Altered Beast
Review Version - Amstrad CPC 464
Developer - Sega
Publisher - Activision
Graphics have always been a big selling point for computer games. We are after all visual creatures so this makes sense. Unfortunately sometimes beauty is only skin deep and in gaming this seems to be more true than ever. I remember Altered Beast when it came out for Megadrive. Everyone was going mad over the graphics, “They are like arcade perfect” and other such nonsense. When I eventually got round to playing it I remember thinking, " Sure, the graphics are nice, but the game is mediocre at best.
So it was a shock to know they had released an Amstrad version at some point. How does a game whose whole USP seems to be amazing graphics transfer to an 8-Bit system? Lets find out but first the story.
The Historically Confusing Storyline
Neff, the ruler of the underworld (which isn’t a lingerie shop), has kidnapped the goddess Athena (of the music shop fame, yes I am that old). I have no idea why he has taken her, possibly because of her large collection of contemporary pop posters (my references are on point!)
Zeus, who is Athena's dad, is a bit miffed about this and has chosen a champion to save her. Why didn't he just do it himself? Isn’t Zeus king of the gods? It’s like Godzilla sending a small frog to battle King Ghidorah.
Apparently, Zeus is not well versed in ancient history as he decides to use a Roman Centurion to be his champion. Why he didn’t pick a Greek is anyone's guess; perhaps they were all enjoying smashing plates in heaven or something
Back to the western version and Zeus has resurrected you and given superpowers because he likes a fair fight. He gives you the ability to turn into a beast. Am I the only one who thinks that’s a rubbish superpower? We are talking about Zeus here, and he thinks, “I’ll give him claws”. No lightning bolts from his hands or laser beams from his eyes, no, he gets hairy and grows claws.
You take your amazing super power, and battle the undead (which I think means Zombies), a range of stronger enemies, including the old dude from Star Wars who shoots lightning at Luke and of course different colour bulls. Yeah, I said bulls, the manual says dogs, but no way are they dogs, those are bulls.
Bulls Or Dogs?
Actual Game Play
Start the game, and you are presented with a loading screen. It clearly shows a man slowly melting into a wolf. There is also some weird green liquid, which I like to assume is Mutagen.
First Splash Screen
Next, you get… another screen with the name of the game, you know, in case you weren't aware.
Second Splash Screen
Then the game waits for a while to seemingly load the rest of the game. I assume it’s because it used all the memory available, painting the two loading screens.
So the game finally starts, and apparently, a jelly baby wants you to do something
Jelly baby Zeus
The enemies attack you in waves. This was the actual realisation I had when I played this on the MD; it's actually a pretty average game with great graphics (the MD and Arcade version, not this one).
The bad guys come at you in waves
The zombies tend to dance their way across the screen. I’m not joking, they move like they are doing Thriller or something. OMG Zombies, Thriller, maybe that's where MJ got the idea.
I promise you, these are Zombies
At some point, you have to punch them, but for some reason, I couldn't punch. The control system is odd. Kicking the bad guys involves holding the direction and pressing the fire button. I could punch if I were crouched, but that isn’t how I like to punch, dammit!
Jumping is haphazard, as sometimes it registers that you want to jump forward, and other times you just jump straight up in the air.
The Amazing Wotsit Warrior
The main character looks like a wotsit. Honestly, who drew that and thought “that looks like a Roman centurion”? Also, and this is a minor issue, but his hand is also way out of proportion to the rest of him.
Wotsit Warrior!
The zombie enemies are, well, a random set of pixels that move. I say move; they have two frames of animation.
The rest of the enemies are more of the same random splat of pixels. If I hadn't played the Megadrive version at some point, I wouldn't actually have a clue what I was looking at.
The backgrounds are decent, but they repeat at a snail's pace.
The whole thing moves at super slow speed. The screen moves in a weird judder, clearly because it is drawing the next section instead of preloading it. This makes the game almost unplayable.
All in all, it's pretty much unplayable
The shocking lack of animation on the sprites makes it far harder than it should be. The collision detection means it’s luck rather than skill if you actually hit anyone.
I am sure it was meant to be an amazing Arcade conversion, but the poor old CPC can’t handle it. Maybe if they had removed the backgrounds a bit, it could have been halfway decent, but instead they went with a horrible arcade conversion and bulls.
Altered Beast
A poor arcade conversion that tries to squeeze Altered Beast onto hardware that simply can't cope with it.
Pretty much unplayable. The CPC deserved better. The bulls, however, remain magnificent.