Genesis ~ Universal Soldier Review

Overview

Universal Soldier was a smash hit movie released back in 1992 that starred Jean Claude Van Damme. It was about these US soldiers that were killed in the Vietnam war and the army's mad scientists division decided to magically revive these dead soldiers and manipulate their brains to turn them into "Universal Soldiers", soldiers that were near perfect and carried out orders from their masters. One day these Universal Soldiers got smart enough to disobey their masters and went on a destructive & playful adventure, except for one of them who starts to get flashbacks of his former self to become a goody and eventually saves the world from his Universal Soldier comrades. As for the Universal Soldier game, it's a different story altogether.

Gameplay

I'll get straight to the point. This game is nothing but a cheap Turrican port. Everything in this game yells out "TURRICAN".

Basically the game is an ordinary side scrolling shoot em up where you make it from one side of a level to the other. You take control of some Universal Soldier freak who isn't all that powerful, because touching anything bad will drain your energy. You got a big gun in your hands and you can make your gun bigger by collecting power-ups. Hold down the fire button standing still and you'll get a nice stream of firepower, just like Turrican. Even the enemies are from Turrican, like those killer bees and the little walking bots. The first big boss was pathetic. It jumps left and right over your head to create an earthquake, hoping for the rocks above to crush you, but the brainless thing also shoots laser beams over your head.

0.5 out of 10

Graphics

Van Damme is white. So why the hell is the Universal Soldier a black guy?! Heck, all the Universal Soldiers in the game are black! The only thing that resembles the movie is that black guy. Everything else is from Turrican.

Where's Van Damme or Dolph Lundgren? Aha! The title screen!

0.25 out of 5

Sound and Music

Like the graphics, it's all from Turrican. It's appalling to just sit there listening to the exact same tunes.

0 out of 5

Game Design

12 levels set on another planet rather than the rural countrysides of the USA. Same level design as Turrican, so who cares?

0 out of 5

Longevity

If you can put aside all the stuff about this game being a cheap assed Turrican port, then the game's longevity is fair. As you progress through the levels, you unlock level passwords so you can carry on another day.

2 out of 5

For: black men running and jumping all over the place, exactly the same as Turrican.

Against: exactly the same as Turrican.

The only thing that comes to mind when playing this game is "TURRICAN", not Universal Soldier. It's all just so very cheap and pointless of Accolade to do this.

And even if you've never heard of Turrican, it's only an average shoot em up. You'd have to be blind if you didn't realise that this game has nothing to do with the movie, even if you haven't seen it. They might as well have called this game "Universal Black Man" or "Turrican with Black Men" since all the Universal Soldiers in the game are identical twins.

One of the biggest mockeries of movie to video game type games, where the only thing it achieves is getting people like me to diss about it all they want for fun.