Body Harvest
Reviewed by David
Body Harvest all in all is an average game. The story is that a
bunch of alien bugs created earth and its inhabitants so that
whenever they got hungry they could stop by and eat some people.
You are sent back from the year 2016 to the early 20th century in
hopes that if you repel the aliens first assault you can stop the
rest of the aliens coming to harvest humans in the future. So you
are sent to several locales to eradicate all the aliens. You start
off with a laser gun but along the way you can get better guns
and commandeer all sorts of vehicles, everything from motorcycles
to tanks to World War 2 airplanes. This game is an action/adventure
with some RPG mixed in.
Graphics 3 out of 5
The graphics aren't all that bad and don't hinder the game at all,
in fact I think some of the mountain ranges are probably some of
the coolest places to go in any 64 game, but you don't need to go
to the mountain ranges and you will most likely not even bother
with them. A lot of the cars and other vehicles are straight out of
the 1920's and are pretty fun to drive. But the worst part of the
game in my opinion is that they use the same 3 or 4 house over and
over and over again... this is very annoying. There are some structures
like churches and statues that are nice to look at but they are too far
and in between. When you're driving thorough the level you'll be lost
simply because its so hard to tell the villages apart. The terrain is
very bland and boring with a few high spots like the mountains I
mentioned earlier but you really wont want to stop and smell the
roses in this game. The graphics are fair but there nothing to
get excited about.
Music and Sound 2 out of 5
The music is one of the lower points of the game mainly cause
they play the same music over and over and over again and the
music isn't all that good in the first place. The sound effects are
pretty good but along with most other things in the game you soon
grow tired of them. In the game aliens will sometimes pop up behind
you and you wont see them appear and if you're driving in one of the
louder vehicles like the tanks you wont hear them either over the
loud roar of your engines. the aliens make some noises and you wont
really notice them so I wont delve into them. Along with many other
things in the game the music is poor to fair and isn't anything special.
Game Challenge 4 out of 5
The one thing that will keep you going on in this game are the puzzles.
You'll soon get tired of disposing of the aliens after the first 4 or 5
times and the other minor tasks like putting out fires are more of a
time consumer than anything else. One of the hardest things in the
game for me was not killing the people. For you there are two ways
of killing people, running them over to shooting them. The people are
always running around the villages frantically and are very annoying
especially when you're trying to maneuver your vehicle to put out a fire
or kill an alien. Also, due to the amount of frustration the little people
cause it takes a lot of will power not to take out your machine gun and
mow them down. The puzzles on the other hand require some thought
and are the only outstanding point in the game. Most of them only require
two or three steps but it takes a while to figure them out. Basically you
go to point A and take something and then go to point B and use what
you got to point A. Now you have the product you need to get past point C.
That's what most puzzles entail. Theres at least one puzzle in every
town, so you wont have to kill bugs for the entire game. Another big
challenge in the game is navigating on your map... the roads are difficult
to remember and the towns are so drab you'll be lost without pausing and
looking at your level map every 30 seconds which is also difficult to
navigate. In conclusion this games only strong point is its puzzles
and without them it wouldn't sell a single copy.
Game Play-Fun 3 out of 5
This games offers some fun things to do but by doing them you'll
probably end up losing the game. For example, in my opinion the
most fun thing to do in the game is to run over people in a tank,
but the whole point of the game is to save the people so you will
eminently lose by doing this. The weapons and vehicles both offer
some fun ways to kill aliens and destroy obstacles. To find the best
ones though you'll have to do some searching. An annoying side to
this though is that you can run out of fuel in the middle of the ocean
if you're not careful. Speaking of the middle of the ocean you cant
swim in this game, if you do you'll die because your bio-suit somehow
wont let you breathe unless you're on land. Overall the only really fun
thing to do in the game is to kill people.
Frustration
This game could have been a must-rent or even a buy if it didn't have so
many nuisances. The main one is the repetitive of the game. You'll lose
your mind if you play the game for long periods of time simply because
all the houses look alike and the terrain is so boring you'll want to puke.
Another frustrating thing is the majority of doors are boarded up. This
game tried to shoot for a nice mix of action/adventured + Role= playing
but in the end failed to achieve either one and is like a genetic experiment
gone wrong. All the RPG aspects of talking to people and finding the right
item and having the people react to what you do is absent. And the
Action/adventure aspect of getting health and power-ups and killing baddies
is muddled due to the indulgence in trying to create a RPG atmosphere.
Replayability 1 out of 5
This game offers no hidden secrets or alternate endings or two-player
modes so unless you want to retrace your footsteps time after time
after time after time, you should only rent it.
Game Value 2 out of 5
This game is worth a rental if the video store is out of the good games
but it defiantly is not worth 50+ dollars.