Bio-Hazard Battle

"Inverted ice-cream cone"

An eerie meteorite crashes into the ground. Boom. Radioactive beams shower the area turning the local arachnid population into gigantic behemoths. Running citizens. “Watch out! It’s a giant spider!”. A disheveled inverted ice-cream cone with eight flimsy legs is pushed by two stage hands. I don’t know about you, but when I think about cheaply made science fiction movies I acquire this style of imagery. The dilapidated vile menace, the low budget action, and the cheesy so easily made fun of quality we see from movies show cased on Mystery Science Theater 3000 such as Devil Fish or Martians Need BBQ Sauce. The Sega horizontal shooter called Bio Hazard Battle (“Crying” in Japan) is like the hokey science fiction movie of Genesis. It’s highly moronic, yet enjoyable.

Now how’s this for one of those an awful science fiction flick plot? It’s the future because every science fiction movie must be the future for some reason. Recently a war labeled as Bio War 1 has occurred. Our creations of death have brought killings and bizarre offspring in the animal world. Earth is considered inhabitable, so the remaining humans leave on an enormous space ship. They all put themselves into a deep sleep for some years, but then they wake up. They must know utilize their bio ships, space ships that resemble animals, to navigate Earth in an attempt to learn if the entire human population may start life once again. On their adventure they’ll discover many oddities, which makes one wonder why they didn’t say “Look! Monsters! Well looks like we can leave!” instead of “Hey! Monsters! Let’s go on a suicide mission!”, but then again this just adds to the whole science fiction experience of lame plot.

In an attempt to come off as a different game from every other shooter on Genesis, Sega implemented the seed weapon system. Basically instead of gaining power-ups for your ship’s main gun a diminutive object that floats next to your bio ship utilizes said power-ups. There are four colored power-ups: green, yellow, orange, and blue. If you acquire more than one colored power-up in a row, you’re weapon will evolve by growing larger and stronger. This can be done up to three times. However each color (excluding green) has two different weapons. Which you’ll obtain depends on which of the four bio ships you’re currently piloting. Each ship has a different combination of seed weapons. I applaud Sega for creating four different ships, but this can also be extremely frustrating. There is no screen in the game that gives you the information on what weapons each ship has, but instead it’s printed in the manual. Thankfully I found this game complete because otherwise I’d be pulling my hair out trying to remember what the differences were between each ship. It would have been nice had Sega perhaps displayed each ship’s stats when you highlight them at the bio ship select screen. In addition I thought that maybe the Gradius system of customization of weapons would have aided the battle against confusion to those without a manual.

I thought the seed weapon system was an interesting concept. Your movements of your bio ship maneuver your seed weapon. Thus instead of positioning your ship right in front of an enemy like in so many shooters, you’ll need to dodge shots while positioning your seed weapon in a beneficial formation. This means you’ll need to constantly be pushing that d-pad, and even more so than any other shooter. Unfortunately this does lead to some bothersome trifles. It only takes about ten minutes of gameplay before you’ll encounter searing pain in your left thumb. The pain will hinder your time greatly and may force you to pause and massage your thumb because otherwise you’re dodging ability will become horrible. Perhaps it would have been better if you’re seed weapon would simply rotate around your ship putting less pressure unto your poor left thumb.

The stages themselves are nicely designed. There are eight levels (although the first level can barely be classified as one) in which you’ll be forced to maneuver around some tricky obstructions. For example in the fourth stage gelatinous blue goo comes straight up from the ground forcing you to quickly fly over it, or in stage three a bulky black worm pops out of the vestiges of an observatory. The levels become very difficult starting with the fourth one, which explains why Sega gave you the grandiose number of nine credits. You’ll need them a lot at those later levels. Something I noticed is that unlike Thunder Force III, where you can easily beat any stage by memorizing it, Bio Hazard Battle is almost always difficult no matter how many times you’ve played a certain stage.

Giant flies, enormous worms, ten foot tall crabs (thankfully the ones that live in the sea), these are just three of the vile beasts that the brave pilots will face. Many of the monsters are only gigantic versions of docile creatures we live amongst such as the abominations I mentioned, but you’ll also come across ghastly beasts that Sega thought up such as the “weird green thing with a long stem protruding out of it’s back” or “mutant train organism”. The sprites are extremely large for a Genesis shooter, and somehow the game still holds up and runs quickly and smoothly. Even more surprising is the intricate detail of animation, and still no slowdown. Perhaps this is all because the bulkiest of foes move at a snail’s pace, while the petite monsters will run like the hare being chased by a fox. The backgrounds are top-notch quality with lush vibrant colors that flesh out intricate details.

The music is incredibly weird, but it fits the game perfectly. Every musical composition in the game sounds like it belongs in one of those low budget science fiction films, and they even fit the stage well. For example in the dank dark caverns there is a slow threatening tune and in the city it’s more upbeat and menacing. In addition the boss music is much like the stereotypical low budget flick music that everyone and their mother emulates when making fun of films like Godzilla vs The Sea Monster or It Came From Planet X . The sound effects are rather bland however. Your ship only spurts out tiny “bleeps” and “blips” with it’s amazing fire power. In addition barely any of the enemies actually make noises.

Bio Hazard Battle is an interesting and fast paced horizontal shooter by Sega, but it may be a little too fast paced for some. The constant pressing of the d-pad may tire your thumb very much as it did mine, but in spite of it I still had fun. The whole cheap science fiction movie theme is as interesting as the seed weapon system. If you find Bio Hazard Battle, check it out, but just don’t venture onto a pilgrimage for it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/04/03, Updated 05/04/03