M.C. Kids (1992) NES Game Review

M.C. Kids ・ McDonaldland
Developed by: Virgin Games
Release date: February 1992 (NA) / May 19th, 1993 (EU)

The instantly recognizable character of Ronald McDonald was originally conceived as a ploy to cash in on the popularity clowns held during the the 50’s and 60’s. It might be hard to imagine in this day and age when clowns are more in-line with horror iconography and goofy memes, but people really ate ’em up back then thanks to TV personalities like Bozo the Clown and Red Skelton.

As the seemingly endless spring of clown wealth began to run dry in the early 70’s, McDonald’s execs decided Ronald could no longer carry the brand on his technicolour shoulders alone, so they came up with some sprawling lore and a colourful cast of characters for their next big leap into trying to push their greasy goods onto the masses: McDonaldland.

The characters were freaky in the early days, with a villainous Grimace sporting four arms and the Hamburglar looking like something that crawled out of the deepest, darkest recesses of a haunting night terror. As time went on, they streamlined Ronald’s buddies to be cuter (and thus more marketable) to great success. These seemingly innocent characters have been called exploitative vehicles used to market junk food to impressionable young kids in the years since, and were quietly retired during the 2000’s thanks in part to the PR disaster that followed these accusations. McDonald’s reanimates the corpses of Ronald’s friends every now and then for nostalgia bait or social media shitposting, but otherwise their advertising no longer goes anywhere near kids stuff to keep those parental watchdog groups far away from their mentions.

M.C. Kids was released well before that time, so unforgettable Mickey D’s characters like The Professor and CosMc still roam the golden arch-filled world freely, blissfully unaware of the devastating McDonaldland cullings that would take place a mere decade later. Playing as either Mick or Mack – two little dudes the back of the game’s box calls “cool” on three separate occasions – the player must conquer 33 secret-filled levels to retrieve Ronald McDonald’s stolen magic bag from the sticky fingered Hamburglar. In a brilliant twist invoking the classic narrative principal of Chekhov’s gun, the magic bag turns out to be more than just a basic macguffin and is revealed to be the game’s final boss. Sickening, no?

As a game, M.C. Kids is a typical early 90’s platformer. The Mario influence is obvious and immediate; the game visually resembles Mario 3 and Super Mario World in a lot of ways, and borrows the “throwing stuff at enemies” and super jump mechanics of Mario 2. The game’s small dev team actually received a cease and desist letter straight from Nintendo, forcing them to heavily edit the overworld of M.C. Kids in its prototype stages because it looked a little too much like Mario for the Big N’s liking. Even if Nintendo had a bug up their butt from the resemblance, the Mario-inspired graphics are cute enough, and the game boasts a surprisingly fantastic soundtrack to elevate the package.

Running to the end of a level isn’t enough in M.C. Kids; the goal of the game is to hunt down the hidden Magic Cards in each level. The levels are impressively well designed, and make clever use of the player characters abilities…especially when it comes to finding those pesky cards. Finding said cards becomes trickier as the game progresses, but it provides just the right balance of challenge and brain teasing. Couple that with some impressively tight controls and there’s a neat little game in here once you look past the blatant advertising. If you enjoy platformers that have a “scavenger hunt” element to them, M.C. Kids can run with the best of them on the NES.

Now I’ll hold my hands up and admit that what I’m about to confess completely contradicts everything I just said…but I didn’t personally enjoy M.C. Kids all that much. The oddly specific sub-genre of “2D platformer that requires you to find an annoyingly well-hidden item to move onto the next level” does nothing at all for me – I’d go so far as to say it’s one of my least favourite types of game out there. It doesn’t feel right to rag on M.C. Kids when it’s a solid title, so I won’t, but there’s just something about playing a Mario-esque game and not being able to gallivant through levels that feels wrong to me. It’s like being given a skateboard and being told to walk while holding it instead of riding the damn thing. Can’t help what you like and what you don’t, eh?

It’s hard to rate something like this, no thanks to my own pickiness. I’d easily give M.C. Kids a respectable 7 on a technical level, but when it comes to personal enjoyment, I’d stick it at about a 4. If this game sounds like a blast to you, I wholeheartedly encourage checking it out. It’s just not my (magic) bag, and sometimes, that’s the way the chips fall. That’s “chips” as in “fries,” by the way. Robble robble.

Final Rating:
Uhhhhhhhh burger/10