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.