Defenders of Dynatron City (NES) and The Cheetahmen (NES & Sega Genesis) Reviews

Defenders of Dynatron City
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Released July, 1992
Designed by Gary Winnick
Developed by Lucasfilm Games
Published by JVC
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Cheetahmen and Cheetahmen II
aka Game #52 in Action 52
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System & Sega Genesis
The Cheetahmen Release Date: 1991 (NES) 1993 (Genesis)
Cheetahmen II: Work-in-Progress Prototype “released” in 1996
Developed by Active Enterprises (NES) Farsight (Genesis)
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

Pictured: Defenders of Dynatron City. That is one ugly game.

Sometimes, I don’t really want to chain myself to a bad game long enough to actually write-up a review. Today, I found Defenders of Dynatron City, and then about an hour later, I quit Defenders of Dynatron City having never made it out of the first level. It comes from the co-creator of Maniac Mansion, and boy oh boy, is this awful. If you’re curious what a game review about a game so bad that I couldn’t stick it out to the end would look like, well, this is it. This soulless 1992 NES title was supposed to be part of a massive media rollout about a new team of superheroes. They had planned the whole nine yards, including six Marvel comics that actually did come out, a children’s animated series, and presumably action figures, lunch boxes, and this very NES game. I just watched the pilot for the TV series, produced by DIC, and it’s absolutely dreadful. A cynically bad origin story with characters pathetically desperate to be TOTALLY RADICAL, DUDE! in order to appeal to children. It’s got a DUMB GUY and he shoots his head off! And it’s got a girl with a buzzsaw for legs, and it has a dog except it’s green and it flies. And then, f*ck it, the inorganic toolbox just comes to life and becomes the smart one. Ain’t that quirky? It’s so forced and insincere, with some of the worst writing I’ve seen in any children’s show from this era, making it brutal to sit through. But, I can honestly say the game is a lot worse.

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Dynatron City is a pseudo-brawler type of action game where the biggest challenges come from a confusing navigation system, and the act of lining-up your attack with enemies. You start with four superheroes, but you can swap them out with two others along the way. It doesn’t matter who you use, because enemies only register damage if you’re on one very narrow plane of existence in front of them. Naturally the enemies tend to wobble up and down, especially as you get deeper into the level. The object to navigate the city within a VERY strict time limit and defeat all the waves of enemies. This is the first retro review I’ve done in a long time where I didn’t finish the game. Frankly, I didn’t try. Dynatron City doesn’t deserve it.

“He’ll be like our Michelangelo! The dumb, fun loving one. I’m telling you, the kids will throw away their Ninja Turtles. They’re going to LOVE Jet Headstrong!” Oh, and as a fun aside, the villain, Doctor Mayhem (oh my god, did they take all of five seconds to come up with these names?) was originally voiced by none other than Christopher Walken. Then, after they recorded the voice, they FIRED HIM and replaced him with someone more “villainous” sounding. Presumably they then tugged on Superman’s cape and then told Michael Jordan he needed to work on his jump shot.

It doesn’t look good. It doesn’t sound good. The combat, when you actually CAN score damage, doesn’t have a nice crunch to it. It’s so flimsy and ugly and unlikable. LucasArts, subsidiary of one of the most famous fantasy filmmaking studios, really put out a game this visually bad? And the characters aren’t fun to use. The best is the buzzsaw lady. She’s the only one that makes sense, since she runs fast and her attack has range. You’re on a VERY tight time limit here. Using the slow main character, Jet Headstrong, will lead to you timing out. Oh, and the game encourages exploring and then penalizes you for doing it with that timer. Really, the timer is the ruinous element. It was straight-up dumb to put this type of design on such a short timer, or any timer. It’s not a risk/reward thing. It’s just thoughtless.

Allowing players to swap with the SELECT button would have helped a teeny, tiny bit. But, nah. START and SELECT both do the same thing.

Would it have really been that hard to make the map make sense? Instead of going down streets, why not just have blocks, and then a map that’s grid-based? Or would it have been so bad that you can pick up an item for another character and just assume they got it, instead of forcing players to pause and swap characters? Not that it matters. When you base your entire game around rushing through combat, then deliberately dick players around by making the combat as sluggish and frustrating as possible, you are a waste of mine and everyone else’s time. Look at this sh*t! I try not to assume bad intentions or “review developers” here, but this wasn’t some fly by night operation. A LOT of money and resources went into this. Did those making this game play this, see how impossibly hard it is to line up your attack with enemies, enemies who are LITERALLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, and say “this is fine!”

And please note that the “specific plane of existence” rule only applies to you, the player. The baddies can hit you from many more angles. It’s not fun. It’s not challenging. It’s intentionally frustrating. Which, hey, at least one aspect of Dynatron City succeeded as it seems to have been intended to be that way But, given how transparently desperate this franchise was to appeal to kids, you would think the video game that this whole endeavor seems to have been banking on would try to be appealing to all ages and skill sets. Instead, it’s a complete slog, with some of the worst combat of any action game on the NES. You ever seen Action 52? The notoriously unplayable collection of lazy games that retailed for a couple hundred bucks? Dynatron City looks like one of those games! And it’s every bit as cynical as the Cheetahmen games from that series. Dynatron City is one seriously ugly game, with bad graphics, ugly character models, and ear-ripping music. This has to be one of the worst NES games out there. I really wanted to play this more, but given that enemies get even more evasive as you go along, along with the strict timer and the sprawling map, and I just decided that I owed this as much effort as it made. Which is to say, none.
Defenders of Dynatron City Verdict: NO!

