You are a group of Navy SEALs with one mission - rescue the president's daughter. But, there are a couple of minor details. The president's daughter has been captured by pirates and may be hiding in a pink briefcase, under a bed right behind the unsuspecting leader of the pirate gang, or be walking aimlessly about on the cruise ship. You will be able to recognize her because she looks close to 40 years old. This is the plot of Sega's Dynamite Cop!. The game doesn't take itself seriously and doesn't expect players to either. But in all the absurdness Sega has crafted a solid 2 player beat-em-up with little extras that keep the arcade port from being nothing more than a port.
There are 3 missions in Dynamite Cop! Each mission involves a different method of getting on board a cruise ship where the president's daughter is being held. Arriving by parachute, boat, or by scuba diving, the Navy seals will travel through different parts of the cruise ship for each mission, or come to the same room with different decorations.
Three Navy SEALs are at your disposal in Dynamite Cop! Captain Bruno Delinger, Sergeant Jean Ivy, and Corporal Eddie Brown. Each has different types of attacks and combos, but all the characters are pretty speedy and agile. The visuals also pack a nice punch running at a clean and fast 60 fps.
The old-school gameplay In Dynamite Cop! is the great nod to the previous beat-em-ups. Fast and painful attacks keep the game at a good pace, and the ridiculous weapons at the SEALs disposal make it all the better. A player can basically pick up anything in the background, including huge arcade units that explode upon hitting an enemy, microphones, vacuum cleaners, shishkabobs, and pork buns to name a few. There is a regular arsenal of ammo as well that are just as over the top. The SEALs can pick up laser guns, triple bazookas that send enemies sky high amidst a mushroom cloud, missile launchers, and harpoons (called water guns in the game).
There are points in the game where players must push a certain button or direction to escape a cinematic danger in the game. Pushing the correct button will flash the word SUCCESS across the screen, along with the sight of your character pummeling an enemy in a quick triple replay fashion. Pushing the wrong button will flash a big FAIL across the screen and a triple replay of your failure. One time I pushed the wrong command and missed the enemy, running straight into the railing behind him. Ouch!
I know I shouldn't spoil the downright ridiculousness of what happens after you rescue the president's daughter, but what I want to talk about has nothing to do with the ending. In 2 player mode, after rescuing the president's daughter she tells both of you that she will ask "papa" to give a reward to the stronger of the two. The game then loads the screen with weapons and a fresh power meter so that you can fight your partner to see who the stronger one is! All the while the president's daughter dances happily while you and your partner duke it out. Just when I thought the game couldn't get any more wacky, it did.
There are a few extras in the game that seemed to be thrown in just for the sake of not having just a port of the arcade game. An old 1980 Sega arcade coin-op, Tranquilizer Gun is a novel extra in the game. There's also an illustration gallery with tons of pictures from the game's artwork. The Detonator Pack download mentioned in the instructions was nowhere to be found on the web, and after initiating the Detonator Pack option in the game itself, I didn't spot a new character I could use, or extra weapons. The option to use the Pack is now crossed out and I've beaten all three missions, but I still haven't seen the extras mentioned.
The missions in Dynamite Cop! are about 30 minutes long each, and the extras leave much more to be desired. But the game is funny and any gamer that has missed the beat-em-up genre won't be disappointed with Dynamite Cop!.There is a lot of creativity in the game that really hasn't been tried before (such as being able to smack someone with a big tuna fish), and the liberty the designers took with the storyline keeps the game enjoyable - even when you have to beat up your friend for the president's reward.
-- Marcus Lai
