Expendable
- January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST
The mindless fun of Contra and Smash TV on the NES cranks itself up a few bits (120 to be exact), to debut on the Dreamcast in the form of Infogrames' explosive action title, Expendable.
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Dispensable, Disposable, Superfluous
In the future, when an unknown race has destroyed the population of your world and you need some sweet revenge, cloned space marines are created and sent off to do the dirty work. You are such a clone (or many of them, depending on how many continues you use) and you are Expendable. The marines are human cannon fodder sent on a mission that spans 20 levels and countless aliens - your mission is search and destroy. If you get tired of searching, just start destroying. What the game lacks in story, it more than makes up for visually. Go it alone or team up with a friend and watch the fireworks go.
Eye Candy
With all of the explosive gun play of a John Woo movie, but with a James Cameron special effects line up (thanks to the Dreamcast's powerful graphics engine), Expendable's 15 hand held weapons of mass destruction pack a visceral punch. Detailed backgrounds, stunning lighting effects and colossal explosions engage the eyes with a full frontal assault. Walking through a mob of aliens with a flame-thrower or blasting away with a laser-sighted gattling gun is Expendable at its adrenaline-pumping best. The soundtrack is ferocious enough to keep up with the game's visuals, but besides hearing a random scream or explosion from time to time you will be too busy running for your life to notice.
But the very same intense graphics that are Expendable's greatest asset visually become a drawback when it comes to game play. The explosions tend to be about the size of Rhode Island, and while that is impressive, it becomes impossible to see what is going on, especially in two-player mode. And your extra-terrestrial adversaries don't take time off to let the dust settle, they continue blasting away at you doing serious damage that you can't avoid. Also, the glorious backgrounds are sometimes too detailed, preventing you from finding a clear way out of the board. Baddies just keep coming as you bang into a wall or fire away at a roadblock that just won't blow up.
What little story there is in Expendable is told through cut scenes that look exactly like the game screens. This looks great, but creates a rather confusing problem when added to the quick changing camera angles that pop up once in a while during the game. You stop dead in your tracks figuring out which way you are moving or if you are even playing at all. A more constant and controlled camera change during game play could have easily eliminated this.
Totally 80s Dreamcast
If you are looking for all of the smoking guns fun of Contra , then Expendable will fit the bill perfectly and make your Dreamcast anything but expendable.
