Dirty Larry: Renegade Cop

Lynx

Review by Matt Paprocki

Atari

Action

Graphics: 9

Sound: 2

Gameplay: 3

Overall: 3

 

Dirty Larry is the typical Hollywood cop. He's crass, lawless, and uncaring. None of that will help him in this game. This is unbearably frustrating, hard, and you only have one life to make it through unscathed.

dirtylarry1.jpg (60259 bytes)This single-plane action title is rather derivative, as Larry walks to the right (and occasionally other directions), enemies pop up on screen to get their shots in. They do so quicker than the player can see them. Two rounds from Larry's handgun are usually enough to take down anyone, but there's rarely enough ammo lying around.

dirtylarry2.jpg (53095 bytes)That means it's hand-to-hand combat time. Enemies have various ways to take down this cop, and they can do so because every hit they land leaves Larry open for another attack. When the player punches, the enemies barely even wince. They can hit the player three or four times before a single blow connects from Larry's fists.

The games underlying humor isn't enough to save it, nor is the graphics engine (which is stunning on the Lynx). The gameplay is simply awful, all because of the difficulty. If players had any chance to continue, or were given a few lives to work with, this may even itself out and those cheap hits wouldn't be so obvious. However, those blows that connect on Larry are the games only audio. No music is present, and that only makes it more obvious how wrong things are.

As it is though, it's unbelievable this was released in this state. Giving the players some chance may have helped. You'll need to dig through cheating sites just to pass level two soon after you're slaughtered by the baseball bat-wielding madmen on the subway multiple times. That's not entertainment.

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Last updated: Saturday, September 10, 2005 01:34 AM