"An Enjoyable Live Action Game"

Introduction - Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold is the sequel to Mad Dog Mcree and is a live action Western that puts you in a first person rail shooter. Unlike the first game, you follow one of three guides after the short training session on the stagecoach and do not choose where to go next. Mad Dog II was developed by a spinoff company that originally made police training sims. What you get is a live action game to test your skills against time and wit.

Gameplay 6 - Mad Dog II was enjoyable to play at the arcade back in the day. Without any infinite continues or camera film cannisters filled with coins to insert it can be very difficult to play straight through with the three lives you are given. And the undertaker criticizing you as you lay in you casket for having shot a civilian or lost a life is not much encouragement to keep on playing although it is pretty funny. The game uses real people in a real Western setting which is a real innovation for videogames. I usually wonder why they don't make more games like this. The game uses a six shooter light gun which you have to point away from the screen to reload as with other arcade games that utilize the light gun. The action is situational whereas some enemies will pop out and shoot and other situations make you look for other things to shoot to get ammo and to take out enemies.

Story 5- Despite the interesting set and the interaction of the cast of the game, there really isn't much of storyline or a plot. The gist is that Mad Dog is back and he has a chest of gold stored away that unless you go through the game without dying you won't unlock but find a chest of sand. There are other weird elements to the game that run the story into the ground that you would expect from a digitized arcade game and not a live action Western.

Graphics/Sound 8 Any game with live action footage deserves a high score for its graphics. It just doesn't get any more realistic than that. Sounds are ok, and the dialogue is witty and will catch your attention in any arcade room.

Play Time/Replayability 6 - Playing this game straight through doesn't take long at all. Unlike some light gun shooters the play time from start to finish is about fifteen minutes. There are three guides to choose from to give you reason to replay the game, but there isn't much replay value to this game at all. It's exciting to play at an arcade, but once you remove the coin eating factor, the game doesn't have much value to it all.

Final Recommendation 6.25/10 - If you see this game at the arcade, then it will no doubt catch your eye for its live action uniqueness. Mad Dog II is definitely worth taking a shot at (no pun intended) at the arcade. The last time I saw this game was in the summer of 2003 in an arcade room at Dollywood. So if you can find it then I would suggest playing it. There have been re-releases of this game that have flopped because arcade hits on console or PC just do not have that same feel that it does in the arcade. Mad Dog II is highly criticized for being anywhere else other than the arcade due to the brevity of the game's length.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/10/08

Game Release: Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold (US, 1992)