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The Total Recall |
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| Artist touch: Kevin Costner was the big star of the film but he isn't even on the cover here. The rest of the art is too confusing and all over the place. Kind of like the game itself. Cover art rating: 4/10 |
Month
it won: April 2005
(Ocean, 1996) |
Special note:
Thank God, this is the only Waterworld console game in existence!
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| Introduction and Story: |
| With
video games becoming so popular now, smart movie makers are taking a
good hard look at this booming industry. If a film director is smart
they'll have a game in the works along with the movie to get added press
and hype for both projects. Sometimes movie games get to be so good
that they may actually be better then the film themselves (Goldeneye
64 and the Chronicles of Riddick come to mind). Sadly, Water
World for the Virtual Boy isn't one of them! If you don't remember WaterWorld the movie (lucky you) it took place in a depressing futurist world where there is no bodies of land what so ever. In a odd plot here there is nothing but water that surrounds the earth and the few humans left are fighting for survival. There is one ray of hope though. There is a legend that says there is still dryland on a tattoo of a little girl named Enola. Evil outlaws known as the Smokers now want to kidnap this girl and it is up to you to protect her. Unfortunately you won't get any story line during the game, it goes right to the action here. |
| Controls and Game Play: |
| Waterworld
the game is a 3D shoot em up where you pilot a odd looking boat with
harpoon guns. The game is easy to master and once you got the controls
down all you have to worry about is all the invading Smokers on skidoos
looking to kill you or take Enola away. You only get one life here and
the game gets tough in a hurry. Staying alive and saving Enola and the other Atoller civilians is ultimately a losing battle because the group of enemies just keeps on getting bigger and more aggressive with each level. It doesn't help matters when there are no power ups here for some reason plus your strange little boat is way too slow making you a sitting duck. |
| Graphics and Sounds: |
 If
there is one good thing about WaterWorld it's that the graphics don't
seem too bad for a Virtual Boy title......... at first. When you kill
one of the detailed looking Smokers for example; they explode in a cool
particle effect and guys in the water are well animated. Sadly, the
sprite-based 3D graphics still look very choppy while moving but the
biggest problem though is that you are looking at same body of water
the whole game. If you thought looking at a world with nothing but water
was boring during the movie wait till you play the game. The music like
the graphics don't change from level to level so you are stuck hearing
the same annoying low-key stuff over and over again. Some the sound
effects were cool but the game could have really used voices to spice
things up. |
| The Bottomline: |
| Water World tries to do a simple and easy to learn arcade-like experience that's hard to master like Atari's Centipede but the repetitive game play and lack of any story just don't cut it in this day and age anymore (it didn't even cut it in 1995 either to be honest). If that wasn't enough both the graphics and sounds get old very quickly. Sure, with you are a collector the game is well worth owning since it was one of the final VB games released but that only means you should pay 10 bucks for it instead of 5 the other VB games go for on auctions. Water World is not only one of the biggest flops in movie history but it is also bombs on the Virtual Boy too. |
| Conclusion: | |
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*Rare Virtual Boy game WATERWORLD overall rating: 38/100 Find this game on eBay here! For 1 to 9 players Rated (K-A) Kids to Adults graphics: 5/10 sound: 4/10 gameplay: 2/10 replay: 1/10 -StarSoldier (Ryan Genno) 2005 See other Total Recall duds of the month |
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