F95zone Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon is an instructional action video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System created by Sculptured Software and released by Raya Systems. The game instructs players about the dangers of tobacco cigarettes. The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality provided funding for the game’s initial development. Captain Novolin, Packy and Marlon, and Bronkie the Bronchiasaurus are all part of Raya’s instructional video game series.
Gameplay and plot of Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon:
Jake Westboro is a man who has it all: a gorgeous wife and child, a huge suburban home, and a lucrative job as a key CEO for the Blackburn Tobacco Company. Jake is now dying from the effects of the cigarettes he formerly sold as a result of smoking since he was 15 years old. Rex Ronan, an experimental surgeon, volunteers to shrink himself and a craft to near-microscopic size so that he can travel inside Jake’s body and combat his multiple maladies, removing tar, nicotine, precancerous cells, and other potentially fatal health hazards. However, the tobacco company is anxious that if Jake survives, he will speak out about the dangers of tobacco and thereby ruin their business; as a result, they surreptitiously implant thousands of microbots into him to prevent Ronan from treating him. If Ronan is killed by the company’s malevolent killbots, then so is Jake, the patient.
The setup for the Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon:
Jake Blackburn, a tobacco executive, catches cancer unexpectedly, and the only way to rescue him is for surgeon Rex Ronan to shrink down and manually clean his body (lesson #1: cigarette firms have good health insurance plans). Fearing that Blackburn would inform the world that smoking is bad for you, the firm sends out hundreds of small robots to prevent Ronan from curing Blackburn. They could simply kill him in the traditional manner, but that would be evil.
Ronan moves through Blackburn’s body, starting with the mouth, lasering gunk and fighting robots. Surprisingly, plaque is the first gunk to be lasered. A human is shrunk to near-microscopic size and outfitted with futuristic beam weapons, and he risks death to perform the work of a hook, thanks to billions of dollars in research. Excellent health insurance. Later, precancerous cells in the lungs, fatty deposits in the heart, and nicotine addiction in the brain are all destroyed.
Rex will come across a “smart bomb” a few times in each level, which provides a true/false message on the health risks of smoking. In general, it’s false if it’s positive (“Smoking helps your breath smell amazing!”). If this is correct, then picking up the smart bomb will eliminate all opponents onscreen.
Between these stages, Rex must dodge and shoot phlegm and fatty deposits (respectively) as he advances deeper into the body in rail-shooter-style stages in the lungs, trachea, and arteries.
The issue with Rex Ronan isn’t so much the material as it is the game. The details of smoking’s consequences on the body are nasty no matter how you learn them. Rex Ronan plays just like any other licenced SNES action-platformer, which is passable only if you appreciate the licence. The licence is not smoking in this game.
