Leger vs. Loaded (Saturn)

While Fat Ugly Boy have to be stopped to save the universe, the six anti-heroes having to escape from the prison planet Raulf and travel across the universe to find him do not really seem to bother about anything related to the all but interesting story Loaded delivers.

By just playing the game you actually have no clue at all what is going on besides the many explosions, the blood splattering from the many, many, many human enemies and animals being killed and the differently coloured doors opening, or not opening, depending on what keykards you have found.

The gore is rather insane and some of the inprisoned prisoners in straitjackets are spending their time alongside their urine on the floor and on the walls.

Loaded could have been a disgusting experience, but the lack of details due to the low resolution graphics, intense action and odd framing with, to mention two, a diapered character and another one using hordes of teddy bears as smart bombs, makes things quite light hearted.

While the six different characters have different speed, armour and weapons, the experience as a whole will not differ that much no matter which one you chose.

What will make a difference, though, is if the game is played co-op; Since no split screen is at work a constant dialogue or other way of communicating what needs to be done will make or break the gameplay.

When Gremlin released Loaded back in 1995 the market for twin stick shooters (which they, in fact, were not... yet... at this point in time) was a quite small one.

You could talk about Smash TV, or go further back to Robotron 2084, but the genre in itself was slim. Also, considering a solution of movement became pressing down a button to lock the direction of the aiming, todays independent aiming and movement makes things feel way much smoother.

However, the controls works just fine most of the time and the game seems to take this limitation into consideration to some extent, but the same can not be said about the constant slowdowns.

Never unplayable, but during some intense scenes the framrate tend to dip down to single digits a second, which also may be a thing to consider if upping the level of difficulty.

Exploring the stages, finding "hidden" parts (the hidden parts are clearly shown on the map, you just have to find a breakable wall to enter) and picking up most everything you come by is a good thing to do since ammo, weapon upgrades and some temporary stuff like invincibility, unlimited ammo and time freezing makes certain situations much easier to deal with.

But things can get hard, and if you die and die again and use continues this follows you along your progress.

Personally I decided, after some runs, to make things as easy as possible just to get a sense of the action at the later stages and suddenly I had beaten the entire game and watched the ridicilously short ending animation.

Had it not been for the ability to save your progress between each stage I would probably not have bothered (and while it is funny to see level based statistics on your firing accuracy, greed and such, it lacks any real purpose in the long run... just like the money you pick up, you do not use it for anything).

While the graphics looks somewhat shit, most of the time, the lighting effects are impressive. The large amount of enemies and objects to destroy (everything explodes, even beds and trunks) makes running around constantly shooting a blast.

Weapons can be upgraded to deal more damage but if one runs out of projectiles (which have to be refilled every now and then) it is back to basics. Health is scarce and it is a good idea to leave health pickups found and come back for them at a later time if not currently needed.

A lot of backtracking have to be done, especially in the later and larger levels, but thankfully there is a map automatically mapping out places already visited. The map can not be shown at the same time as the health and ammo, though, which makes for some irritating button presses to switch between the two.

I have died many times by forgetting to switch to see my health while navigating the map, getting myself into situations I was not fit to deal with.

The 15 stages offered makes for a short game, but the huge size of the stages and sometimes monotonous design makes it feel longer than it actually is.

Also, by playing the first stage (or the demo which many of the early adopters of the Playstation got their hands on) you will know exactly what the rest of the game will be like.

While the environments differ, the gameplay loop stays the same all the way through. If you do not have to find four differently coloured keys you will have to find four bombs or four fuel tanks. Different names, same concept.

But I am glad I stuck with the game, because the insane action on the later stages more than makes up for the not always inspiring parts along the way.

Like the stages with endlessly spawning enemies like rats and zombies that refuse to stay dead. The rats are fast as hell and swarm around your character constanly draining health, forcing constantly shooting in a threesixty degree fashion.

Annoying as hell, more so than particularly hard to deal with.

Or the monotonous desert stage which never seems to end.

Not to mention the Pop Will Eat Itself tracks on the soundtrack which feel entirely out of place with their vocals (the rest of the soundtrack works just fine with its technotic and rocky attitude).

Loaded is not a bad game.

It is a fun and intense action romp.

But it lacks in certain areas so much that it never feels like a must, especially since there are so many later games in the genre that obviosly learned from previous mistakes.

As a game to play through once, just to have experienced it... well, yes. I think it is worth it.