Overall 9.3 Graphics 9 Sound 10 Addictive 7 Story 6 Depth 6 Difficulty 8
8.6
A great nostalgic beat em' up Enmiand
It is hard not to be biased when reviewing something that holds a lot of emotional value to you. That's my case with Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.
Back when this game was in the arcades I was in the peak of my dinosaur craze: I collected stamps, played with action figures and basically pretended I was a dinosaur all day long, so you can picture my excitement whenever I saw this cabinet in any arcade. I went ballistic! I would spend all my time, money and energy in this one game, which I played with my little sister. We literally spent our entire allowances in 2 hour rushes of non-stop cartoonish violence and we loved every bit of it. It was heaven.
I also watched the sadly underrated cartoon series, which was a big deal back then. I remember watching in on HBO and loving the dark shadowy sketching of the characters (reminded me a lot of Spawn for some reason, which I also associated with mature content). Anyway, enough about me and my experience with dinosaurs. Let's get to it, shall we?
First off, this is a beat em' up, which means you shouldn't expect neither a big conveying story nor anything other that what the name implies: kicking the ass of as much goons as possible. There were a lot of these kind of games in the 90's, majorly thanks to the sucess of Double Dragon, so what made this one special? Well, it had FREAKING DINOSAURS for one thing, but other than that IT HAD FREAKING DINOSAURS. I'm sorry, I don't think I can stress how HUGE this was back in the day. This was the pre-Jurassic Park era so we were not used to seeing all color, moving dinosaurs in any media, specially not in videogames where a couple of pixels tended to pass as whatever your imagination came up with.
Not here. Here you could distinguish the dinosaurs, their race and behavior were all different from one another and not only did the look and sound different, you also got to interact with them in different ways. Granted, most of those ways implied jumping and punching, but regardless, it was more we could say about most other videogame dinosaurs of the time. Grpahically, it was a feast for the eyes.
Now let's move on to the gameplay. Its your basic beat em' up formula based on jumps and kicks, but this game, unlike many of its kind back in the day, put a big effort in trying to give the player variety by throwing a lot of items at him, which usually meant you got to play with a lot of weapons other than your fists. It felt really empowering grabbing onto that machine gun, even if the TAKAKKTAKTKA text reminded you this was a game not to take seriously.
The action is non stoppping, meaning you always have something thrown at you (literally) and you cannot advance until you have defeat the bad guys. While being challengig most of the time, it never feels unfairly so. You always get the feeling that you can pass that one hard part if only you time your attacks correctly. There's also the bosses, which prove a different and welcome challenge each time you face one, breaking the pace of the level and forcing you to think outside the box and try to figure out some sort of strategy on your own.
Finally, there's the co-op. This was what, in my opinion, gave C&D its life (besides the awesome kick ass music by Capcom, of course). Most arcade beat em' ups of the 90's were awesome co-op experiences (The Simpsons, X-Men, etc...) and this one is no different. With the option to add up to 3 players to the fray, the whole deal gets only better as you share with your friends the sweet taste of victory over that one boss. A second and even third player become mandatory as you progress because the challenge spikes up rather quickly as you come closer to the end.
Overall, it is a great bet em' up: has great graphics for its time, awesome music, you can pick between 4 different characters, all of them with different abilities and gameplay styles, it was in sync with the cartoon series and presents the player with an entertaining challenge. On the bad side, it is just a bet em' up, so there's not much to comeback to once you have beaten up the game. If you're like me though, and you keep coming back to those things you loved over and over again, this game will never ever leave you.
Graphics 9 Sound 10 Addictive 7 Story 6 Depth 6 Difficulty 8
Review Rating: 4.6/5
Submitted: 11-08-13
Review Replies: 1