This Week In Retro: Revolution X (Patreon)

June 1994: This arcade machine kills fascists

by Diamond Feit

I came of age in the United States during the 1980s, which means I grew up hearing about the terrors of censorship. America, I was told, celebrated freedom above all else, and we strove to both uphold our liberty and come to the defense of those who need it. Our beliefs naturally stood in opposition to that other superpower, the Soviet Union, a ghastly authoritarian nation that told its citizens where to live, who to vote for, and what to believe.

Even when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War became a memory, our leaders and media instructed me to remain vigilant. Capitalism defeated communism, thank God, but they continued to warn me of ongoing oppression in other countries where conservative religious figures kept a tight leash on the public, carefully editing or outright banning books, television, movies, or video games that did not align with their worldview. This paranoid fantasy that a shadowy cabal might someday break into my home and burn my record collection resonated with me for several years, even as conservative religious figures inside the United States fought against books, television, movies, and video games that did not align with their worldview.

During my senior year of high school, I saw grown adults at the highest levels of our government holding hearings about cartoon characters and virtual shooting galleries. They never quite pulled the trigger on any meaningful legislation but they didn't have to; the implied threat of censorship drove corporations to curtail certain content from the airwaves and store shelves, resulting in de facto censorship. The double standards on display pushed my teenage cynicism to levels previously thought unmeasurable, an impressive feat given how closely we associate Gen-Xers like me with disillusionment and sarcasm.

Speaking of Generation X, Midway took that particular label and combined it with the aforementioned political climate in the United States to create an extremely of-its-time video game that hit arcades 30 years ago this month. In the far off future of 1996—according to promotional materials—a "corrupt alliance of government and big business" wages literal war against our nation's youth by outlawing everything we enjoy. Midway titled this dystopian shooter Revolution X, and to help sell the experience, they included the likenesses and music of real-life rockers Aerosmith.

A light gun game clearly modeled after Midway's Terminator 2 arcade shooter, Revolution X welcomes players to take up arms against the villainous New Order Nation—NON for short—and their scowling Head Mistress Helga. The game begins at Club X in Los Angeles where you thought you would see Aerosmith live on stage, only to discover NON forces have the entire site on lockdown. The players' only choice is to rally under the banner of rock 'n roll as they blast the fascists to smithereens.

Revolution X adds a twist to standard scrolling shooter gameplay by letting players choose their next path at select times. The first of these moments arrives in the opening minutes right outside Club X when an on-screen menu offers three options: Head to the left, head to the right, or head straight inside. The game does not advertise every branching path, however, leaving some as secrets for players to uncover on their own. To use another early example, shooting a sign for the restrooms in the outer hallways of Club X will steer the action into a public toilet. Otherwise, the game proceeds into the lounge area where caged dancers continue to gyrate even as the player and NON troops spray bullets in all directions.

The primary weapon of Revolution X certainly looks and sounds like a machine gun, but its alternate fire mode launches CDs that explode on contact. These limited-but-powerful projectiles replace the missiles seen in Terminator 2, and players must collect them whenever possible to keep their stock replenished. The general public still saw compact discs as high-tech in 1994, so having rounded plastic serve as futuristic ammunition in game made perfect sense. This also underlined Revolution X's catchphrase "Music is the Weapon" since players could literally kill people with CDs.

For their part, the New Order Nation seems perfectly happy to attack with conventional guns, tanks, and choppers, though later stages do veer into the absurd and bizarre. After players clear Club X, they get to pick from three different destinations around the world. Each NON location contains unique enemies endemic to that region, such as masked ninja warriors in the Pacific Rim stage and grass-skirt-clad natives in the Amazon. I consider the latter bordering on tasteless, so I count my blessings that the game's Middle East stage restricts itself to a chase sequence with an armored bus.

Midway's choice to use Aerosmith as a symbol of fighting against the status quo struck me as unusual, even back in 1994. I had no qualms with their status as a popular rock band—their videos aired in heavy rotation on MTV and everyone my age undoubtedly recognized them on sight—but they never struck me as even slightly controversial, let alone rebellious.

