawn for noapparent reason unless the artist on the localisation team was trying to look busy for the managementconsultants. you'll note that princess helplesstits isa lot more engaged with her surroundings in this version, as she reacts with terror ather captor's upraised weapon. probably because of what's going on with theshaft, there. take off the axe part of the weapon and what'sleft looks like it's been designed for very suspect purposes indeed.
interestingly, while the human charactershave been redrawn to look respectively more human, more scary and less like an angry dadat his kid's football game, the horses have transitioned to the nes cover largely unchanged. the white one looking surprised and going"oh, howard, why are you wearing that tinfoil hat?" and the brown one going "gah western democracyis a sham open your eyes people!" that's all very well, yahtzee, but what wasall that about mistaking the game for porn? so far your only evidence is a knobbly shaftand a woman who looks like she just spent the whole afternoon making use of one.
well, i haven't shown you the back of thebox, yet. let's start with the blurb. "cinemaware is adult entertainment." that draws a pretty firm line under the matterfor me, but let's keep analysing. "a revolutionary new genre that pulls youemotionally into the story and characters." yeah, i'd like to get pulled emotionally intoher. wahey the lads. in keeping with the whole 'cinemaware' conceit,the back of the box is made to resemble a cinema facade, with the screenshots arrangedlike they're posters designed by someone with
no imagination whatsoever. the ones on the left depict firstly a hotlady and secondly the exact moment in the cinemax film when stock saxophone music startsplaying. the other set of screenshots are a littlemore abstract. firstly, some men blowing very very long horns. secondly, a metaphorical image of the redcoatsstorming the gates. now take a look at the bloke buying a ticket. what a fucking class act we've got here - singlet,shorts and flip-flops. i know visiting the cinema isn't the grandsocial occasion it was in the early 20th century
but at least put some proper shoes on, thosefloors ain't sticky for nowt. clearly this is a somewhat downmarket theatrethat exclusively shows content of a quite family unfriendly nature. i mean, the guy's already got an anticipatoryhard-on so pronounced it's pulling the fabric of his shorts straight up his bum crack. no wonder april o'neil has shown up to getthe undercover scoop on this den of vice. oh, incidentally, nice job trying to coverup the name of the film from the original photo. i certainly can't tell that it originallyread 'running scared', probably the 1986 billy
crystal vehicle. i've seen captchas that were harder to makeout than that. but speaking of making out, let's get backto the blurb. the second paragraph is mainly going on aboutcharging steel and clashing steeds and all that bollocks but it does remember to bookendthe text with references to lusty wenches and many a beautiful damsel. but then in the very first bullet point wetalk about rescuing our lady, singular, so either all that lusty wenches talk was misleadingus or we're a philandering bastard and that norman prison will seem quite rosy after shegets us home and looks inside our breeches.
also, note the promise of easy-to-use mouseor joystick controls with no typing required. we are literally advertising that this gamecan be played one-handed. and if you want one last piece of sizzlingeroticism from this cover, look no further than that gorgeous sex pot in the lower right. "hello ladies," growls master designer kellynbeeck. "you know what they say. once you go beeck, you'll be back. within the week."