Battle Beast

Violence And Cartoon Animation have always gone hand in hand. Ever since man learned that a simple succession of hand-drawn images could breathe life into imaginary characters, he's been using the technique to fold, spindle and mutilate cartoon cats, dogs, coyotes and people on a regular basis for comedic effect. And it's just as well really, Sjrcause if animation had never been the antics of a live-action Tom rould have had both audience ZA up in arms.

Battle Beast marks the point toon violence reaches its cal conclusion - now it's interactive, this is a CD-based title (optimised to n under Windows 95. folks), which itures nothing but Tex Avery-style fairly violent surrealism wrapped around yer standard two-player beat 'em up game. First impressions are good. The animation is indeed excellent, and the characters and backdrops are of a higher quality than most Saturday morning cartoon shows. Best of all, the cut scenes and special effects are genuinely amusing and even the voiceovers y can force quite a chuckle.

The plot, such as it is, seems to revolve around a gang of mutated frogs which have invaded the city. No longer content with sitting on lily pads and croaking in the time-honoured tradition of frogdom, these little green snotrags have developed a taste for anarchic social disruption and eating postmen (two of my favourite hobbies, as it goes). And erm... you've got to beat up a lot of animals to save the day. Or something like that. Anyhow, it runs like this: you (or you and a friend if you're playing together) choose an animal (ranging from cute l'il poodles to slippery mudskippers) and prepare for battle. Next there's a bizarre little 'stage selection' section which involves you and your opponent racing through the city's sewerage system in an attempt to arrive at a location first -then it's fisticuffs time. During the ensuing scrap, your creature can morph from a relatively harmless mammal into a cyberoid mutant Battle Beast from Hell. As you'd expect, there's plenty of special moves, all of which are suitably over-the-top given the cartoon feel of the game (we're talking teeny cute puppies wielding gigantic hammers here). In fact, some of the moves are arse-bitingly funny.

Cartoon crisis

Sounds great, doesn't it? So why has it earned such a mediocre score? Well, there's a problem. Yup, you guessed it - the gameplay sucks. The single most important factor in any fighting game is the sense of control you have over your character; if you don't know what's going on you end up just slapping all the buttons and hoping for the best.

And that's what happens in Battle Beast. Sometimes the animals react too slowly to your keystrokes, sometimes they don't react at all. The controls are awkward on a keyboard (although you can redefine the keys), and don't feel much better on a joypad. Ultimately, you're unlikely to come back for more.

It's a crying shame, because the game looks so gorgeous that I really wanted it to be good. A quality cartoon beat 'em up is certainly an excellent idea - but it's all for nothing if the basic gameplay isn't up to scratch. Sorry, Battle Beast. Fingers crossed for 7th Level sorting out the gameplay and releasing a sequel.