The fact that the cynicism of this entire property made me think of Cheetahmen says it all. You can imagine grown-ups in 1992 saying “KIDS WILL LOVE THIS! IT’LL BE LIKE NINJA TURTLES, ONLY BIGGER! EASY MONEY!” I got the same vibes from Wild West C.O.W. Boys of Moo Mesa, but at least Konami didn’t phone that sh*t in. So, let’s take a look at Cheetahmen, which was released to both the NES and Sega Genesis. And honestly, does Cheetahmen look THAT much worse than Dynatron City?

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Cheetahmen was the flagship title in Action 52, a notoriously grift collection of fifty two games that retailed for $199.99 in 1991 dollars, or roughly $460 in today’s money. It was sold on the value, because instead of paying $30 to $50 for one game, you were paying $200 for 52 games. It was marketed specifically at gullible parents, because the people who made this were complete bastards. None of the games had anything resembling effort or quality. Each was probably coded in less than a day, with one exception. Cheetahmen is your flea market Ninja Turtles highlight of the set. It genuinely feels like the type of off-brand toy you’d find at a thrift store. It’s humanoid animals that do kung-fu crap. What more could your parasitic little crotch goblins want? I know it’s probably mean of me to say that Dynatron City feels like it shares the same cynical DNA, but it absolutely does. In fact, the best thing I can say about Dynatron City is that it couldn’t be part of Action 52 on account of the fact that it actually works. Like all the other games in Action 52, Cheetahmen is a badly coded, often not-working, and damn near impossible to play crime against gaming.

Saddam Hussein is one of the enemies, because he’s one of the sprites in one of the other 52 games. And no, I’m NEVER reviewing the rest of Action 52. At least on the NES. It’s a waste of my time. I might do the Genesis version at some point because at least that seems to have had something resembling effort.

I’m sure fans of LucasArts will lose their sh*t for me saying it, but I was close to saying Cheetahmen was better than Dynatron City. The only thing that stopped me is that Dynatron City, as bad as it is, isn’t fundamentally broken and Cheetahmen, you know, is. In fact, I don’t even think it’s possible to finish it. I couldn’t get past the fifth level, where you’re a giant sized sprite that shoots arrows, and you get swarmed by heat-seeking enemies that aren’t in your attack range until they hit you. There’s absolutely zero effort to make this a decent game, and it combines with the rest of Action 52 to be truly gross. Parents were conned into spending $200 for 52 “games” that would rank at the bottom 52 in quality on the entire NES platform. AND, that’s even assuming the games work! While playing Cheetahmen, the game got frozen from the act of pausing, though that wasn’t consistent. Neither was the collision detection. Levels just end without any warning. So do boss fights. I wasn’t disappointed at all when I couldn’t finish the fifth level. After twenty minutes with this thing, I was ready to do anything else with my life. Like suddenly I found myself staring at my toilet and saying “I wonder what a swirly feels like? I bet it’s actually a relief when the flushing part happens!” Totally nailed that one.

Cheetahmen is game #13 on the Sega Genesis version of Action 52, and it’s actually worse than the NES one, in my opinion. At least the NES version has an Ed Wood like campiness, even if you have to ignore that because it’s a product made with bad intentions. The “improved” Genesis version is just boring. Punching has basically no range. The first level, which is the only one I would play, has cheap enemy placement and one-hit deaths. Also, you die from falling too far and there’s too much graphical noise blocking most of the action. It’s every bit as lazy and cynical as the first Action 52, and dressing it up in a working engine and nice graphics doesn’t change that. The best thing I can say about it is that the game didn’t crash.

A lot of people have found humor in Action 52. I find it to be morally reprehensible. It was aimed directly at exploiting one of the more expensive hobbies children can have by presenting itself as an incredible value for their parents. The last game your child would ever need. Do you know who bought Action 52? Well-meaning parents who loved their children with all their hearts. And sh*tty people preyed upon that. It’s disgusting. The only thing that’s funny about the whole situation is Cheetahmen II. These chucklef*cks actually thought they had such a good thing with this Cheetahmen concept that they started thinking “FRANCHISE!” Now THAT is laughable. The developers had to be the most clueless mother f*ckers alive to look at how the first Cheetahmen was coming along and think they had anything of value. The game never actually got an official release, but 1,500 copies were discovered housed in Action 52 cases. Those are now a highly sought collector’s item among Nintendo fans. It’s more or less the same game with character sprites too big and enemies too small. It’s inept and awful, and I can’t believe anyone would spend the type of money that could score you a quality used arcade game on it.

Cheetahmen II. Just think, they had a third game planned. (shrugs) Civilization was a mistake.

My favorite quote comes from Conan O’Brien, and I’m paraphrasing here: “I hate cynicism. It doesn’t lead anywhere.” He wasn’t whistling dixie. That’s why the games of today’s feature rubbed me so wrong. They don’t feel like they came from a true place of creative merit. They feel like ploys for quick cash that vastly underestimate their audiences. It doesn’t matter if it comes with a multi-company synergistic campaign, like Dynatron City’s rollout, or if it’s the type of shady, money-grubbing operation that birthed Action 52. Kids can detect heartless cynicism. They might not know what it means, but they know it when they see it. Do you know who is a lot less likely to recognize it? Their parents. One the tragedies of growing up is that the majority of us will lose our ability to detect bullsh*t along the way. I consider myself to be a pretty cool person. I mean, you know, relatively speaking. But, I’ve found out that I’m just as guilty. I have two nieces and a nephew who are all preteens. I have managed to embarrass each one of them at least once by misjudging what they would or wouldn’t find “cool.” That’s why products like Dynatron City or Action 52 get attempted in the first place. It isn’t the kids buying this crap. It’s their parents. That’s why you have to give credit to the children of 1992. They’re the ones who rejected Dynatron City from the moment it was born. So, to all you game developers out there: listen to your kids. They know what’s what.
Cheetahmen Verdicts: NO! to all of them.