A Review: Bio F.R.E.A.K.S, N64 1998

Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. is a 3D fighting/beat 'em up game developed by Saffire Corporation and published by Midway Games for the N64 and Playstation One. It was originally planned to be an arcade-only game, but after testing, the prototype was cancelled, and it was ported onto home consoles. Play consists of choosing your Biological Flying Robotic Enhanced Armoured Killing Synthoids (Bio F.R.E.A.K.S.) and battling others in a championship to decide which represented corporation gets control over a post-apocalyptic Neo-Amerika. There is little changed from the standard beat 'em up formula, but the inclusion of weapons and special attacks was something fairly interesting.

I haven't really got a lot to say about this game; it was terribly short, even for a fighting game, and had little to no replayability value. Yet I thought that it had its own charm and liked it enough to complete a playthrough. The characters that were on offer all had their own fairly unique attacks and weapons grafted to them, which helped to extend and diversify play. Though I thought that the gimmick got old quickly as most of the fighting devolved into button mashing and swearing for the most part. Finding a groove and just running with it seemed to be both easier and quicker than taking the time to learn the various attack combos and commands. I thought that the lack of a story mode for the various characters hurt the game overall and added to the feeling that everything was over before it really started. I will say that this was an okay game to load up and let loose some aggression on; beating down the opponents was quite satisfying at times, but there just wasn't enough to this game. I noticed that there was a certain degree of input lag and found that at times the command queue got wiped, leaving your character standing there doing nothing. That was frustrating at times, as the CPU didn't suffer that same issue and would then put you into a damage spiral, unable to break the computer's attack sequences.

I thought that the graphics were okay for the time, with the standard sort of look that could be expected from the N64. The bodies of the various F.R.E.A.K.S. looked okay and had a nice amount of distinction and detail between their various appearances. The weapons and body modifications looked pretty cool and seemed to match up well to the themes of each character. Environments were okay; nothing amazing, but they got the job done. I did like the shadow and lighting effects, and I thought that the shading models were pretty good for an N64 game. The HUD looked pretty good and had all the needed information without being too overwhelming; I liked that. I would have liked a different colour from toxic green though, but I can't complain too much, I suppose.

Overall, this is a game that is fun to load up on a rainy day when you have nothing better to do to pass the time. However, I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend this one to anyone, not even fans of the genre.

4/10 – Could've Been Better! 

Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ

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