Dynamite Cop!

"Hurry up with that money! And where is that game!? Find it and bring it to me!"

Dynamite Cop. The name says it all...to an extent. What does that mean you say? Well....your a cop..and um..Bruno(main character guy) is Mr.Dynamite and stuff. Oh I don't know I just like the name. The name says little for the game and since I'm rambling I'll try to start making sense. Dynamite cop is a(pretty much) standard beat em' up where you(as one of three people: Bruno,Jean,or Eddie) run around punching and kicking enemies as well as using whatever weapons you find along the way,but DC sure has a lot of them. Handgun,laser gun,anti-ship missile,and Tuna are just a few of them. Along the way you'll fight some bosses until you meet Wolf Hongo. The old Hulk Hogan wannabe with rockets and anti-ship missiles in his forehead and an assault rifle on his arm.

Gameplay: 9:5

This is beat em' up gameplay at it's best. Punch, kick, and cake(yes cake) your way through one of 3(plus 3 extra hard additions) missions in which you must save the presidents brain dead daughter. You can defeat enemies by either using close up attacks, guns/assorted long range items(ex apples), or even arresting the lowly grunts(but not the highly respected grunts). Close up attacks include punch, kick,throw,and of course the one I like to call thrash. Get close to an enemy(which automatically grabs them) and proceed to press the attack buttons which depending on what character your using can do a series of quite painful(to the enemy of course) attacks,punch,slam,jump on, you get the idea. It is possible to do this to everyone but is harder to do it to bosses than to lowly grunts. It is also possible to go super human by collecting 5 red S symbols or one green S symbol(which enemies sometimes drop. They will also drop health) The guns/ assorted weapons vary from strong(Ex.machine gun)to extremely strong(ex.laser,)to unreal(ex.anti-ship missile)there are also some non-gun items including the long range grenades, Rocket launcher, apples(which you can eat by pressing Y to recover health),and coins(plus other stuff)and short range items like chair, fire axe, pepper, and wrench(plus other stuff). Did I mention the one weapon with a special priority that let's you get one hit defeats on lowly grunts? I hope not I'm tired and don't feel like reading all this crap, but like I was saying the handgun will let you arrest lowly grunts but on higher difficulties you may not find it to be so easy. The jerks have a habbit of not cooperating later on but, lets face it there had to be a catch. Now that I'm done talking about ways to defeat enemies I can mention the enimies themselvs. There are three kinds of enimies. Lowly grunts which tend to go down pretty fast and don't have any special moves(I said tend!), Grunts are tougher and usually have annoying habits(Like the two sworded tribesman who likes to do a little dance. Take a little life. Get you down tonight, and the guys with double assualt rifles who fire a ton of rounds at you if you knock them down)and bosses who have life bars unlike the rest. They can take a few minute if your not prepared. Each boss(other than Ada and the captain)has a fighting style uniqe to them. The chefs block and hit you when your not prepared and throw grenades if you hide, Kraken the Octopus is..well..and octopus who will whack you with his tentacles, shoot mine-crap stuff at you, and create life sucking bugs of doom, Mask de Perod(or something like that) doesn't really attack much unless you knoch him over..to easy(and so on.) The whole game takes about 15-30 minutes to beat and has three missions which are all very simaler to each other but have different difficulty and different amount of continues. After you beat all 3 you unlock Showdown mode which is the same three mission but with zero continues and different objectives. On mission 1(4) the enimies do more damage with weapons, on mission 2(5) There is a time limit on each room you enter, and on mission 3(6) you start with 1% health. A few time during the game you will be forced to do a quick time event where a button appears on screen and you must press it quickly(which gives you a health bonus) or suffer.One last thing. Scattered through out the game are invisible illustrations. You get them by attacking certain areas. When you are in one of those areas your VMU should beep(but It doesn't always) The will pop up and you grab them. Just a fun extra.

Control: 9

The control is so simple it's scary..wait no it isn't. Anyway the simple controls are expected in a game like this. A and B are jump, Y is kick/alternate item use/item throw, and X is punch/pick up/use items. L and R only have a use sometimes. I don't know if it's a bug or what but every so often If I press one of them my character will do a special move(I bought mine used BTW). If you press both attack buttons while cuper charged your character will do a special move.

Graphics: 7.7

Pretty good for a first generation Dreamcast title. Nothing spectacular but it's not bad. Average textures,um....yep.

Sound: 8

I like DC's simple yet meaning-full tunes. They really set the mood. The main little action spy jingle is my favorite. If I may quote a comment made by Game informer about Ghouls n' ghosts ''There wasn't anything ground breaking, but everything was done right'' or something like that. The voice acting however isn't great but I don't think it was supposed to be. DC isn't exactly the most serious game on Earth.

Replay: 7.4

This gmae doesn't have Super smash brothers quality gameplay but it's surely not as bad as most people say. Or maybe it is. I just don't think that way. I've always been a fan of beat em' ups so I guess that would be a good reason as to why I can play this as much as I can.

Box art: 5.5

Meh. The box art would be better if the characters didn't look so wrong. Bruno, Jean, and Eddie are all so differnt looking in the game you'll wonder what the artist was thinking, but Wolf Hongo look's alright.

Challenge: 10

Beating the first three missions won't take long but the three Showdown missions may take months. They are all so hard it isn't fair(but isn't that the point). Especially mission 6(the one where you start with no health). Finding all the illustrations won't be any walk in the park either but I'd think the Showdown mission are harder.

All in all Dynamite Cop is a very fun but to most(not me though)a short lived experience. If your not a big beat em' up fan give it a rental, but if you love beat em' ups I doubt you'll be disappointed with Dynamite Cop.

Final score 8.6

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/06/01, Updated 12/06/01