Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue
Score: 68% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: THQ Developer: Climax Group Media: CD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Action
Graphics & Sound: Surprisingly, the graphics in Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue are the game’s strongest suit. The environments are crisp and well-detailed, with relatively solid frame-rates and a good design. When you’re in the underwater base, it feels like an underwater base, and when you’re on a train, it feels like that too. The artwork is also pretty sweet, reminding me of something Todd McFarlane (the creator of “Spawn”) would have done if he designed the Power Rangers. Muscled and organic, the art is rather sweet. The FMV, on the other hand, is ripped straight from the show, and it’s just as cheesy as the show’s footage is. Watching rubber models connect together to make the gigantic Megazord or Japanese “actors” beat the crap out of 30 Battlings just doesn’t do it for me, and too often the FMV in between the levels has absolutely no relationship to what’s going on. Ugh. The sound in the game shares a similar fate -- grainy and unwanted. The theme song music plays often, and the sampling is pretty trashy. The music in the levels is only barely more passable; the constant “Let’s Go!” and “Oh no!” and “Let’s End This!” of the players grates on your nerves as you play the game. The punches and kicks and oomph’s are “realistic,” I suppose, but they don’t particularly impress either.
Gameplay: When I said that the graphics were Lightspeed Rescue’s only redeeming value, I meant it. While nowhere near as atrocious as the N64 title of the same name, this game will please neither the target market nor, well, anyone else. The game is broken up into various stages. You pick a Power Ranger to control at the beginning of the game, each with slightly different statistics (the Pink Ranger is fast but weak; the Red Ranger is strong yet slow). In-game, there’s not much difference, although I suppose one could nit-pick and find the way that the gameplay changes with each character. The biggest flaw in the game is immediately apparent by the end of the first level: with the exception of bosses, you fight exactly one kind of enemy. One. The Battlings come out at you from various places, but they always have the same moves and do basically the same things. After six levels of wading through hordes of self-similar enemies, I felt I had enough. Chances are you’d stop a lot earlier. The controls are simple, allowing you to run around, punch, kick, block, jump, and occasionally execute a special move. Blocking is important if you don’t want to lose a whole lot of lives really quickly, but the game tends to overwhelm you with enemies at key points to cover the lack of variety. This is not a Good Thing. And while some of the bosses are vaguely interesting, they all basically follow the same pattern (well, all until that guy in the underwater base that kicks your sorry butt) -- they fight just like normal enemies, except that they often have unblockable special attacks. All of their attacks do mega-damage, so prepare to lose lives cheaply when fighting bosses. Occasionally, the game shifts into Megazord mode, where you battle the bad guy with a massive robot, and it moves even -slower- than your normal people. Ugh. You can usually beat the bosses in this mode with a lot of punching, but it occasionally requires a block or kick. Whee. The levels are vaguely interesting, and finding all of the civilians and Key Parts is mildly amusing, but the rote gameplay leaves a whole lot to be desired.
Difficulty: At the default difficulty level, I have a hard time believing that kids could get past the third level (the train). Even I had a rough time getting through it without losing too many lives, and I’ve been playing games of the genre for a long time. One can turn the difficulty up or down, however, to make it a little more “interesting.” My nephew played the game on the default setting and had to use a continue or two on the first level. Considering he’s the target audience, I’d say this isn’t too good of a sign.
Game Mechanics: You can punch, kick, block, special attack, jump, and roll in Lightspeed Rescue. That’s just about it. You do it over and over and over, hopefully killing enough enemies. Not too original, eh? The camera has some serious issues, and the game often requires you to jump off in odd directions to continue the levels. Careful searching will show you the directions that you need to go, but it’s still a pain. Controlling the Rangers is simple enough once you know how, but they still seem a little too unresponsive for my tastes. And I got stuck in one of the later levels (Assault on Skull Mountain) -- whether through a game glitch or missing an item, I don’t know, but it was a pain nonetheless. While Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue is in no way shape or form as bad as the Nintendo 64 version, it’s still a highly forgettable game. The exceedingly boring gameplay (one enemy type?!), cheap bosses, and high difficulty for the age group makes this title one you’ll definitely want to pass on.
-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications AKA Phil Bordelon
Quake II Omega Boost