Bio FREAKS

"A potential masterpiece... POTENTIAL masterpiece!"

All right, so you found this game at the local Shop-4-Less (not a real store name) and got all excited. You go home and pop it in your N64, anxiously awaiting the fun and excitement for days to come... yeah right.

GAMEPLAY: 3/10
The only reason there is a 3 and not a 0 is for the fact that there was some effort and innovation here. Obviously the worst part of the game, but most important, Bio FREAKS lacked what any good fighting game has: GAMEPLAY! The damage ratio was very innaccurate; your guns were too powerful and cheap, and standard kicks and punches were useless, unless you had the uncanny agility and coordination to pull off/master/memorize more than five of the moves. Not to mention are the facts that shields were terribly annoying and hard to use, the spiffy ''jetpack'' flying ability got you turned around and lost, and that the nicely gory loss of limbs leave you nearly defenseless. With a couple more months of editing, Midway could have easily taken the cool concept and turned it into a GREAT game, but alas... Bio FREAKS simply sucks.

GRAPHICS: 9/10
The strong point of the game. For an N64 game, Bio FREAKS had suprisingly good graphics, especially in the levels (called ''pits'' or something). The texture of the characters and levels were excellent, and even the childish dancing of Ssapo's intro was done well, or something like that... The visual effects, especially the lovely gore, were another plus rarley seen in cheap N64 carts. But maybe if less attention was paid to the graphics, and MORE to the-ahem-GAMEPLAY, it would not have been as
pretty and gory, but more fun.

SOUND/MUSIC: 6/10
Many N64 games feature dull sound and music, but Midway was able to pull it off by the skin of their teeth! Though not the best, it was better than some N64 fighters (not mentioning any names...). The voice acting fit the character's ''personalities'' well, and the sound effects of blasting off a gun, slicing of an arm, or hovering up to avoid lava were just fine. The battle music, however, left something to desired, as it was a little repetitive.

CONTROL: 5/10
Maybe it was the control that made Bio FREAKS not so good... nah! Yes, the controls were VERY difficult, especially the near impossible moves. By the time you get the hang of how to fly around to avoid things, and learn a few moves, you are bored with the game. The sluggish movement of the characters was what ruined the control factor; if the characters responded just a LITTLE quicker, there would have been hope in executing a cool attack or actually getting up in time to avoid being caught in a never-ending volley of cheap-shooting. Perhaps the testers at Midway have seven fingers on each hand, I don't know, but one thing IS for sure, and that is that the buttons were NOT configured in a user friendly manner. The apparently useless Z button could be swapped with the L shoulder button (side step left). And finally, the flying, or ''hovering'' or whatever, would move you away and towards the screen in a way, leaving your directional controls confused as the camera angle settles during the landing process; you could not go left and right, only to and away from the screen.

REPLAYABILITY: 2/10
This basically means that if you played the game ten times, only the first 2 times would be fun. Yes, I know this isn't the traditional ''replayability'' system, but it works... Anyway, this game is obviously not much fun after you have lost miserably twice from repeated shooting, so I don't recommend paying more that 5$ for it.

BUY/RENT: Rent!
If you just HAVE to play Bio FREAKS to see how much of this is true, then go ahead and rent it. Don't buy it unless you absolutely MUST HAVE every Midway fighting game. Otherwise, try convincing a friend into buying it or something so you can play it once and not have to regret loss of money. Hey, who knows, you friend may ACTUALLY like it... or not.

OVERALL: 5/10 (average of all factor ratings)
Well, I was truly disappointed in Midway. Never again will I take Street Fighter for granted! Did I mention the gameplay was bad? I did? Oh. Well, just for the heck of it, THE GAMEPLAY IS BAD! And I may have forgotten to mention that there is only a lousy eight characters... each unique, but that doesn't help the seriously deprived areas of Bio FREAKS. By the way, if you already own this game, and paid over 10$ for it, I pity you.

B~M~

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/07/02, Updated 09/07/02