Thursday, September 30, 2004

Cartoon Chronicles: Super Madness #3

Now that I've geeked it up and played X-Men Legends for the Playstation 2, it's time for a short review-- followed by my usual cartoon chronicle. X-Men Legends is a real-time action RPG for the Playation 2 (PS2), Gamecube (GCN), and X-Box (Xb). You play as 15 characters from the popular Marvel comic book series (and movie series, and several animated series'), the X-Men. I'll spare you the details on their backstory, as that's for a future cartoon chronicle. You begin the game as Wolverine. You're on a mission to rescue a young mutant name Alison Crestmere from the evil clutches of the Brotherhood. After you rescue her, you begin to unravel a mystery involving the X-Men's greatest villain, Magneto. But as you battle the forces of evil, you also play as young Alison on the side-- training to use your mutant ability to control lava, and learning all about the history of the X-Men. While playing, you control 4 characters at the same time... sorta. You'll really be controlling one of the, while the game's AI controls the other 3. No need to worry, though; your computer-controlled allies are more than capable of handling themselves. They may forget to attack one or two nearby enemies, but they aren't going to do anything stupid like walk off of a cliff and kill themselves-- that is, unless they follow you into a situation where you kill yourself. If the character you're controlling dies, no need to worry. You'll instantly take control of one of the living members of your team. In fact, you can switch which character you control throughout most of the game. The roster of playable characters include such fan-favorites as Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Jean "Marvel Girl" Grey, Iceman, Beast, Rogue, Gambit, Jubilee, Magma, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Psylocke, Emma "White Queen" Frost, and a mysterious 15th character you'll have to play to find out. I really enjoyed this game, and despite my horrible track record with finishing video games, I beat it. For the hardcore gamer, depending on one's schedule, it could take anywhere between 2 days and one full week to beat this game. So if you're not sure about picking up this title, rent it. It's roughly 30 hours of fun, especially if you're an X-Geek like myself. And now the moment you couldn't care less about... Dynomutt, Dog Wonder He's a go-go dog person. Meet Radley Crowne, multi-millionaire and philanthropist. By day, he's a playboy with hos in different area codes. By night, and sometimes also during the day, he was the superhero known as the Blue Falcon. Oh yeah, and his dog is Dynomutt. Actually, Dynomutt was the more interesting of the two. Aside from being a talking dog, Dynomutt was also a kind of cyborg. His doggy body contained a broad assortment of gadgets and tools he and BF needed to fight crime. Now, if only Dynomutt knew how to use them. See, the dog wonder had a little trouble using his gadgets. He'd activate the wrong one, use it incorrectly, or realize it was totally useless and inappropriate. How they solved any of their cases is beyond me, but the city practically worshipped them. Oh yeah, and the name of the city was Big City. I'm serious. In case you couldn't tell, Dynomutt was meant to be a satire of real superhero cartoons. It was a joke. In fact, comedy was the show's strongest quality. BF's rogues gallery of colorful villains were ridiculous, even by Batman's standards (and Bats had some wacky villains). My particular favorite was BF's nemesis, the Queen Hornet. This woman had a habit of standing 2 inches away from your face, and buzzing loudly in your ear at the end of every sentence. One time she trapped Blue Falcon and Dynomutt in a puddle of honey (see? ridiculous!), and said something along the lines of "I have you now, Blue Falcon! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz." And the buzzing went on for at least 7 seconds. 7 seconds may not sound like a long time, but stand next to a clock and make a buzzing sound for 7 seconds and see how ridiculous you feel. If that weren't bad enough, the bitch's head was twitching and shaking the whole time. Add that to Dynomutt's corny one-liners and wacky laugh, and you've got yourself one heck of a show. Would I recommend it? Yep. It's good, wacky fun. It even featured the occasional cameo from the Scooby Doo gang. You can't go wrong there. Next time: Freakazoid. Read it, or you'll get nothing for dinner but a blatherskite and a piece of leather! Much Love

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