Demolition Man

"Nice Genesis Platformer"

The movie Demolition man was a moderate success back in 1994. It starred Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone and was about a cop and a criminal being frozen in 1996 and getting brought back 34 years later...the criminal ecapes by accident and the cop is thawed out to face the cop. They were both iced in the first place because of crimes commited. As with anything that made a fair bit of money at the box office in the early to mid twenties it was converted into a video games to milk some more money for the gullible people out there. Although sometimes the games turn out quite good, just like Demolition Man.

Graphics
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Since Demolition Man was released quite last in the Genesis's like you would expect the graphics to be good for that time. As such they are fairly good. Not mind blowing but nice. Sometimes the characters can look a wee bit blocky but mostly its clear enough to see what you would expect. One annoying thing is the slowdown you can get if you have one of the more powerful guns because it produces so many effects. The Main character would be recognisable from the film as would the criminal who carries a gun that fires a stupid looking light blue blob. The explosions from pitiful grenades are small and look a bit wussy but thats not to bad. In the 2 leveles that are played from a bird's eye perspective the graphics are slightly worse than the normal platromer levels. The enemies look more blocky and generally less realistic. The scenery is beatiful. From the start of the game set in Los Angeles in 1996 to the later levels set in a cryo-genetic prison there very great for the playstation. One nice level is nearer the end where you spend most of the level on zip lines. It gets a bit tedious but its still very playable.

Sound
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Now this is one thing that surprised me considering that its only a Mega Drive game. The music itself is nothing special, just some rubbish midi from hte film but the effects are awsome. For one thing you have the guns which sound really cool...bang bang bang. But the best thing is the limited but rather cool speech. From Stallone muttering ''Send a maniac to catch a maniac'' to Simon Phoneix's cruel cruel laugh when he sees or shoots you.

Gameplay
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The gameplay in Demolition Man is very reminiscent of other shoot and platformers. The main thing that wanst in a lot of Genesis games however was the ability to shoot in all 8 directions. You just hold down the shoot button and move the directions to adjust your aim. You can also pick up grenades that can be thrown in any direction that adds to taht little more realism. One problem that knocks a point of the final score is the difficulty of the game. The first level is fine easing you into the way of the game but the second level (the first of 2 top down levels) is extrmeley hard. Because of the top down perspective you are getting shot at from a lot more directions and getting grenades thrown at you over walls. You have to really concentrate to accomplish it.

Overall
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A nice solid platformer that lacks a very large amount of levels but makes up for it in some really tough difficulty.

7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/13/00, Updated 11/13/00