Review by: the Dark Falcon

Jeez, not back to bad games again. Yep, afraid so, kiddies. As I sit here and think about Eastman's response to my silly review (by the way, my rubber chicken Brutus said, "Go have some fun sitting on some cheese, Eastman!!"), I also wonder what could've became of Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp, a full-motion video game I was looking forward to on Saturn. Why? Oh, come on, Dirk the Daring's an arcade icon, and to see him take an even greater adventure to rescue Princess Daphne is awesome, over and over again. But, we may never see it, and the reason is Braindead 13.

Braindead 13 is an original title from Readysoft, an FMV game involving the misadventures of an electrical repairman named Lance as he enters a dark and creepy castle. Upon the completion of his task (aka fixing a computer), he meets the guy who runs the castle, a brain floating in a watery chamber, and his assistant, the multi-optional handed Fritz. That's when he finds out about the brain's plans to rule the world with the device Lance just fixed, and, after breaking it again, he runs away, with Fritz hot on his heels to stop him.

Now why do I say Braindead 13 killed the chances of Dragon's Lair II ever arriving on Saturn? Simply because it was a title to test the waters on the market, to see if it still has a life in it. Unfortunately, the problem is Braindead 13 is the worst way to test the market, sort of like releasing a convertible Yugo to see how it fits in the auto industry.

The concept sucks to begin with, in comparison to Dragon's Lair I and II and Space Ace. The reason I say this is because, number one, at least those Don Bluth classics flashed in certain directions to help you about your quest, while, in Braindead 13, you constantly guess over and over and face every death scene imaginable, thus becoming repetitious and killing the fun; number two, the animation is lower in quality than it is in Don's games, and the story layout basically goes nowhere (at one point, Lance takes some time out to moon Fritz while he lays gunfire down on him- yeah, you know, if you gotta go...); number three, the ending is unrewarding and dull; number four, the music is nauseating and looped to death (in comparison to the breathtaking selection of tunes in DL II); number five, the hero is an uninteresting (and untalented) goof, when, in the aforementioned games, the heroes have something going for them in way of personality; and, last and definitely least, the control is way too unforgiving and results in even more death scenes.

Well, I'd go on, but I rag on enough about bad games as is, and I wouldn't want to give ol' J.M. an idea that I was getting back into that. And, yes, J.M., I know you were kidding, it's cool, keep the hangers at bay. Braindead 13 is the worst Saturn game you can buy, as even Corpse Killer and Double Switch (with one of the Coreys, can't remember which one and don't care to) are better...but not much. Hey, you can tell a game's going downhill when one of its lengthy sequences takes place in a beauty parlor. It scores an unprecedented 0 out of 10, and I wouldn't even give it to some guy in the electric chair. It's too inhuman.