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Sunday 13 January, 2008
In the Sega Genesis game "Altered Beast" (another botched translation to English from Japanese) you find yourself in ancient Greece, summoned from your grave by Zeus himself to rescue his kidnapped daughter, Athena. You must defeat hordes of monsters, zombies, ogres, and even spear wielding anthropomorphic animal demons straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting to do so. Thankfully, you are no ordinary human. With the collection of power ups, you increase in size and strength until you transform into your devastating "beast form," which depending on the game level, can be a wolf, dragon, bear, or tiger.
The game follows a standard side scrolling formula. Various monsters approach you, and as you kill them, you progress to the right. Special two-headed blue wolves drop power ups after death, which must be collected until you transform into your beast form. Only after this may the level boss appear. After the boss is defeated, your power ups are taken and you begin the next level. Repeat!
The controls are simple enough to grasp. In addition to moving left or right, you can punch, kick, and jump! Beast form unlocks new powers, which replace punch and kick, such as the ability to shoot fireballs when in wolf form (why? who knows?) or the power to electricate nearby foes in dragon form.
The gameplay varies so little that it quickly becomes tedious. Every level is essentially the same, the only differences being cosmetic (woa, now the walls are GREEN!). The player also only gets three lives for the duration of the game (all 5 levels), with no way to heal or save, making the game almost impossible to complete.
The game does offer co-op mode with two players however, which adds to its enjoyability greatly. Alone I would quickly tire of the game, but with an ally I find myself much more drawn in and involved.
The game also has great music, with eerie, medieval sounding organs that get stuck in your head for weeks.
In terms of game play, Altered Beast is nothing special, in fact, it's rather boring. But with the addition of co-op, its eerie soundtrack, and its dark art and style, Altered Beast becomes almost... cool. Well, in a cheesy way.
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