Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge

"Amazing! Get this game even if you own the DC version!"

This game technically is the same game as it's DC counterpart, but it is incredibly different.
Before I give the review I will name all differences i can to try and convince people who own the DC version to get this one. For all new comers to Fur Fighters, please skip this section (note: this does NOT contain major spoilers)

1. Items. There are now 2110 tokens (in the original there were 2001), there are 124 babies (DC version had 112).

2. Guns. There are two new guns (that I know of), the flamethrower and the plasma tazer.

3. Enemies. Standard enemies are either weaker or stronger than in the original plus there are two new enemies, bomb-toting pandas and flamethrowing cows with jet packs. More changes have been made to bosses aswell as new bosses all together but I will not go into this to avoid major spoilers.

4. Multi-player & mini-games. Multi-plyer mode now has a total of 15 levels (as opposed to the DC version which had 7). A new mini-game can be found in 1-player mode at several stages.

5. Characters & graphics. The new game uses a ''cartoony'' style of graphics (aka, cell shading). The characters now have proper voices.

Ok enough about changes, now the review.

Graphics: 9/10
The graphics are done using cell shading giving the game a more simplistic look almost making it seem like playing a cartoon. The worlds are very colourful and look great, water and other liquids (eg. lava) are very convincing. But some of the effects are quite strange like how some things just dissapear with a load bang and some sparks as apposed to actually being blown up.

Sound & Music: 10/10
Very well done. The characters have proper voices giving them personality and matching their nationalities perfectly without any cheap ''robotic'' voices which troubles many games like Shenmue or Sonic Adventure. The music always matches the scenery like when in the village the music is slow an peaceful while it gets very quick, load and full of life when in the busy New York style world. Plus soe humerous tunes that were amost ripped straight outof James Bond Films when in the final stages of the game.

Story: 9/10
Quite an amusing story. The evil General Viggo escapes from prison and attempts to take over the world, before embarking on this mission he invades Fur Fighter Village and kidnapps the Fur Fighter's families and uses them for his plans (getting the children to work for him and mutating the elder relatives and using them as weapons). The fur fighters set off to retrieve their families and defeat Viggo. The only thing I don't get is why Viggo didn't kill or mutate the fur fighters themselves (he did have the chance), but then there wouldn't be a game so I'll just shut up on that matter.

Gameplay: 10/10
The most crucial point to any game, and by far the best point of this particular game.
The game is made up of action/adventure combined with puzzle solving but most of all it's based around third person shooting plus many mini-games. This gives the player alot of variety. Locating new guns, looking for babies (also trying to solve how to get the babies) aswell as getting to the end of a level. Their are six fur fighters you can play as, each one has a unique ability (eg. Tweek the dragon can glide and Rico the penguin can swim underwater etc.) You have to use each fur fighter to locate their own species of child while brutaly tearing evil bears and other assorted lackeys appart using a selection of up to 17 different guns (including machine guns, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, plasma weapons, flamethrowers etc.) The game has a very linear style of play. Beat the training level go to the next world and look around the main hub sections looking for the levels, beat all the levels in the world trying to gather enough babies required to beat that worlds boss ultimately getting access to the next world etc. Each world has hub (were you go between levels) containing 3 levels, you need to collect tokens to get into the levels (eg. 50 tokens for level 1, 100 tokens for level 2 and150 tokens or level etc.) in the levels you have to collect babies, you have to collect a certain amount of babies in total before you can fight that worlds boss. Beating a worlds boss gives access to the next world which yu can get to through the vilage which is a safe haven with no enemies.

Replay Value: 9/10
The game usually takes atleast 40 hours to beat. But there is a lot of other things to do besides that. Only 800 tokens are required to access every level in the game but there are 2110 tokens in total, 90 babies are required to fight every boss but there are 124 babies in total. Beating mini-games and collectin every baby and many other things can unlock various cheats and power-ups. Th multi-player is very good but can grow boring ater some time.

Rent or buy:
I would personlly say rent. This game is excepional but with such a parculier style of gameplay combining several genres of game, some people migt not take to it.

Overall: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/11/02, Updated 08/11/02