Well, looking inside this month's Electronic Gaming Monthly
yeilded a quick peek at the SWAT Kats video game due out this
July 28. It has a two-page feature spread, which could be look
at in two way. 1) The game is quite good and may generate
interest in the cartoon in the young males demographics group or
2) the 16 bit game arena is really waning and they're desparate
for filler. It may be a combination of these two things.
Still, it does look very good (in fact, I've reserved a copy at
my local WaldenSoftware), but the plot appears to be vastly
different than what we were told in that initial posting. First
of all, I don't think Callie is a captive in this video game.
The "worlds" that the Kats go through don't seems to suggest it
(the reason they're called "worlds" and not "levels" I'll explain
later). The first world is based on "The Giant Bacteria"
episode. The Kats have to fight through the city defeating the
underlings of said Bacteria, before going on the the big guy
himself. The second world, Madkat has returned and has kidnapped
the city's children. You must enter MadKat's amusement park and
find the kids. The third world is based on the episode where the
Kats are sent into the past by the Pastmaster and wind up in
medevil times. Defeat the Pastmaster to return to the present.
Noticibly absent from the list of main enemies are the Metalikats
and DarkKat (I'm assuming Dr. Viper is somewhere in the "Giant
Bacteria" world), but there usually more "worlds" in video games
like SWAT Kats so they may make appearances in the worlds not
mentioned.
On to play mechanics... The game is one-player only, so no
teaming up of Razor and T-Bone, and you apparently can't switch
characters between levels. T-Bone and Razor are both armed with
Glovatrixes, which gives them the same weapons. This is why the
term "worlds" was used before. The SWAT Kats gain levels like in
an RPG, the more enemies they defeat the higher the level and the
better the weapon they can access. I'm not sure if you can
"downgrade" from a more powerful weapon, however. Level 1 starts
them off with a "plain old missle". Level 5 grants them the
"Spider Missle". At Level 10, they get the "Cement Machine Gun".
They possess the "Octopus Missle" at Level 15. The weapon at
Level 20 is the "Pincer Missle". And they get the most powerful
weapon in the game at Level 25, the Slicer disk. However, in
some of the screen shot that were shown with the article,
apparently levels as high as 55 can be reached. Why you would
want to is unknown. Perhaps the number of "hit points" is
increased after Level 25.
RANT MODE ON
I certinly hope that the Kats will be able to attack using hand-
to-hand techniques. The glovatrixes are nice, but most combat
with the Kats occurs either in the TurboKat or in melee. I don't
buy the idea that more button will confuse the player. The SNES
has four buttons that could be used for jump, close attack, and
long range attack. Also, we're talking about a demographic group
that can preform, with ease, eight point flange motions that are
used to kick my tail in various fighting games! They can surely
handle a couple of extra buttons.
RANT MODE OFF
Speaking of the TurboKat, yes it's in there. But it appears to
be a downward scolling sub-game in the vein of Raiden. I don't
know if the weapons on the TurboKat are dependant on your level
or not. I would have preferred a flight-sim along the lines of
After Burner, but since space was limited (2 MB) it was probably
not feasible.
There also appears to be very little to differentiate T-Bone and
Razor besides the sprites. However, T-Bone and Razor have a
special weapon. T-Bone, considering his oh-so-subtle personality
Br) has a bazooka. Razor, on the other hand, has a jetpack as
his special weapon.
Next to the weapons and the character, the most important thing
in any video game is POWER UPS! There are four in SWAT Kats.
Golden coins with questions marks increase the player's level,
1ups give extra lives, and milk and chili-peppers heal the
character. Now the milk is kinda cliche, but chili peppers? I
can guess why they used chili peppers and it shows whoever
insisted on using that icon has been watching the series. There
also appear to be golden coins with cat icons on them, but I
don't know what they are used for. Perhaps they are used to
power up the special weapons.
The "reviewer" was quite impressed with the game, in fact he
said, "I was surprised by how well this game was done." However,
he also said, "the prospect of playing another [cartoon-themed
game] didn't excite me". And this is EGM, I take anything they
say with a small barvarian salt mine. Finally, the "reveiwer"
had this game almost three months ago owning to the nature of the
magazine industry. He may have had an alpha or beta copy, so
anything said here may not be true by the time they put the game
out.
Still, I'm looking forward to trying it out. And maybe, if the
game is successful, show Mr. T (who is a fool to be pitied Br)
the hot commodity he is axing.
August Paul Yang hopes to be able to review the game soon.
--
wntrmute_at_ritz.mordor.com | For my Life
Public Relations and Official Test Audience for the FDC | Still ahead,
"Have you any idea how successful censorship is on TV? | Pity me. -Queen
Don't know the answer? Hm. Successful. Isn't it?" -Max Headroom
Received on Fri Jul 14 1995 - 21:15:41 PDT