NCS Daily Journal for May 19, 1998 (800x600 Recommended)


Your Import Specialist

Cowboy Be-Bop

Published by Bandai 1998

The intro to Be-Bop begins with a starship cruising through the ether of space. To show that the ship is in hyperdrive, streaming lights course through the darkness to give the impression of speed. A talking pooch sporting a headset pops up in a conversation screen and begins a dialogue with other members of the crew. As the ship jumps out of hyperdrive, a looming earth hovers before the ship. We go planetside and the ship hovers over a grassy knoll. Almost immediately, a trio of enemy fighters descend on the ship and open fire. Our hero, Cowboy BeBop, gets into his wing and jets from the mothership and into the fray.

The first level is titled Canyon Strike. An early impression of the game is that the controls are tough to resolve at first because your airship is way too responsive to your controls and moves very easily around the screen.

Each finger tug has the ability to move the ship in wide arcs. The top L and R buttons will bank your ship left or right, which will come in handy when you have to do some sharp maneuvering through the canyons and later on, in cities. A Dual Shock option will rumble the pad whenever you fire off a prolonged machine gun burst or when you get hit by enemy fire. The canyon level features high walls that tower on both sides to keep you on the game's rail system. Despite any attempts to move beyond the allocated arc of movement, you will always be forced back on the track that the game wants you to go on, not where you want to go. In this respect, comparisons to Panzer Dragoon and Stellar Assault are acceptable and wouldn't be far from the truth. The usual assortment of enemy air/ground support show their colors and attack you with rippling lasers..

Your weapons consist of a standard machine gun and a ruby laser that you have limited use of. The ruby laser is activated by pressing "Box", aiming, and then "X". The laser acts like a sword that cuts a swath through enemy armor and ships. Once the canyon is crossed, a huge tank blocks your progress into the next level. The tank features a ridiculously huge gun and a number of smaller guns that chase your flight path. Here's where the game gets totally confusing. Instead of being able to face the boss head on through the encounter, you will have to maneuver up, down, and all around to get a shot at it. The poor definition of the landscape in this portion of the game also does nothing to help the hapless player as one tries to get used to the weird perspective and angles..

After a couple of tries, one will be able to form a battle plan: head right for the boss, fire and then swerve out and then head back at it again. All the while, one must make sure not to push up or down on the pad since it will disorient you and smash the "plan". Repetitive action but it works. As you're doing this routine, the boss will fire off a volley of shots that are somewhat impossible to avoid if you're not facing the guy when you're doing your outward swerve. It is really a bit of trial and error when you're swerving around trying to come back for another shot at the boss while avoiding his ire also. Once the boss is defeated, our fighter jet returns to the mother ship and docks. Another anime conversation begins as the fearless crew discuss their next objective.

The second level is preceded by an upgrade screen where you can add additional weaponry or level-up your existing ones. After the first level, the only upgrade to buy with available funds is the Machine Gun Level 2, but there is an upgrade to level 3. Over on the ruby laser rack, level upgrades are available to level 2 and level 3. New armaments include a Missle 1, Missle 2, and E. Bolt 1, E. Bolt 2. Since the costs were high, one has to guess that they will only be available at higher levels when more funds are procured. The second level is called Desert City. This had to be one of the most convoluted rail rides in shooter history. The level begins simple enough with your ship crossing the desert and into the outskirts of the city. The lighted metropolis soon comes into view.

The city features overpasses that you can glide over or swoop under. Towering buildings to the left and right stand solemnly to keep you on the path. At one point in this level, a small column of tanks turn right into a city block. The rail shifts your plane so that you follow them. This is when the madness begins. After shooting at the tanks and destroying them, the rail heads you right into a building. It does nothing to move you out of the way so you'll have to bank hard to avoid getting smashed. Right out of the frying pan, you head into another group of buildings that the rail system keeps on course so you'll have to bank hard again to avoid them. You'll be guided deep into the heart of the city and in the ensuing chaos, it is more than likely that you'll crash and burn.

If you're skillful enough to navigate out of the quagmire, the rest of this level is smoother sailing as you have straight-aways and simple encounters to deal with. A mid-level boss provides an easy target with it's lackluster speed and manueverability. Our initial impressions of Cowboy Be-Bop were unfavorable. The controls were too wild and your ship would occasionally move at such a rapid pace that it was easy to go outside of the boundary of the screen so that your ship was not visible. Additional sessions made the game easier to play as the controls were learned and accomodated for. Slight finger pushes and tugs will do fine as you guide your ship through the madness. Looking at the second level, one can conclude that Bandai's programmers were either incompetent or brilliant.

Incompetent because the guiding rail will seemingly de-activate itself to lead you right into a building. Brilliant in the sense that it made the second level a no-holds barred trip into an unpredicable and somewhat exhilirating flight into a crowded metropolis. A couple of cool effects in Be-Bop deserve mention: the machine gun fire that your ship pounds out is extremely realistic, almost hynotic to look at with it's dancing lightshow of sparks. In the canyon level, each blast from your machine gun into the tree cover on top of the canyon walls will cause leaves to flutter off from the branches and descend into the canyon below. Finally, the dual shock effect is pronounced with realistic rumbling and shakes that are timed perfectly with enemy hits and with your ship's scrapes against canyon walls and floors.

Conclusion

NCS came away from Be-Bop with mixed feelings. On one hand, the game is technically sound with sharp graphics, cool effects and interesting bosses that are monstrous in size. The upgrade capability adds staying power because we wanted to see how the missles would work when we got enough credits to buy them. The E. Bolt also sounded interesting and we wondered how it would affect our progress through enemy chaff. The anime storyline adds character and frivolity to the game. On the other hand, the controls take a bit of practice to get used to and the rail guidance system proved to be an annoying beast.