I am now pleased to present to you my thoughts on Lucasart's new game,
Herc's Adventures for Saturn and Playstation.

It is so refreshing to see a game of this quality come out, it almost
makes me giddy!  The basic premise of the game is that Hades has kidnapped
Persephone, and as one of Greece's three remaining heroes, go get her
back!  Doing so leads you on  a huge adventure through Greece, meeting
Gods and fighting all sorts of enemies and bosses.  It's a 3/4 overhead
game like Zelda or Zombies Ate My Neighbors.  In fact, it's very much like
Zombies (both by LucasArts).  Although Zombies divided the game up into
various levels (each of which was a parody of cheezy movies), Herc's puts
you in Greece, and you can go from place to place and get help from
different gods who send you on various missions around the place.  So far
I've killed one boss (a giant boar!) and gotten a sacred cow for
Hera...after a couple hours of play.  Here are some breakdowns of the
various aspects of Herc's:

GRAPHICS:  outstanding!  Big, colorful traditionally animated characters!
I'm so glad this game isn't polygonal!  That would totaly destroy the
totally solid feel and look that this game has.  The animation is great
for most of the characters...the Gods are kinda limited, but they're big
and talky so it's not a big deal.  What I love are the REALLY cool smooth
mode 7 type effects....when you get catapulted across Greese, Herc (or
Atlanta or Jason) zoom up in a 60FPS pixelly burst!  I love it!  Also,
when the boar eats you, you can beat up his insides and he'll burp you out
sending you zooming up high in the air!  Anyone who complains about the
game being 2D has no clue as to what they're talking about....Polygons
could never offer the overall perfect presentation this game has.

SOUND:  Excellent music that sounds somewhat Danny Elfman inspired.
Usually bouncy, lots of energy, and various insturments make up a
fantastic score.  There's lots of funny voice samples as well ("Check Out
My Muscles!" ..."My Dad's a GOD!!!").  And there's SFX for everything...it
keeps the game nice and lively.

GAMEPLAY:  The controls are solid...you can jump, attack (varies depending
on which character you pick), pick things up, throw, swim, etc.  You can
even gain strength as you progress to pick up heavier things.  The two
player simultanious ads to the replay value I think!  I've barely even
scratched whats in this game, and there's fun suprizes everywhere I've
gone.  I'm sure it will get better and better as I go on!  And the humor
value certainly adds to the replay value as well.  This game is VERY
funny!  The villiage of (appearently horny) Amazon Women will get ya
gigglin with huge warrior chicks yellin' GIMME A HUG, and then come up and
crunch you!  And the other lady soldiers yell Hmm, yer cute!.  Oh, and
don't forget to save the captive men in cages!

DUAL SYSTEM COMPARISON:  If you have both systems, I suggest the PS
version.  The color palate is alot better...the SS one seems to be sorta
greenish.  Also, the music and SFX are a lot more OOOMPHY...louder, and
cleaner.  They play exactly the same though, so if you just have one
system or the other, I still think you should get it!

What can I say, I love this game!  It's fun, it seems like a long
challenge, it's funny, and it's not a bunch of polygonal shapes roaming
around!  If you're not sure and just wanna check the game out first, do
what I did:  play it on Sony's new JamPack disc to get an Idea of the
game.  I'm not sure this game will do that well since it doesn't seem to
have much hype, but I'm glad Lucasarts did it...it's a definite pace
breaker from the onslaught of 3D polygons.  Enough from me, just go get 
the game!

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                               THE FLAPPER!!!!!!!
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 "All green of skin...800 centuries   || "No Elvis is not dead, he's just
 ago...their bodily fluids included   ||  gone home"  -"K", (Men In Black)
 the birth of half-breeds...dark is   ||====================================
 the suede that mows like a harvest"  || "...an evil petting zoo?"
  -Martian Ambassador, (Mars Attacks!)||   -Dr.Evil, (Austin Powers)
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