Dick Tracy

Here is a game released by Titus on the 1990 film of the same name. It would seem that Dick Tracy could not go beyond the scope of the product under a license, and we are faced with the usual platformer. But it is this game that is the most unique case when it is simply impossible to place this stamp.

At first, the gameplay seems simple enough and to some extent even “harmless” - on the first screens we go ahead and beat / shoot the enemies. But by the middle of the first level, the game begins to enrage, because the complexity is simply unbearable, even for the most experienced player. For example, on the second screen you can take a pistol shooting a queue (!), But at the same time, the developers simply did not take into account what would happen if you dropped the entire clip - still run past the mafia looking out the windows. Or if a player has a minimum of health - and in order to get through the next screen, at least half of the “life bar” is needed.

And this is precisely the reason for the low score of the game - imbalance. And if the latter has an explanation (lack of testers in the development team), then the levels in the "rectum" style are not. Yes, the whole game Dick Tracy goes only forward, the ability to go back he just does not need. It is clear that the platforms with dead loops will be superfluous, but to run the entire Chicago as a marathon is not very fun.

The graphics look surprisingly good, especially the screensavers, but you can't say the same about the backdrops. Dick himself and his opponents are drawn very angularly and carelessly - it creates the feeling that the artist was just drawing individual frames, not taking into account that they would then be “gathered” into animation.

Finally, music and sound effects. If there is nothing special about the sound, the compositions deserve a separate praise. Not a masterpiece, of course, but it sounds good. By the way, interestingly, the composer, Michael Sokyrka, will later take part in another game about Dick Tracy - a good multi-genre Dick Tracy: The Crime-Solving Adventure.

As a result, absolutely all versions of the game received just the most crumbling reviews in gaming magazines and were literally trampled into the dirt. What is the funny thing is, this did not prevent Titus from releasing, to put it mildly, “raw” games based on films and comics. There is no need to go far for examples - Superman 64 in 1999 and Robocop in 2003. But why exactly Dick Tracy can not be called a typical advertising product? Yes, because it is one of the worst games released on a truly popular franchise, and it is this feature that made it even known in narrow circles. But is it for the better?..