Baldies (CD)
Atari Jaguar CD
by The Big Bad Wolf
Overview:
Baldies at first seemed to be a research/economics/population control, and strategic warfare game. Virtually no tactics except for the placement of bombs and haphazzard direction of soldiers via the shield icon. You can build houses, populate your land mass, invent weapons, vehicles, transports, reshape your landmass, switch baldies colors, and more.
Graphics:
Nothing eye-popping here or that screams 'Next-Generation Graphics!!' in your face, but nevertheless more than adequate for the task. I thought the graphics on average were a little better than the ones for Theme Park. I am not sure how they compare to Cannon Fodder, since I don't have that game. The baldies are easy to pick out and the different baldies are easy to tell from the other, with enough distinguishing characteristics (color, clothing worn, type of walk, etc) to avoid mistaking one for the other. The animations were very good for this type of game, as were the explosions, scrolling, opening of menus/houses, although they could have been a bit clearer. Lots of color and movement on the screen! All in all, very nicely done with nothing all that special, and which certainly does not hinder gameplay in any way. The opening claymation FMV was in a word, surreal. Skip through this if you don't want to be weirded out.
Sound:
At the beginning, the music wasn't that bad. But as the game progressed, it got more and more annoying, and did not change from sub-level to sub-level. I haven't gotten to the other worlds just yet, so I don't know if they change when you reach them. I didn't turn it off, though, which just goes to show just how much a glutton for punishment I am :) The explosions sounded nicely with a decent crunch, the sound effects for the various traps were nicely done, as were the others. Very low-key here. I think with the room they had on the CD, they could have had different tunes for the different sub-worlds. Hmm ..
Gameplay:
This is where this game has the most potential. There is a balance that you have to keep between the workers, the builders, the soldiers and the scientists and that depends on what type of task you are trying to accomplish. If what you are trying to accomplish is getting more Baldies, then what you do is reconfigure your houses to have more 'breeder' Baldies and produce more that way. Or, if you want to attack the enemy, you reconfigure your houses to produce more ammunition. You don't need the memory cart for this one, since there is a password level system. All in all, not bad. It's certainly a lot more different than the strategy/tactics games I'm used to, and provides a lot of fun while and addiction while you're playing it. The real fun involved finding out what inventions there were and what you can get from the creatures you drop into the science houses. There was also a hint that you can combine inventions, but I haven't done this yet. There are two types of inventions that I haven't gotten to yet and those are the 'Vehicles' and 'Acts of You' type of inventions. I imagine that these will come later in the game.
There were a few personal peeves of mine that I found a little annoying. For example, there was virtually no tactics at all except in which direction you want flying baldies to fly, placement of the attack shield, and placement of hazzards.
A good game nevertheless!! Unfortunately, this and all the others will take a back seat when Electronics Boutique calls to tell me that Defender 2000 has arrived. :)
RATINGS:
Graphics: 7
Sound: 7
Music: 4
Gameplay: 8.5
Overall: 6.5
-Keith C. Estanol, "Big Bad Wolf"