Thursday, May 19, 2011

Proof that Nintendo's Urban Champion has at least one redeeming quality

Serious question: Does anyone actually like Nintendo's early Famicom/ NES brawler, Urban Champion?

Now, before all of you Urban Champion junkies (yes, all three of you) jump on me, you should know that back in the day I was slightly enamored with the game. Specifically, I was enamored with the colorful packaging that it came in, which called to me in a way that most of Nintendo's Black Box titles didn't.

Then I played it. Ugh.

As I'm sure anyone who has played the game can imagine, that lone experience I had with Urban Champion (I rented it from the local grocery store) led me to believe, quite firmly, that the game lacked even a single redeeming quality.

Then I saw the piece of pixelated art to the right, titled "Flowers."

Clearly, artist Ashley Anderson has a different sort of relationship with Urban Champion than I do, as he says of his latest game-inspired illustration, which was created for an auction to benefit the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences: "I've been wanting to do some kind of treatment of these flowers for a while.

"This is the second color image I've worked on since I went to NYC for the first time a few weeks ago," he adds. "I looked at art for hours everyday for a solid week. I think hanging out at the Met looking at all those Georgia O'Keefe paintings rubbed off on this one, I'm glad to say."

To see more of Anderson's creations, check out his Flickr photostream as well as his etsy and zazzle shops.

4 comments:

Viewtiful_Justin said...

Very nice. I have't ever played that one, either. Maybe it's a good thing.

Bryan Ochalla said...

I'm sure the game has a few fans, but, man, I thought it was the biggest Nintendo-made turd I'd ever played!

Sean said...

LOL, it is indeed faint praise for a game when the only thing nice you can say about it is that somebody did a nice picture based on it 25 years after it was released!

Bryan Ochalla said...

Sean: Hey, it may be faint praise, but at least it's praise, right? What do you think of this game, BTW? I'm guessing you have it/have played it?