Raid 2020

"It's like NARC except it totally sucks"

Ah, another fine release from our good friends at Color Dreams, the company that made sucky games and released them without Nintendo's seal of approval so that it didn't have to split the profits with anybody. Not that there were ever many profits to split, what with the quality of their products, and it really didn't help much when they seemingly tried their hand at making "relevant" games like this and eventually Bible Adventures when they couldn't make good ones. Raid 2020 claims boldly on the title screen (well okay, small up in a corner), "winners fight drugs." Not "winners don't do drugs," the FBI might not like that...

Story-In Raid 2020, a drug cartel has taken over America, or so I assume from the text screen that shows after you hit start that disappeared before I could read all of it. You play secret agent Shadow, whose job is to bring down the cartel by going out in broad daylight and blowing away every single one of its members. Sounds like a foolproof plan. 1/10

Gameplay-Well like I said in the headline, it's sorta like NARC, since you're going up against a drug cartel, and it's sort of like Peter Pan and the Pirates (so it's like a bad game and a half) because you can't clear a level until you've killed every single gun-packing nutso (CLEARLY all members of a drug cartel) in it. But the cartel members are not your only enemies, oh no. There are little bugs flying around that like to stay at the bottom of the screen where they're safe from your gunfire and run into you, and sea gulls flying overhead that try to drop poo bombs on you. It was done in a lot of games at the time, and I guess a lot of game designers thought it was funny. Like in NARC, you can pick up contraband, stolen money and other stuff for bonus points, but you won't be able to keep playing this game long enough for that to matter.

Yeah, that probably doesn't sound so bad, but if it doesn't you haven't played this dreary game. You can see what look like valuable power ups on the roofs of buildings and high above you inside of them, but you'll never get those boots or that machine gun icon because Shadow doesn't know how to jump that high and there's no fixture that lets you climb onto it to make the jump. Oh, and one time I went into a door and came out with a jet pack, and I still blew up when I touched a land mine. 1/10

Control-Sometimes my little secret agent man would, for no reason I could ever figure out, start to moonwalk diagonally upward heedless of my input, sometimes forward, sometimes back, but almost always into a hail of bullets or onto a land mine. 1/10

Graphics-Oh PLEASE. You call that mess of pixels on my screen graphics? I was sort of able to identify gangsters in trenchcoats and sea gulls and little hearts, but only because I've played enough good video games to recognize such things. For pity's sake the sea gulls like like little m's with eyes attached to them like it would make them more recognizable. It looks like somebody took my kindergarten drawings and copied them directly into a video game. 1/10

Sound-Augh! You guys weren't even trying here, Color Dreams! This game has the most lifeless BGM I have ever heard in my life. That's all I can think of to say about it. It sounds like it's trying to be harrowing and pulse-pounding to get you all fired up about taking down the drug lords, but it's more likely to put you to sleep. The sound effects are not quite as boring as the music, but totally generic. 1/10

Replay value-I have a very, very hard time seeing anyone being willing to put up with this game long enough to make it past the second level, and in a lot of cases, not even the first. No replay value for this one. 0/10

Bottom line-Raid 2020 is one of the most horrible games that ever came from one of the most horrible game companies the world has ever seen. Raid 2020 truly deserves a spot in the list of the twenty worst games of all time, and it's a crime against humanity that it didn't get one.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 12/21/04, Updated 12/28/04