Altered Beast

"The gaming equivalent of a hangover, without the pleasant drunkenness beforehand"

I'm a skeptic. Having heard the rumours about how bad Altered Beast was, I was naturally curious. Surely the magazines I'd read were just making an example of this below-par launch title? Surely nothing could be that bad? Well, I was proved wrong. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but not as bitter as I felt playing this horrifically bad game.

Upon loading up Altered Beast, I'm 'treated' to a muffled drum tune that practically reduces me to tears laughing. And I haven't even pressed Start yet. It's clear that the game can only go downhill from here. And it's here that I come to the intro sequence, if it can be called that.

The start of Altered Beast is so mind-numbingly crap that it's difficult for me to express in words how truly awful it is. A flickering, poorly drawn sprite appears. ''WWWWWIIIIISE FWOM YOA GWWWAAAVE!'' he exclaims. What's that dripping sound? Oh don't worry, that's just fluid leaking from my burst ear drums. The speech quality is absolutely pathetic. Why bother including such dire sound effects, when they sound like two 5 year olds talking to each other via tin can radio, chewing a mouthful of marshmallows? In the case of the 5 year olds who recorded this speech, I hope they choked on their marshmallows soon afterwards. The music in Altered Beast is equally bad, if not worse- I refuse to see how Sega can cobble together the occasional musical note tacked onto a crackling bongo hit and try to pass this off as an actual soundtrack. I'll put it this way- you won't be searching for the GYMs for this very soon. The quality remains constant throughout the game, in both stages I played (2 stages of Altered Beast? Now that's what I call commitment to a review) it remained horrible.

There are no shocks in the visual department- Altered Beast looks as bad as it sounds. This is one of the first games to implement parallax scrolling backgrounds, but unfortunately they were implemented in the worst possible way imaginable. You can see the various bands of sky as they streak across the playfield, with the subtlety of a frying pan to the face. At least these take your attention away from the real horror story- the diabolically bad sprites, who shamble across the screen with the grace of a 400lb ballerina whose feet are tied together. It's not just the animation that's bad- they have a general lack of detail. The same goes for the one-dimensional enemies you encounter- there are around 4 enemies, each one of them crap looking in its own special way.

But as the old saying goes, you can't judge a book by its cover. This is also true in the case of Altered Beast- by judging the game by its poor graphics and even poorer sound, you might think that there could be some shred of gameplay left within this cartridge of tragedy. Well, that's where you're wrong.

In Altered Beast, your character must save some old guy's daughter from the hordes of hell... by beating things up. Your two attacks are punch and kick, both as effective at defeating your enemies as a warm hug and a hearty handshake. If a magician of greater intelligence was wising people fwom their gwaves, he might have tried to resurrect a body builder or something. This is where the fun part of the game comes in. As your character stutters through the linear levels, they collect power balls and increase their power to such extravagant levels that they might actually inflict damage on the enemies. In case you hadn't guessed already, I was being sarcastic when I said this was the fun part. Of course, collecting these power balls is monotonous and dull. This seems to be a running theme throughout Altered Beast, that things can't get any worse as you progress. But time and time again, it manages to outdo itself.

I struggled through the first level, resisting the urge to fling my joypad out the window. It was at this point that I encountered the first 'boss'- a lump of pus that proceeds to fire heads at you. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ****??? Sorry, my rage is getting the better of me. By now I've collected all three power balls and transformed into the eponymous Altered Beast- now my attacks have changed from the mighty punch and kick to a fireball of sorts and an odd dash manoeuvre. Here, yet another of Altered Beast's gaping flaws becomes apparent- I try to dash into the pus bag boss, get stuck inside it and die. On my second life, I try to shoot fireballs at it, and get hit on the head with a...head. Then I learn from my mistakes and fireball the pus bag to pieces. But was this a mistake on my account?

Unfortunately, yes- now I have to suffer the next level, as well. This doesn't last long- some strange blob latches onto my head and kills me, before I see the Game Over message flicker on screen. Never had I longed for the words Game Over so much. Thank you Sega! Thank you for providing me for a way out of this... oh ****, it's starting again. I turn the power off before I become permanently damaged.

Altered Beast has one positive thing in its favour- yes, one does exist. It'll sit unfinished for years to come, just like Dark Castle and every other mediocre platform game/ beat em up ever released. For that, it gets a 10/10 for Lastability. If anyone completes Altered Beast, they deserve a medal, and perhaps some money towards counselling sessions.

It will come as no shock to learn that I don't think much of Altered Beast. I really have to question Sega's motives here- why package a game with your fledgling console that could only possibly act as a deterrent to those purchasing it? Thankfully, they soon saw the error of their ways and packaged Sonic with it instead. This almost makes up for the shocking fact that there are an awful lot of Genesis and Mega Drive owners who had to play this game- maybe a few unfortunate individuals even bought it! Over 10 years after the console has been released, I can give you some advice- don't touch this game with a 15 foot barge pole, because it's a steaming pile of s.... circuitry that deserves no place in your or anyone else's games collection. And if you like Altered Beast, you're wrong.

Overall

Graphics- 2/10
Sound- 1/10
Gameplay- 0/10
Lastability- 10/10

Altered Beast is a travesty, a shambling mockery of a game that should never have been released. It is one of the worst games I have ever played. You should play it once, just to see how bad it is. Sado-masochists might even play it twice.

7%

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/03, Updated 06/08/03