Death Crimson OX
System:
Dreamcast
Publisher: Sammy Entertainment
Developer: Ecole
Released: 2001
Genre: Light Gun Shooter
Capabilities: VMU and Light Gun Compatible
Review Written: October 1, 2001
The Game
Well, I sure have been in the gun game reviewing mode of lately, right? I just reviewed Confidential Mission not to long ago, and plan on reviewing Time Crisis 2 soon. With all these gun games coming out within the same time period, I happened to stumble across the latest gun game from Sammy Entertainment. I have heard a lot of mixed opinions about this game, I really didn’t know if I should of bought it or not, but for $20 I decided to give it a try. So will it live up to the other gun games on the Dreamcast? Let’s get onto the review and find out.
The Story
This game follows a story about guns named Crimson that can off pretty weird metallic villains. There are brief cut scenes during game play that follow the storyline where hostage situations and other tragic events occur. I really don’t pay much attention to them though because there is no voice acting.
Graphics
You got a nice variety of monsters, most of them are big and metallic, and unfortunately, pretty plain and generic looking. The only monsters that wowed me were the skeletons. Now those things just look awesome! Just like most other gun games, not much detail is on the environments as you breeze them, but that’s really not a problem. The game moves at a very fast, fluid pace like most other gun games, so you can’t complain there. And it’s really easy to hop right into a game with the simple menus. So overall, pretty good, but not to spectacular graphics.
Sound
This is a major part of the game that ticks me off. First of all, the developers at Ecole got really lazy and didn’t feel like translating the voice acting. So we have no voice acting at all, which makes watching the cut scenes pointless. I always loved the cheesy voice acting in the Sega gun games. Another thing that ticks me off is that whenever you get shot, you hear this damn awkward Japanese scream that gets annoying right away. The sound effects are average, and all the gun shots sound like they should. The music is actually pretty decent, and it reminds of the horror music from House of the Dead 2.
Game play
Ok, now you don’t buy a gun game unless you don’t own a light gun. Actually some do, but they’re just stupid. Now I own both US models of Dreamcast guns available. The Interact Starfire Lightblaster, and the Sega Indorsed, Maddblaster by Mad Catz. Now both guns work fine on other Dreamcast gun games like Confidential Mission, House of the Dead 2, Virtua Cop 2, and Demolition Racer. But for some damn reason midway through the levels both guns want to act up on me and stop working for no reason whatsoever. Now at first I thought it was just my guns malfunctioning, but I tried them on my other gun games and they worked fine, so it’s just the fact that Death Crimson’s controls are messed up.
The game has three main modes of play. The first is the story mode. Which is your main mode where you go through the games six levels and storylines. The next one is mission mode is where you just choose to play one of the story modes six levels for fun whenever you want. The last mode is Bullet Mode where you face certain stages where you have to defeat a certain amount of villains with a specific amount of bullets. You got your standard options here like gun calibration, number of credits, and difficulty.
Replay Value
I’m sorry, this game doesn’t have to much to offer. The game should be easy to beat because there is only six stages, but the gun controls will definitely trigger you off. And with the only main extra mode in the game being Bullet mode, you really don’t have anything to keep you playing for a while. Oh, yeah, it can be played with two players, but that’s about it.
In Brief
+: The skeletons look cool
-: Worst gun controls I’ve seen ever, bland visuals, annoying Japanese scream, no voice acting
The Final Ratings Rundown
Graphics: 7.3
Sound: 3.6
Game play: 4.1
Replay Value: 2.5
Overall: 4.3
Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 4
Comments
This is by far, the worst gun game I have ever played. Damn you Sammy, why did you have to bring this game to the Dreamcast. You could’ve gave us Guilty Gear X instead, but you had to give us this. Don’t buy this one folks. Get Confidential Mission or House of the Dead 2 instead.