The Weekly WTF: Hey, Remember When Michael Jordan Saved the World from Freaky Basketball-Zombie-Things?

As we know, if there's one thing celebrities love, it's hawking shit. The bottom of the barrel was thoroughly scraped by Hulk Hogan's wanktastic commercial for Honey Nut Cheerios (you thought that Hulk Hogan doesn't eat nuts and honey, and so did he, but then plot twist: once he tries them, he effing loves them), but there are all kinds of licensed horrors besides.

Such as Michael Jordan dicking about in SNES ‘classic' Chaos in the Windy City.

Chicago's gaming credentials were recently boosted by Watch Dogs, and all the high-tech hacktacular fun therein. But two decades before that, the city faced a whole different --and far more crazy-ass-- peril. The Chicago Bulls were kidnapped, by a mad scientist who really should have better things to do with his time.

Anywho, yes. Maximus Cranium and his odd army of creature-things are on the rampage; experimenting on basketball players for reasons unknown. And possibly pervy. But fear not, because Michael Jordan remains un-kidnapped, and he's out to kick some righteous ass with his... balls.

Lunatic concept aside, the game plays quite conventionally. It's a 2D platformer, full of the usual key-findin', enemy-dispatchin' goodtimes. But this isn't a cutesy, pink, unicorns-and-rainbows-sprouting-out-of-everyone's-anuses sort of affair. Chaos in the Windy City is dark as hell.

As you can see from the shots, this looks more like Michael Jordan Wanders Into Castlevania For No Freaking Reason At All (incidentally, developers, that's a great idea right there). It's a gothic world of creepy floating eyeballs, huge brown turd-demons and a horrendous taste in interior decorating.

Which is where our ol' buddy Michael's balls come in. To take out the marauding horde and free the imprisoned team, he has to get his basketball on (echoes of Space Jam abound). He's equipped with a standard basketball, which is weak with unlimited ammo, and all kinds of elemental balls besides. Ice Balls, Fire Balls, and a couple of fancy exploding ones. It's all good.

Sure, Chaos in the Windy City was a horrible critical failure. But in its defense, much of this was due to how gonads-grabbingly absurd it was. The fundamentals worked well enough, it was just hard to get away from the fact that Michael Jordan was hunting weirdly weird monsters of weird weirdery with magical basketballs.