Godzilla Generations (DC)

Godzilla Generations
Dreamcast (1998)

Some people claim the Dreamcast tanked due to the release of Sony’s PlayStation 2. Others say the Dreamcast failed because of widespread piracy of the system’s games. My own personal theory is that the Dreamcast failed because Godzilla Generations sucked so badly.

Ruining a Godzilla game is like ruining a cake — you started with some pretty tasty ingredients, so what happened? Guys love tearing things up (have you ever been to a monster truck rally?), so it doesn’t seem possible that anyone could ruin a game that revolves around tearing things up! And yet, once again, game developers have done the seemingly impossible, and somehow made mass destruction boring.

The goal of Godzilla Generations is to pick one of multiple versions of the big green lug (Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, First Generation Godzilla, USA Godzilla) and work your way through levels by destroying cities and avoiding death. While playing you will notice Godzilla has the ability to roar and heal himself, which essentially means you can play forever without dying (unless it’s from boredom). Gameplay revolves around stomping on various cities while avoiding being killed by tiny army people, but there are multiple quirks (including control and camera issues) that keep this from being as fun as it might sound. First off, Godzilla should be renamed to Godmolasses as it takes him forever to perform such complicated maneuvers as turning around.

Just like the Christmas I was old enough to realize Santa wasn’t coming, I played Godzilla Generations for a couple of hours hoping it was going to get better, but sadly realizing it wasn’t going to happen. While some of the technical and graphical issues can probably be attributed to the fact that this was a launch title for the Dreamcast, even the world’s most advanced processor wouldn’t have the power to turn this into a good game.

The only three bad things about Godzilla Generations are its looks, controls, and gameplay. Instead of buying this game, pick up a package of tiny plastic green army men, scatter them around your backyard and spend a few minutes stomping around on them while roaring. I promise, that’ll be more fun.

Comments are closed.