GRAPHICS SOUND CONTROL FRUSTRATION FUN FACTOR OVERALL

NES 1 Player Action When you think of NES companies, there are a few that immediately come to mind: Nintendo, Capcom, Acclaim, etc. But one company that's not mentioned too often is Bandai. They made some pretty crappy games back in the day, but they also made some pretty good ones. Sadly the bad games overshadowed the good ones, and Bandai got thrown in the dirt (As a videogame maker, that is, they did good as a toy maker). But every now in then there comes a game that revives a companies status as good, that changes the way people look at games forever, Dynowarz...is not that type of game. Apparently there are some evil dinosaurs from another planet that want to take over your planet, Spondylus. So you have to go through each part of your planet defeating the evil dinosaurs. A pretty good story, actually. Graphics: Not too bad for such an average game. In the Dino levels, the sprites are quite large and are detailed fairly well. And in the human levels everything is sort of half rate. The backgrounds in the game are decent, giving it that "spacey" effect. The saving point of the graphics in this game, however, are the cut scenes in between levels. They have great animation and are fantastically detailed. The developers did a pretty decent job with graphics, but its clearly visible that they left much room for improvement. Sound: The sound in this game is a toughie to decide. Some of the tunes are good and enjoyable, while others are horrible and downright annoying. The title theme for the game is awesome and can be heard over and over without getting annoying. While some of the level themes just plain suck and will make you want to turn the music off. As for the sound effects, they get the job done, with the occasional skip. Gameplay: The game is spread into two parts: A dino level, where you are actually in the dinosaur and have to make it through the level and fight a dinosaur boss; and a human level, where you go into a base and must fight an evil brain thing. The dino levels are sort of fun, but they have some problems. First off, the weapon variety in the dino levels is horrible. There are four weapons you can get: the fireball, which is just like a little bullet flying out of your hand; the flying fist, which goes in a horrid pattern before returning to you; the bomb, which goes almost straight up and comes down right in front of you, making it near impossible to kill some enemies; and finally, the laser, which is the best of the weapons and actually helps you out in the game. You can power each weapon up to better levels, but by the end of a level it doesn't really make much of a difference. At end of each level, you fight a dinosaur boss, whose pattern takes only a few seconds to figure out. Then there are the human levels. These mainly involve you jumping over spikes and bottomless pits, via floating platforms. You can power up your gun in this section, which makes it shoot faster. The control in this game is awful, with the main complaint being the jumps. You see, when you jump in this game, it takes about half a second after you press the jump button before your guy actually leaves the ground. Add that fact to the insane amount of jumps you have to make, and you have a recipe for disaster. Replay: This game is very simple. It gives you a ton of energy and infinite continues. Plus, there's a password system so you can stop any time you want, and there are only like 8 levels. This game can be beaten in about 2 hours if you play straight. After you beat you probably won't find yourself coming back to play it again. The developers probably geared this game more towards the younger gaming crowd. ......BOTTOM LINE: Dynowarz probably isn't worth your time or money. Its an average game at most, and has little replay value. The developers could have done a much better job. I wouldn't pay more than $5 for this game. -lynx561