| paleface [sys=PS2; cat=Beat_em_up; reg=JPN] |
| | | Spiffy port of both the arcade version of Dynamite Deka, and the Saturn version. These came out in the States as "Die Hard Arcade," and the sequel would be known as "Dynamite Cop."
But back to the DD. The main menu shows a lot of locked modes with crazy names, like "Altered Beast Mode." Should be interesting. The only one I can do right now is "Periscope," which appears to be a re-creation of an old solid-state arcade game, where you looked through a "periscope" at little moving model battleships, and shot "torpedos" (a series of flashing lights) at them. Weird, but shoot enough ships and you earn extra credits (continues) for DD.
The Saturn version is ugly as hell. The less said, the better.
The arcade version, on the other hand, is really quite nice to look at, with impressive shadow effects, including even animated shadows (cast by fans in the second scene). Heck, in some ways I think it looks nicer than the Dreamcast port of Dynamite Cop.
Your buttons are three: Punch, Kick, Jump. Punch also doubles as an action button, coming in handy for picking up weapons and other objects, using said weapons/objects, and for timing your action in little "quick time event" type of things, which are really hard to understand because you see your guy running somewhere, and then a big red button flashes onscreen, and at some point you're supposed to push your button, but you're not sure quite when, and if you don't guess right, you get closelined or hit by a truck or something.
So those parts aren't that fun. Beating up lots of thugs as a guy who might sort of look like Bruce Willis from the movie "Die Hard," though, is rad. You can get your mitts on all kinds of fun weapons, from cans of mace to recoilless rifles, and of course use these to make various types of mincemeat of the thugs, who themselves come in many flavors, from the generic two-bitters, to karate masters, commandos, firemen, and football linebacker bosses.
Amusingly self-important cutscenes are meant to convey some sort of plot involving the bungled kidnapping of "the President's daughter," presumably all in this giant "Die Hard"-esque skyscraper you're in.
You can play co-op, and life is good. I just need to get more credits, 'cause this game eats 'em like nobody's business: you get only one life per credit, and it gets cut down really fast if you aren't paying attention.
As in the sequel, the characters have various combos and special moves, most coming in sort of chain-combo sequences that you can often get by button mashing, which studies show everyone loves to do in beat-em-ups.
Although presented in 3D, attacks only go horizontally, so it's essentially a 2D isometric beat-em-up in the same vein as all those Capcom classics. I wish they still made more games like this, but this will tide me through for a while (*wonders some more about earning more credits*). |
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