Whiplash

"Wait 'til PETA hears about this game"

The platformer genre was in need of a breath of fresh air. Don't get me wrong for there are plenty of good platformers out there, they are just to alike. Whiplash distinguishes itself from the rest by adding tons of humor, this is literally a laugh a minute game. Abuse of animals, hamster cannons, and a talking rabbit this game has it all!

Genron is not only a way of life but a way to the future, Genron, say you love it! Genron is a severely twisted corporation that use animals for experiments. Not your typical experiments but more along the lines of abuse and torture. They have several machines they used for their pleasure such as the monkey electrocution and their animal merging machine. Which takes two animals and squish them together to get a bigger, better animal.

It all starts with Spanx and Redmond. Spanx is a weasel that has a rabbit named Redmond attached to his wrist by handcuffs. Since both of them were caught outside of Genron they are to be punished by the animal merging machine. While heading down to machine on a conveyor belt and in a box. Spanx and Redmond are able to destroy the box and come crashing down to the floor. The alarms sounds and both Spanx and Redmond are being persuited by Genron employees. After being cornered Spanx quickly uses Redmond as his weapon and beats up the employees. Redmond doesn't take lightly to Spanx's abuse of him and will continue to whine every time he is ''used'' in this manner. After escaping the clutches of Genron employees Spanx and Redmond hear the voice of God that says it will help them in the downfall of Genron. Both agree to help and thus begins your quest to stop Genron and their bizzarre abuse of animals.

The gameplay is total mayhem! Since you control Spanx, Redmond will be doing your bidding and you will abuse him in ways that will make PETA cringe. Redmond is your swiss army rabbit that can do just about anything. You can set him on fire, you can fill him full of helium, bash him into stuff, electrocute him, and use him as a plunger just name a few. Your main goal is destroy, destroy, and destory. Anything that looks like equipment that belongs to Genron is more than likely breakable. As I mentioned before Redmond does not take lightly to this abuse and will shoot off insults at any chance he gets to and it will keep you laughing for a long while. The only downfall is the designers didn't give Redmond enough real-time dialogue so it will get repetitive extremely quick.

The graphics and level designs are very nicely done. There are several locations within Genron such as the garbage disposal, animal testing labs, and the power core. Each one of these is very diverse as far as textures go and seem to fit the theme of the level extremely well. A good example is when your in the power core you will see steam coming up from moving lava. There is also plenty of detail to the levels such as computers, animal torture devices, medical instruments, and air vents. The character models are also well done and have plenty of polygons.

There is not a whole lot of replayability once you finish this game. It will probably take anywhere from twenty to thirty hours to complete. Once you finish this game that is about it. Unless of course you want to bash the rabbit a little more.

I loved this game and I bought it. If your not sure on what to think after reading and watching a few reviews, I suggest you rent it. Get a feel for it because what I like and what you like could be two different things. A lot of times I found myself hating and loving this game at the same time.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/04