Astro Boy: Omega Factor

"Sega teams up with Hitmaker to make a timeless classic."

This game is based on one of the greatest classics of anime... of all time. Astro Boy: Omega Factor. Astro Boy was the first anime out there and it began in the mid 1960s. This game was made by designed by Hitmaker and was released by Sega. I have never heard of Hitmaker, but anything by Sega is a great game maker in my mind. This game was another great example of the great games Sega made. Let's see how it got through in my review:

Graphics: 9/10
For a 16-bit system, this game's graphics aren't very bad at all. The graphics actually look like N64 graphics if you ask me. The boss fights were very realistic and the laser from Astro looks very good in my perspective. The explosions were also very good. Astro's movement was smooth and virtually no glitches through the graphics. All the graphics were fine. The only problem I thought was the over-sized enemies and how blocky they looked if you looked real close. Other than that, all the graphics were great in this game.

Sound: 7/10
The sound was overall okay but the music throughout the game got purely annoying. The sound effects we're all very well organised as well. Only problem was the punching technique sound effect got really annoying that it completely hurt your head. I had a migraine right after I played this game. I don't prefer to punch a total lot but when I do, the sound irritates me. The laser blast sound was perfect and the machine gun sound was somewhat okay. The sound in this game could use some tweaking but everything was well made.

Game-play: 10/10
The game-play in this game was as you can say... AWESOME! All the movements were smooth and fortunately, there were rarely any glitches and you could play through the whole game fluently without the game going all screwy on you. The controls were virtually simple which would be bad in most cases but this game was very difficult so having simple controls were basically a blessing through this game :). This was a third-person shooter so basically, it was smoothly translated from cut-scene to battle scene. The upgrading of weapons confused me since I have never watched the T.V. show of Astro Boy. You go and meet a person and the memory is turned into computer data and then Astro banks it somewhere in his system. A little confusing to me but it didn't bother me because it was easy to upgrade your weapons that way. The overall through this game-play was stupendous.

Difficulty: 9/10
Talk about difficult. I basically had to use the super laser or machine gun every single time. Yeah, I suck that much :). Well, not every time, but generally a lot. Sega and Hitmaker has made a very difficult game this time. The difficulty was almost as hard as Ninja Gaiden's and Ninja Gaiden's was very difficult. For the last time, I congratulate Sega and Hitmaker for creating such a challenging game.

Repeatability: 7/10
This was one of those games I couldn't stop playing. It was very addictive but then it suddenly got very boring. I stopped playing it for a day or two and then I started playing again but then i got bored... once again. It was like a big fact cycle. It got annoying that it kept going into that cycle but it was very repeatable. This was one of the more annoying but enjoyable things about this game.

Overall: 9/10
It's difficult, it's fun, it's one of the best games I ever played. I really suggest you buy it instead of renting it first. It really has action and everything. Buy it, enjoy it, have fun! And lastly, I would like to congratulate Sega (again) and Hitmaker (again) for making such a great game. Well... what are you waiting for? Stop reading this review and go to EB Games or something and by Astro Boy; Omega Factor!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/04