Genesis

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

There's nothing special about this fighter, other than the fact that it's about Bruce Lee. This martial arts demigod and his fans deserve better.

Some of you might be familiar with the Jaguar version of this game which was released a few months ago and rated unfavorably by our own Jim Loftus. Being a Bruce Lee fanatic myself, I was prepared to hate the virtually identical SNES and Genesis versions of the game, but fortunately I found a lot to like.

Unfortunately, Dragon is the most simplistic side-to-side fighter I have ever seen. The characters and backgrounds look nice, but a year ago this type of game was stale. The fights are slow, repetitive and entirely too long. With punches and kicks only hit from ultra-close range and annoying control features. Dragon is a real pain to play.

The game is good for a laugh if you have nothing better to do, but I would suggest pretending to be Frogger at your nearest highway for an hour before wasting a precious second trying to get any decent playability out of this title. Sorry Bruce, maybe another game my friend.

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story does have one thing going for it: Its unusually high level of artificial intelligence guarantees that your battles against computer-controlled bad guys will stretch on for what seems like days, even if you give up (like I did) and let yourself get pummeled.

On the plus side, the character designs and graphics are admirable. Much effort was taken to ensure that Bruce's stature and physique were intact. Too bad nothing else in this game is as chiseled as Bruce's biceps!