Published by: Sega Enterprizes Developed by: Activision M for Mature (violence, mild language)

Forget who you are. You are now Elliot Ballade, an agent of the search and rescue, um, company known as ESER, AND you are Dogs Bower, captain of a supply boat and general tough guy. Yes, you get to be 2 people in this game. That may sound weird, but this game is full of that. You get used to it. So, ya. The story starts out with Elliot being on vacation, then a metior hits the island he\'s close to, so he gets knocked out, there\'s a fairy/angel thing, and then you meet Dogs. You also meet Janine, who is a chick with a sniper rifle but you don\'t get to be her. SHEEOOT. Now, there\'s not a say unless I start giving away stuff, and that\'s not a very fun thing, now is it?

Graphics- *D*

Bad. Not just bad, but terrible. Well, ok, they\'re not Pong-esque, but they\'re not exactly Metroid Prime either. In fact, the Nintendo 64 had better graphics on most of its games. The graphics are nothing compared to today\'s fully-rendered bump-mapped 50-zillion pollygon count Super Fighto Star Man 3000 DX director\'s cuts. The shadow effects aren\'t too bad, except the monsters\' arms are 3 times bigger in the shadows. The reflections, though rare, reveal that all of the characters and bad guys are actually vampires. The things you fight, though, are somewhat imaginative, looking almost like dinosaur men with four arms and claws and scales, but that\'s just the ones that respawn. If a baddy doesn\'t follow that general description, then once you blow it away, it won\'t be coming back ever. But, you get money for destroying the dino-men, so it\'s all good. You can do somewhat graphic things like shooting off their arms or blowing away their head (which they apparently don\'t need). Also, when things die they kinda spray little spurts of blood that seem to dissipate into the air, all very unrealistically gratifying. There\'s just something that settles in my heart to know that not only did I destroy that dino-man\'s world with a plasma gun, I did it so bad his mother\'s uncle\'s friend\'s roomate\'s dog\'s previous owner is gonna feel it! Either that or I had burritos that night. Like I said, the graphics are not great. The graphics are like what a suped-up gameboy advance with a 3D graphics accelerator card could do. The graphics are not the point here. The story, on the other hand- well, no, not that either because the game was translated directly from a japanese version, but I\'m sure that one made more sense because this one\'s is choppy and disorienting. It\'s the character develo- wait, never mind. Um, moving on...

Game Play- *B*

Besides the fact that the story makes no sense unless you know the ENTIRE thing, and that you can\'t see what you\'re doing if you go under something to low, the game play is great. The choosable characters, Elliot and Dogs, (yes DOGs BOWer), are very different. Elliot is faster, and can use his bare hands to punch and kick mutant dinosaur things and immediately after use a shotgun to let heads roll. Dogs is slower, gets the least fun guns, and is fat. But at least he can only equip one weapon at a time, and it can\'t be his bare hands (Dogs is obviously allergic to dinosaurs). He can put on these different shirts, though, and somehow learn how to do whatever is on the shirt. He has a wrestling shirt, a sumo shirt, and maybe something else. Dogs does get a rather powerful-ish crossbow thingamabob. The only reason Dogs is in the game is he has some kind of role in the story, which is only t! he most disappointing part of the game. I haven\'t played this game 16 times through because of the clever plot and quick quips used by the intriguing and deeply developed characters. I play it because it is fun to shoot things. That is all. Pure \'n simple dismemberment of alien-dinosaurs in a unrealistic town full of shops that for no reason at all happen to sell weapons and ammo on every corner.

Sound- *D+*

The song in the market will drive you insane. You will sit in the corner of your closet holding a Sponge-Bob air-freshener whistling that song until the animal control people come and take you away. Turn the sound off and listen to Blindside\'s newest CD. The voice acting is terrible too, but it might be better in Japanese. They do lots of \'Godzilla is attacking!\' stuff while their mouths move for another 2 1/2 minutes. Ugh. The only reason it got a D+ is for the catchy-ness of the market tune. Sponge Bob Square Pantalones!

Control- *B+*

Slightly awkward for the veteran gamer who is used to the tight response of games like Mario 64 or Star Fox Adventures. You can set up the controls to be more like a Resident Evil kind of game, but they\'re just better with the set up of having A be open doors and read signs, B is punch (or \'block\' if you\'re Dogs, like that ever happens) B is swim (which you do like 3 times in the entire game) and Y or R is shoot your gun (or Sumo slap for Dogs when he\'s got his Sumo underoos on) and then L trigger does the whole \'first person look around\' thing. One great thing about this game: when you look down, you see (gasp) THE REST OF YOUR BODY!!!! No joke. this ain\'t no Quake 19 arena tournament smackdown ultra where you are actually a gun floating above a hologram that only other characters can see of a pair of incredibly buff legs. Oh, you can see what you would if YOU YOURSELF actually looked down right now; Only if you were standing. But you\'re probably not. Ok. Yeah....

Appropriateness- *D--*

I would give it an F but I personally don\'t think it\'s all that inappropriate. I think other people might, and that\'s the point of this grading system. The blood is unrealistic, except for the occasional body you come across that\'s just part of the background. Which there is actually quite a few of. Still, it\'s not that bad, and if you never look at the ground, you\'ll be fine. There\'s also some D-bombs and one B-bomb thrown in to give it that tough aesthetic feel, but you won\'t hear that because of the Blindside you should be listening to while you are playing it.