Bio Freaks

The Good
Bio Freaks as a fighting game offers an interesting atmosphere. Set in a post apocalyptic future with half human half robot beings, players get to choose from a variety of cyborg fighters as they engage in one on one combat.

Bio Freaks' greatest asset are its graphics. Using the full potential of the N64, Bio Freaks has some of the best graphics on the system, showing off a variety of 3D textures, fully detailed and crisp characters, and combined with a good music score, Bio Freaks makes for a visually impressive game.

The controls for Bio Freaks are pretty straight forward, with a few different features for a fighting game. Projectile attacks can be performed with a simple button press. Players can also activate a shield to protect themselves from projectile attacks, and with another button push players can take their fight to the skies. (Those looking for a more conventional fighting game can disable these features however). But the major highlight of the fights is after inflicting enough damage, your opponent will loose their arm and if you inflict just enough damage to not kill them, they will loose both limbs, leading to hilarious moments of watching them trying to attack you without arms.

The Bad
Despite being the brainchild of the creators of Mortal Kombat, Bio Freaks is by no means anywhere near as memorable as Mortal Kombat. Despite being made in 1998, the game only boasts of 8 fighters, and despite looking well done for the N64, the selection of characters come off as semi bland and uninspired. The arenas themselves are also sorely lacking in imagination or death traps (I sent an opponent into a fire pit, and he walked right back out after taking little damage).

The game also suffers from serious balancing issues. Players will find that some characters can be beaten with no effort, only to have the next character just completely destroy them. Even the final boss has balancing issues (if the player is knocked off the platform, all they have to do is stand under it and use the projectile attack, the boss is so huge he can't them).

The replay value for the title is also very low. The game itself can be beaten in a matter of minutes, and the story is equally forgettable. And despite the amusement of blowing off your opponents limbs, you won't even notice it happened most of the time.

The Bottom Line
While Bio Freaks is from the minds of Mortal Kombat and boasts lots of gore, beautiful graphics, and some mindless fun, Bio Freaks just comes across as yet another "post apocalypse battle" game with unbalanced characters, forgettable plot, and extremely short playing span. Those who have friends over may get a kick out of it for a few minutes, but with its pale selection of characters to chose from, most find themselves reaching for Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat instead, retiring Bio Freaks to the box in the garage after a few play throughs (and with its $3 price tag at most game stores, you basically get what you pay for).