Dr. Franken

"If you enjoy shooting sparks out of your elbows, then this is the game for you!!"

Dr. Franken is a relatively unknown game. It had a sequel, and there's and SNES version, but ask people if they've ever played it, and 9 times out of 10 they'll say no. You can get the game for $10 at GameStop. But question is, is it worth your $10? If you like ''average'' games, then yes it is.

Story: 5/10

You play the game as ''Franky'', a creation of Dr. Von Frankenbone. After the Doc dies, the mansion is taken over by Franky, and his girlfriend Bitsy. But all is not well in the large house. Von Frankenbone's other creations, the results of his many failed experiments, still roam the house. Jealous of Franky and Bitsy's happiness together, the ''misfits'' kidnap Bitsy during the night, and take her apart, hiding her body parts throughout the mansion. And for some reason, Franky has been shrunken down to a midget of 3 feet high.

Now, with your trusty elbow-spark-gun-thing, you must traverse the large mansion, and find the pieces of your dismembered girlfriend, while destroying the misfits that took her. It's a strange story, but at least the game has one at all. Nothing spectacular.

Graphics/Presentation: 7/10

Well what do you expect from a 12 year-old game on the Game Boy? The graphics are good, for the Game Boy. It's easy to tell the difference between a toilet and a pantry. Some cool shading effects are used, but other than that it's not too fancy. Don't expect to blown away, but don't expect to be disappointed either. If given some color, it could be passed as an early SNES game. It's just a little above average.

The presentation isn't that great. Simple menus, and a boring title screen don't help it much. There's no explanation of the story in the whole game, except for what is written in the manual. You really never care about Franky or his stupid girlfriend. Very boring, overall.

Sound: 3/10

Ugh. This is where the game gets annoying. Throughout the whole game there are only 2 songs. The title screen music, and the song that plays over and over during the actual game. It's kinda cool at first, since it's a good Game Boy rendition of a classical piano song, but after a while you'll be turning off the music in the menu, and never looking back. But even turning off the music won't save you from getting the song stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

The sound effects can be annoying too. Whenever you shoot sparks out of your elbow, a loud ''wuhwoo'' sound goes off. Since shooting sparks is basically all you do the entire game, this will get pretty irritating. The sound you hear when you get hit is a loud ''bmmmmpp'' sound. Very annoying. Just remember to turn down the volume before the game even starts, so you don't have the unfortunate event of getting these sounds stapled into your head for all eternity.

Controls: 5/10

A is for jumping. B is for shooting. It works, I guess. Can't really complain since the Game Boy only has two action buttons.

Gameplay: 5/10

The gameplay in Dr. Franken is simple. Shoot enemies, jump up the stairs, find out the door is locked, run down the stairs, shoot the enemy that comes back to life, run through the door, and follow a hallway that only leads back to a room that you were at only a few hours ago. Put simply, it gets old. Yeah sure, there's a map you can look at by pressing Start, that tells you were to go next, but getting to that floating question mark on the map isn't as simple as it looks. You'll constantly be pressing Start after going through a door, just to see whether or not you're getting closer to it. Just like everything else, it gets old and annoying.

Replay Value: 4/10

The sound is annoying, the gameplay is annoying, trying to finish this game is annoying. When you start, not a whole lot is going to keep you going. Unless you are bound and determined to finish it, you most likely won't see the ending. And even if you do finish it, nothing is going to make you go back and live through the annoying, well, everything.

Final Verdict: 5/10

It has it's ups, and it has it's many downs. If you see this game sitting in some classic game store, and you have $10 to spare, then buy something else. You'll thank me later.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/12/04