HOMO

A Retro-Gaming Guest Review

by Mighty Doom

           Wow.  Just…holy shit.  It’s a game called Homo.  I actually stumbled across this early-80s classic a couple of terms ago at Bennington, and submitted some screenshots to Zany Video Game Quotes.  Yet something felt unfinished.  It occurred to me this morning that a video game called Homo might just be funny enough to convince MattBoy Slim to concede Doom a guest review on his retro gaming Intra-web site page.  I hope it doesn’t send a goofy German dominatrix to kill me, like FearDotCom.com.

            I honestly have no fucking idea what Homo is all about.  It appears to be a particularly psychotic rehash of Arkanoid and Breakout, only it’s called Homo and is therefore ten times funnier than either of those games.  The title screen features the word HOMO prominently displayed above a pair of tyrannosaurus rexes.  (Rex? Rexi? Who cares?) I don’t know why they’re on the title screen, or, for that matter, in the game at all.  Maybe they’re supposed to be homos.  I suppose dinosaurs deserve the same lifestyle choices as the rest of us.

            Anyway, at the beginning of the game a caveman rides onto the screen on a two-headed triceratops.  By two-headed I don’t mean that the triceratops has two heads side by side.  It has one head where its head should be, and another on its ass, like Mr. Chupon in Final Fantasy VI.  The caveman seems remarkably unperturbed by this fact.  Meanwhile I’m cowering under my desk.  The caveman leaves you with this cryptic message: AS YOU COMPLETE TO BREAK 100 STAGES GOINDOL WILL YIELD TO YOU.

            Yes.

            While you may think it difficult to break to 100 stages, you do have a variety of items to assist you in the effort.  These are listed on a screen that pops up if you leave the title screen on long enough.  Your items include “Ball Speed Down,” “Springer Lengthen” and “Back Stage,” among others.  Let’s let all that sink in for a minute.  Okay.  Ten minutes later.  Done laughing? No? All right.

            I have yet to complete to break 100 stages.  I don’t think I could get through more than a few stages of Homo without rupturing my spleen or something in fits of hysterical laughter.  And now that mame.dk has gone down for the count, I doubt I will ever have the chance.  And, strangely enough, I find that I really don’t care.

A final word of advice for all you people who don’t think this game is funny.  Fuck you.  Put down your cigarette holder, take the flagpole out of your ass and give your sense of humor a good soak in the gutter.

MattBoySlim Update:

Hopefully this is ok with Mighty Doom, but I thought I'd include a little more info on this game (including the files!!!). I hope never to incur the infamous wrath of Doom. I don't hear good things about it. Anyway, this is indeed an arcade game made in 1987 (as this picture clearly illustrates). It is in fact a bootleg version of a game called Goindol. Want more information? Look here! Want the game? Download Goindol and Homo! Looks like you do need both files and MAME to try this out. Rest assured I'll be trying this tonight!! Any game called Homo that features an unshaven man in a snappy red loincloth astride a mutant dinosaur that happens to be a little "light in the loafers"........has got to be good! Or just funny, anyway. PLAY IT!!!!!!!

P.S. ...Before you die, you see...Helga.