The Adventures of Rad Gravity

About

The Adventures of Rad Gravity is a 1990 Nintendo Entertainment System platformer from Interplay and Activision that leans into wild sci-fi absurdity. You play as a character with a comically oversized head and a glowing weapon that slices enemies mid-jump. The game bounces you across eight planets each with their own gimmick, like the toxic wasteland of Effluvia or the neon-lit Cyberia. The highlight is Turvia, where gravity flips, making you cling to the ceiling as enemies float upside down. Combat and movement feel twitchy and imprecise by modern standards but fit the chaotic vibe. What sticks is the retro charm and the audacity to play with perspective. The reversed gravity level remains a standout technical feat for its era, even if the rest of the game is a mixed bag of inventive ideas and dated execution. Players who enjoy niche 8-bit platformers might find it intriguing, especially for the campy character design and the sheer weirdness of a Bruce Campbell lookalike slicing through alien hordes. Its cult following isn’t based on polish but on the sheer joy of its over-the-top personality.

Storyline

The story is that in the far future, humans colonized many planets and established a form a biotechnology, which were sentient beings called Compuminds, which could communicate rapidly from world to world. The game's villain had shut down all the Compuminds and hid them. Eventually one of the Compuminds, named Kakos, was found. Rad Gravity is the name of the game's hero. Together, Rad and Kakos must find the eight missing Compuminds, each on eight different unique planets, such as the cyberpunk world of Cyberia, the green jungle world of Sauria, and the caustic trash world of Effluvia.