Bebe's Kids

"Ba-da-ba-ba-baaaaaa! I’m hatin’ it!"

Bebe's Kids is a legendary SNES title for all the wrong reasons. This horrid movie cash-in does few things right. Then again playing this title is painful enough that perhaps people would be better off not risking themselves to find those right things. How painful? Playing Bebe's Kids feels like the time I fell asleep on the couch and my cat decided to wake me up by scratching my left nipple.

What is, however, lost in the legend is that Bebe's Kids is based on a cult animated feature by the same name. Robin is your average African American nice guy that promises his girlfriend that he'll take her friend Bebe's kids to a generic amusement park named Fun World, which is in no way supposed to be Disney World. Unfortunately for Robin, his woman forgot to mention that Bebe's womb is apparently a fleshy gateway to Hell and, therefore, her kids are the spawn of Lucifer. I mean, these kids are so infamously evil that the mere sight of the three causes gangstas to go crying to their mommies and crackheads to bang their heads against concrete for self-induced blackouts. In fact, even lions that were hired to eat the children are afraid of them (sadly I didn't make that last one up). Bebe's Kids are simply BAD, and not in the cheeky Michael Jackson way either!

White Folks Translation: Sith Marauder Darth Maul would poop his pants if he met Bebe's Kids.

After hearing an embarrassingly stupid digitized voice yell, “Hey yo! Hey yo! Bebe's Kids!” you'll be given an option of two of the three badass kids: the bucktoothed tall girl LeShawn and the shrimpy thug-boy Kahill. Both characters essentially play the same as you progress through this farce of a beat ‘em up. However, Kahill's puny stature makes him a slightly harder target to hit and LeShawn's long legs allow her to move slightly faster. I emphasize the word ‘slightly' because both the game's hit detection and pace are a joke.

You'll enter the first stage, a rather empty carnival midway, and immediately notice Bebe's Kids is ridiculously sluggish. It's as if to avoid slowdown they decided to make the kids move like a snail traversing through molasses.

And like I said, the hit detection fails at the same time. Both you and enemies will clearly land hits but the game simply won't register many of them. It's not like the fighting is any good either. Where most brawlers will give your brutal combos and fierce throws, Bebe's Kids grants you pathetically weak and unlinkable punches and kicks with an unintuitive special move system. By holding a shoulder button (?!) and pressing an attack button, you can execute a slow uppercut that takes enemies down in a couple of hits. Do the same thing while jumping and you'll fumble into an awkward roundhouse-thing that's impossible to control. You can also find projectile weapons such as rocks and basketballs, but the wonky hit detection renders them worthless. Still, Bebe's Kids is a little like the tame SNES port of Final Fight in that only three enemies can appear on screen at once. But in Final Fight's defense, at least it had large, detailed sprites, which is a vastly different story from the tiny, boring things you get here.

Final Fight also had creativity and fun level design. Bebe's Kids does not. Every stage begins with the same stretch of carnival midway lightly guarded by French men wearing mouse costumes and President Clinton look-alikes that attack by grabbing you and smiling perversely. This is especially strange considering that Clinton was the last US President to care about African Americans.

Once you've cleared the midway, you'll enter the unique part of each level. First you'll make your way to the House of Glass where you'll trudge through a boring mini game by breaking falling glassware with your punches and kicks before Robin catches them. Next you move on to a Haunted House that in actuality is a frustrating maze filled with such enemies as mummies, ghosts, and paintings of old white people that spit bubbles. The maze wouldn't be so annoying if it weren't for an unforgiving time limit that leaves little room for error. The time limit becomes a problem in the next stage too. While riding a ship, you'll fight rowdy pirates that enjoy revealing their polka dotted boxers, but there's no time to glance at those Fruit of the Looms! The time limit is so stingy that you must avoid as many enemies as possible to simply reach the end of the screen. You'll face the exact same situation in the final level as you do battle with hordes robots resembling mobsters and toy soldiers.

No matter where you are in the game, your ears will have to endure musical torment unlike any other. Bebe's Kids entire soundtrack consists of three second long melodies that loop forever. Judging by the slightly loud percussion and quirky instruments the composer used, I think the developers were trying to go for a hip-hop sound akin to the film. Either that or melodies like “BWWWRRR CHICKA CHICKA WOAH OW” just meant the music guy didn't know what he was doing.

As a gamer having played Bebe's Kids today, I was glad to find out that the fourth stage was the last. Normally I'm the first person to complain when I finish a game quickly (especially in 20 minutes), but I really wanted this one to end. The mechanics, level design and music are all terrible. To top it off, the game's sluggish pace quickly becomes aggravating making for an experience about as appealing as nude photos of Rosie O'Donnell. Nintendo Power wasn't kidding about this one. It truly is the worst SNES game.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 07/18/06