Game: Charlie's Angels
Console: Sony Playstation 2
Developer: Neko Entertainment
Release Date: 4th July 2003
Video games based on movies don't usually fall into the budget category of games, however if this game's budget was anything over £20, I'm convinced that the majority of it went towards anything but making the game enjoyable. The game falls loosely into the 3D beat 'em up genre, featuring rooms full of enemies for players to defeat before they can move onto the next room of enemies, eventually reaching an objective which swaps characters and continues the storyline.
Cutscenes inbetween missions are loosely based around the first and second Charlie's Angels films, and are badly written and voice acted. After each cutscene, players are assigned an individual angel who they can control either until they reach the objective or until they wish to switch to another of the girls. Completing objectives for all of the girls will end the level and result in the player's score being displayed.
The controls for fighting have slow response times and the moves themselves have long animations, meaning that it's difficult to predict when's best to hit opponents. The circle button is used to jump, although your angel leaps higher into the air than humanly possible and floats downwards, so calling it jumping is somewhat inaccurate. In terms of attacks, players are able to punch and kick with the Triangle and Square buttons, with the X button used to pick up weapons.
The AI isn't particularly bright and will stand near your angel waiting to be hit most of the time, but enemies can be a little tough in large groups. The action gets tedious very quickly as there's no effort to change up gameplay between sections or levels and there are only really 2 buttons worth pressing for the most part. At no time does the fighting feel satisfying, realistic or even exciting.
Graphically the game is below par also with blocky player models, low quality textures and animations, and generally poor visuals. To say that the angels don't look much like their onscreen counterparts may be an understatement, and apart from an incredibly short loop of "Get Free" by The Hives on the menu screen, the game's accompaniment consists of muzak-esque tracks and completely awful voice clips.
Overall it's hard to convey how truly bad of a game this is. Considering the technology of the time, it's probably the worst beat 'em up I've ever played, and that includes 'classics' such as Double Dragon on the Master System and Amstrad CPC. While it's not unplayable, I can't think of a single reason why anyone'd want to give this a go, aside from its notoriety as a terrible video game. So for anyone thinking of playing Charlie's Angels, it really is as bad as they say.
Rating: 22/100
Grade: F
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