Pitfalls & Powerups – Girl Power

Girl power: it’s everywhere. It’s a disease, it’s spreading and I bloody love it. However, video games hadn’t really caught the bug a decade or so ago but whenever they did have a sniffle, it was either fantastic or god awful. Let’s just jump straight in shall we, before I break out the Shania Twain?

Pitfall

Successful TV series. Succusseful movies. Successful Destiny’s Child song. Terrible, terrible game. Charlie’s Angels for the PS2 and Gamecube is known by everyone in the industry as one of the worst games ever made – and for good reason.

The first jarring thing about the game upon starting were the graphics – I generally find that if the cut scene graphics aren’t easy on the eyes, it’s doubtful the in-game graphics are going to be any prettier, and, sweet angels, I wish I was wrong.

The two-frame run cycles, the awkward fight stances and their faces – bloody hell, their faces – Drew, Lucy and Cameron are beautiful women but Neko Entertainment chose to depict all three of them as bargain bin blow up dolls with housewife haircuts and Chelsea smiles.

The game’s story is of course, a classic: robbery. But not diamonds, or technology or anything that would be easy to sell on the black market or utilise for evil but the world’s most famous – and I suspect the heaviest and largest – monuments; The Statue of Liberty, the Stonehenge stones, the Arc de Triomphe all stolen within literally two seconds while the criminals provide a short citywide blackout. The perfect crime.

So, you think the angels would show those crime-busting smarts they constantly provide during both movies the game is based on and perhaps head straight for the crime scene? Well, in fact, we start off at the world’s most depressing beach bikini contest, as you make your way through area after area beating up enemies until they’re all defeated then move on to another, very similar-looking area to defeat more enemies in the most literal interpretation of a beat ’em up. And, that’s it.

For a franchise built on girl power, this game doesn’t half make it look like ladies kicking butt is as boring as a bread sandwich.

The whole game is literally going from boring stage to similar boring stage, playing as an angel of your choosing, spending most of your time not running from enemies but rather running from the claustrophobic invisible walls that block you into a small part of the stage until you beat each baddie to a pulp.

This, of course, is interspersed with actual FMV cut scenes (see my previous blog about why FMV is a guaranteed pitfall) which provide the only near-decent voice acting because, if you haven’t already given up with the game by now, every punch, kick and bump creates a mind-numbingly annoying moan. For a franchise built on girl power, this game doesn’t half make it look like ladies kicking butt is as boring as a bread sandwich.

 Powerup

I could have easily gone for the big hitters here for my power-up. Samus was an easy choice, revealing her voluptuous body at the end of Metroid, she proved to the world that ladies could fight aliens just as well as their male counterparts – and have the flexibility to roll up in a ball, and all!

Lara Croft is a great and intelligent role model too, showing girls they can kick ass, take names and pull off the always difficult colour combo of blue and khaki.

But, I knew I had to choose a character that’s always been close to my heart, who both lives in space and is a journalist. Ulala is the poster girl of the Dreamcast era, dancing hostages to safety and grooving/shooting enemies to their defeat. Ulala not only singlehandedly stops the plans of the evildoers but she also saves the lives of thousands and ups the ratings of the dying Space Channel 5 – which is more than can be said for any non-dancing journalists.

Ulala’s can-do attitude and can-shoot guns made her synonymous with Sega’s golden age and her Barbarella-inspired costumes made her a cosplayer’s dream. It still hurts to this very day that young Charlotte couldn’t get her hands on the sequel upon release thanks to the controversy surrounding Michael Jackson at the time – leading to the pulling of the game from UK shelves due to his supporting role as the new head of Space Channel 5 – ‘Space Michael’ – in the game.

Not only was Ulala dancing and singing alongside MJ but she was even accused of stealing the persona of the lead singer of 90’s group Deee-Lite but of course, our space reporter heroine came out on top and even got to dance to Groove is in the Heart in the Wii version of Samba de Amigo. Most recently appearing as a playable racer in both Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing and its sequel, hopefully we haven’t seen the last of the universe’s cutest, smartest and butt-kicking-est dancer this side of the Milky Way.