Fur Fighters

"Don't toy with me"

Had Rare suddenly dropped it's N64 development tools and produced a dreamcast game, the result couldn't have been any more accomplished than Fur Fighters. The Rare influence shines through every aspect of the game: from its wonderfully stylised cartoon visuals to a quirky sense of humour. It also successfully combines various gameplay elements, challenging the player with shoot 'em up action, puzzles and platformery. It's the kind of gameplay mix that Rare frequently does so well, providing an impressively varied and entertaining videogame experience.

Bizarre creations may have taken inspiration from Rare's back catalogue in developing fur Fighters (aspects of Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie and Jet Force Gemini are clearly evident) but deserve enormous credit for producing such an accomplished Dreamcast action/adventure. It bucks a trend: while other companies are content to implement lazy conversions of their PC properties on Sega's machine, this is an eminently distinctive work.

Fur Fighters' plot involves the Blofeld-like cat General Viggo, who has typically sinister plans for world domination. To keep his furry enemies occupied while he embarks on these megolamaniacal activities, the feline villain has kidnapped all the fur fighters' babies and hidden them around the six areas of the game. He has also genetically modified parents and siblings into six monstrous bosses.

The objective, then, is obvious: to rescue all the babies and defeat the boss relatives to return them to their original state, before encountering Viggo in the ultimate furry face-off. However, the babies can only be retrieved by their own parent. This is the game's best feature. It is necessary to play as all six fighters, each possessing specific skills and nuances, in order to reach the climactic battle with Viggo. The fur Fighters teleportation device is used to swap between characters (As with DK64's barrels) and these warp points are dotted around the environments at strategic points - often where it's vital to play as a specific character.

Again, like DK64, this switching in between characters introduces not just variety, but elementary puzzle content. Crossing a body of water, for example, requires the swimming talents of rico the penguin, while paw marks on platforms suggest juliet the cat's climbing ability will come in handy. Other fur Fighters include Rufus the Scottie dog, who can dig through soft earth to reach new areas, and Tweek the baby dragon, who hasn't yet learned to fly, but can glide across gaps a la Spyro.

This ragbag bunch of fluffy heroes must take on 24 massive levels full of enemies to shoot, puzzles to solve and platforms to negotiate, in a game so full of fun and invention that it's a real breath of fresh air on sega's machine. The gaming environments are all beautifully realised. from a bustling metropolis called New Quack city, to dinotopolis - a dinosaur-sized house with gigantic furniture to negotiate - it's certainly varied. These environments are, predictably, teeming with Viggo's anthropomorphic henchmen.

With it's appropriate, considered aesthetics, the comedy violence of fur fighters is worthy of note. It often has the feel of a subversive interactive cartoon, with it's cutesy characters blasting each other with big guns, and oozing fluff rather than gore with successful hits. It is replete with thoughtful touches. For example, each Fur Fighter has it's own theme tune, the daft character voices are reminiscent of Charlie the cat (from the '70s safety adverts) and baddies fulfill a comedy imperative when they turn on their heels at the sight of intimidating firepower. this is a title with genuine personality.

Fur Fighters is one of the best titles available on the dreamcast. It's an all too infrequent joy to come across a videogame designed with such thought, with so many different ideas and challenges. It has an intelligently judged balance between shooting, puzzling and platforming, and there are even several bonus games on each level.

DC owners now have less cause to cast covetous glances at similarly styled adventures on other formats, because Fur Fighters is a title bursting at the seams with entertainment and lasting appeal. with more satisfying multiplayer gameplay (The fluffmatch mode can prove frustrating in practice) it would have been a welcome surprise of even greater stature.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/26/01, Updated 11/26/01