"Superhero League of Hoboken" may be definitive videogame featuring NJ-NYC metropolitan area

Game centers NJ in worldwide dystopia

Is Dr. Entropy marking a tree on the East Coast with the name of a West Coast rapper in an attempt to reignite a possibly profitable but pointlessly deadly bicoastal feud? (Chilltown Blues Screengrab)

In 1984 Troma Entertainments releases “The Toxic Avenger,” a grungy comedy that takes place in fictional Tromaville – which for all intents and purposes amalgamates Jersey City, Hoboken and what passes for the more suburban areas at the time (thus the “ville”). Tromaville is a place where messy-but-decent people are plagued by toxic waste, toxic politics and toxic people.

In 1994, Legendary Entertainment and designer Steve Meretzky released the game “Superhero League of Hoboken,” a point-and-click RPG for PC. It’s hard to imagine it existing without “The Toxic Avenger,” though the game’s satirical elements also evoke the cheerful 1966 “Batman” live-action series as a filter for the views of “Amusing Ourselves to Death” author Neil Postman or “Living Dead” filmmaker George Romero. In their respective mediums, Postman and Romero both explored the idea of a society too busy consuming to take care of the world – let alone understand it.

“Superhero League of Hoboken” takes place two centuries in a future where the polar ice caps have melted and the U.S. is filled with decaying shopping malls and the remains of the toxic crud which used to be sold within. In the narrated opening, there’s a nice joke about how the preeminent gaming console of the time is a big part of that crud.

All the toxicity around results in a world where people undergo mutations, and they’d be nearly useless as “superpowers” if not for the game’s specific roleplaying context. As city-states try to forge a new society, superhero leagues have risen and act as the backbone of society. The main character is the easily swappable Crimson Tape, a crusader with the ability to make organizational charts – charts perhaps filled with statistics about quality of life issues that do nothing but sit in a sea of red ink. The Crimson Tape must help redeem Superhero League of Hoboken after its previous leader ran the group’s status into the ground.

A very Jersey premise.

The team’s primary foe is Dr. Entropy, as seen in the top photo. This sentient Jack-in-the-box hopes to derail what the little progress the world has made in reshaping society and sew even more chaos.