Someone rescue this reviewer!!! Review

Someone rescue this reviewer!!!

I remember when the very mention of the “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”

was enough to make me thankful that I didn’t have children of my own. When the

Rangers first came out, my nephews had seemingly found their Messiahs. Having

to baby-sit these little monkeys while they acted out their Power Ranger fantasies

made me recall being twelve years old and acting out G-Force, Ultraman,

and Giant Robot scenarios with my friends. Surely we were never so loud

and obnoxious as my nephews were. Then again, we never had really cool battle

cries like, “It’s morphin time!!!” either.

Five or so years later, my nephews have since outgrown Power Rangers and have

moved on to more adult pursuits, like girls and Pokemon. As my nephews

moved on into that magical time we call adolescence, the Power Rangers quietly

and without fanfare slipped beneath my radar, never to be thought of again.

Then some punk dropped this game on my desk…

They’re not morphin’ anymore. No sireee! These Rangers are of the “Lightspeed

Rescue” variety. Now while not a big Power Ranger fan, I am a huge fan of action

games, and knowing the cartoony violence of the TV show, I figured I was in

for a good time. Wrong-o!

Power Ranger’s Lightspeed Rescue is a sub-standard side-scrolling beat-em-up.

Kinda like a tweaked out Streets of Rage minus the fun. We’ve all done

this before, so you know the drill. Run around from one end of the level to

the other. Along the way, you rescue hostages (they actually say “Yippee!” when

rescued), find power-ups, jump obstacles, fight countless minions (who all look

and act exactly alike…retarded), defeat sub-boss after weak sub-boss, and slap

around an end level boss until he blinks on and off and eventually vanishes

(just like the show!). It honestly feels more like Maximum Carnage on

the Genesis than any of the “next gen” side scrollers like Fighting

Force.

Simply pick the color coordinated Ranger of your choice and walk through stage

after stage of apocalyptic madness as evil beings from beyond the stars wage

war on our poor defenseless world. A typical mission involves walking through

war torn, debris filled streets, beating up on aliens, and rescuing the poor

slobs who apparently didn’t heed the order to evacuate. Why waste my time rescuing

someone who didn’t have sense enough to leave when they saw their community

being overrun by lava flows and aliens? It’s just level after maddening level

of the same crap.

The characters move very stiffly. In fact, they look like action figures. Not

animated action figures, I mean the kind that just sit there. They’re like moving

toys, using “stop motion” animation, but without the “motion” and “animation”

parts.

The

controls are your basic punch, kick, jump, and special move buttons. Unleash

your arsenal (Ha!) of martial arts moves against a single opponent and watch

as the final 4 hits of your 5-hit combo go sailing past your opponent. For some

reason, you are unable to track your opponent during battles, so you have to

continually tap the directional pad in order to stay facing the right direction.

This may seem like a minor gripe when dealing with a single opponent, but you

always seem to face multiple opponents.

Don’t be discouraged, though. A jump kick takes out everyone – and I mean everyone

– in the game. Bosses included.

After about 20 minutes of non-stop rescuin’, I asked my roomie to pick up controller

2 so I could accurately review the multiplayer aspect of the game. His response,

“What, are you drunk?” didn’t deserve a reply, but it was what he said next

that gave me hope for this game. “Lemme know when you get to the giant mech

part of the game, I wanna see that.”

Oh, yeah! I had forgotten about that part of the show. Now I’m looking forward

to some big time "giant-robot-stomping-some-rubber-monster-into-paste-in-the-heart-of-a

-decimated-cityscape” action…

Hmmm. There’s no city. There is no background to speak of. No sky, no rocks,

not anything. Just my robot and a big rubber monster on a slate grey backdrop.

Hmmm. It appears that my giant robot has the same control scheme as my little

Ranger dude. My robot is moving agonizingly slow, plus…no sword?! But wait…

"Phwack!" Yep, jumpkick works just fine.

Look, bottom line is, this game reeks. This type of crap was unacceptable back

in ’95. You wanna beat up bad guys and dress in spandex? Try Activision’s Spider

Man. At least he looks cool when he jump kicks.