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The Lion King (video game)
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The Lion King is a video game based on Disney's popular animated film. The title was published by Virgin Interactive in 1994, and was released on SNES, NES, Game Boy, PC, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Amiga, Master System and Game Gear. (The NES and Master System versions of the game were never released in North America.) It followed Simba's journey from a young carefree cub to the battle with his uncle Scar as an adult.
game is a side-scrolling platform game, with the controlled character having to leap, climb, run and descend from platform to platform.
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Encyclopedia
The Lion King is a video game based on Disney's popular animated film. The title was published by Virgin Interactive in 1994, and was released on SNES, NES, Game Boy, PC, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Amiga, Master System and Game Gear. (The NES and Master System versions of the game were never released in North America.) It followed Simba's journey from a young carefree cub to the battle with his uncle Scar as an adult.
Gameplay
The game is a side-scrolling platform game, with the controlled character having to leap, climb, run and descend from platform to platform. There is an exception during the level The Stampede, where Simba is running towards (or in the NES and Game Boy versions, running with the camera looking straight down on top of him) the camera dodging wildebeest and leaping over rocks.
In most versions of the game two bars appear on the HUD. To the left is the roar meter, which must be fully charged for Simba's roar to be effective.
To the right is the health bar which decreases when Simba is hurt. At the bottom left of the screen is a counter showing how many lives Simba has remaining.
Health can be restored by collecting bugs which come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some rare health-damaging bugs also exist.
The player controls Simba (first as a cub, then later as an adult) in the main levels and either Timon or Pumbaa in the bonus levels.
Cub Simba
Cub Simba can roar, jump on enemies and roll. All three are used to combat enemies and have different effects. Rolling can also be used to access hidden areas and dodge attacks.
Adult Simba
Adult Simba is stronger and can slash and maul and throw instead of defeating his enemies by jumping on them. He also has a more formidable roar, but can no longer roll.
Console differences
The sound and graphic quality of the game varied greatly due to the differing capabilities of the consoles.
The Amiga version omitted the Can't Wait to be King level, the bonus levels and the cutscenes, presumably to save disk space as the media was presented on floppy disks. The music for some levels was also remixed slightly differently.
The NES version omitted content even further, with only the cub Simba levels present and the removal of the short Death Tag piece of music that plays when Simba dies. The level music continues on instead. Levels were also shortened considerably.
The Windows 3.1 version relied on the WinG graphics engine, but a series of Compaq Presarios weren't tested with WinG, which caused the game to crash while loading. This led Microsoft to create the more stable engine DirectX, used to this day.
Graphics and sound
The sprites and backgrounds were drawn by Disney animators themselves at Walt Disney Feature Animation, and the music is adaptations of songs and orchestrations in the soundtrack.
Reception
The Lion King received mostly positive reviews, including an 8/10 from Electronic Gaming Monthly, and sold well, including 1.27 million units of the SNES version in the United States. However, it receives criticism from players due to its difficulty.. Gameplayers wrote on their November 1994 issue that "even on the easy setting, the game is hard for an experienced player".
Other The Lion King video games
Other two games inspired by The Lion King were released: Timon & Pumbaa's Jungle Games (1997) by Virgin for SNES and PC, The Lion King: Simba's Mighty Adventure (2000) by Activision for the PlayStation and Game Boy Color. Also, a game inspired by The Lion King 1½ was released in 2003 by THQ for the Game Boy Advance.
External links
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