When Revolution X debuted, Aerosmith had spent more than two decades performing; the band originally started in 1970, long before I or anyone in the target audience for Midway's arcade games was even born. The group had a good run before struggling in the early 80s after friction and substance abuse splintered the core lineup for a few years. An eventual reunion brought everyone "back in the saddle" for a tour of the same name, and a hit collaboration with Run DMC in 1986 introduced Aerosmith to a new generation of fans.

Given their hot streak which ran well into the 90s and beyond, putting Aerosmith directly into a video game made perfect sense from a business standpoint; it was the messaging that confused me. By the time Midway courted the band to star in Revolution X, Aerosmith had established themselves as solidly mainstream. Their albums sold around the globe, their singles all charted well, and they made a habit of appearing in films and on television. If a fascist conglomerate really conquered America, I can't picture the resistance selecting a quintet of multi-millionaires as their champions.

Shouldn't a video game about dissent feature a musical act with something to say or at least one with a reputation for getting into trouble? Plenty of other artists ran afoul of the law in the late 80s and early 90s, some even getting arrested for obscenity charges—a deliriously hypocritical act in a country that purports to defend its citizens' free speech rights. Ice T released a song in 1992 so inflammatory, various police organizations and even the President of the United States publicly decried his work. Meanwhile, Aerosmith sings about having sex in elevators and men who resemble women.

I'm confident I took Revolution X at face value as a teenager, never questioning why a paramilitary organization would kick off their coup d'etat of the United States by kidnapping a commercially-successful, inoffensive band. Given the messaging at the time and my general distrust of authority, I just assumed that the same people objecting to explicit lyrics and violent video games would also reject rock 'n roll as an art form. Midway as a company certainly had full reason to view government regulation with suspicion, seeing as how Senator Joe Lieberman once said that Mortal Kombat "[glorifies] violence and [teaches] children to enjoy inflicting the most gruesome forms of cruelty imaginable."

Three decades later, I view Revolution X as a relic of a time when Americans desperately searched for a new enemy to replace the Soviet Union. Even though plenty of nations and extremist groups viewed us with hostility, none of them backed up that opposition with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Instead, we panicked over "political correctness," a once-obscure term that became a right-wing talking point during the George H.W. Bush administration, especially once he likened the concept to "censorship." When the so-called leader of the free world compares college protests to an "assault" on free speech, it's not hard to imagine him placing other examples of personal expression on the chopping block.

At the risk of soapboxing, the New Order Nation in Revolution X exists alongside the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis as convenient enemies we can parade about as lighting rods. We hold them up as evil incarnate, we brand their ideas as "un-American," and most importantly, we use their blatant hatred and discrimination as extreme examples to obscure everyday affronts to society. As long as we can point a finger at one party and say they're the real problem, we make it harder to view landlords who turn away black tenants or business owners who refuse to serve gay customers as bigots.

This sort of thing bugs me because thanks to the proliferation of social media today, I see people on the internet continue to cry "censorship" when they feel their particular interests go unheeded, all while they strive to silence those they disagree with through threats, harassment, and non-stop rage. Imagine if every time you shot a foot soldier in Revolution X, Head Mistress Helga appeared and lectured you about "stifling free speech." That's how I feel every time a fascist claims they're being silenced when in reality, they're just dealing with the consequences of their actions.

With all this rattling around inside my head in 2024, it's hard to think about Revolution X and not laugh, which I suspect was always Midway's intention. The company had a reputation for irreverence—particularly in the late 80s and early 90s—and delighted in packing their games with easter eggs and in-jokes. We can't know for sure if they created Revolution X as a satire of then-current politics or as a sincere condemnation of censorship. Frankly, they might have come up with all of this just so they could hang out with Aerosmith for a few weeks, a noble intention I can get behind.

Writer/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but xer work and opinions exist across the internet.