 SEGA DRUNK Despite the title, Cyborg Justice is not a straight-to-video low-budget action movie starring Mario Van Peebles, and it's not a futuristic version of Judge Judy. Instead, it's a goofy title for a goofy beat-em-up on Sega Genesis made in 1993 by NovaTrade, the same team that created Echo the Dolphin. On paper, this game sounds like it'd be a lot of fun. You're a cyborg, you walk to the right and beat up other cyborgs, plus you can customize your character with up to six different arms. From a flamethrower, to a circular saw, to a rapid-fire fist, up to six different legs which can either make you walk faster or jump higher, and up to six different bodies. There's the lobster that gives you spiked shoulders so you can deliver more damage, insect gives you more armor, and big booster gives you the most protection but makes you slow. Hey, I didn't come up with these games, they came from the manual. You get three lives and three continues to get through five long repetitive levels. This is one of those games where you get a glance of some footage and it's like hey, this game looks pretty fun. But in reality, it's like hey, did you like that first part of that first level and get ready to do that over and over and over again for the next 90 minutes if you want to finish this game. Cyborg Justice is really slowly paced and there's next to zero gameplay variety here with the same boring background scrolling past just in different colors, and worst of all are the controls which are just a mess, and I'll get to that later. Because I do want to mention this game's strengths, I mean it is two-player co-op and people are always on the lookout for multi-player games. What Cyborg Justice sets out to do here is pretty cool, customizing your Cyborg is a nice feature, especially for 1993, the sprite work here is well done, I mean you can actually pull body parts out of these things, that's awesome. I should mention you can pull apart the first boss like this, but if you try it on any boss afterward, you WILL get the crap kicked out of you because it doesn't work. Anyway, look how these things walk, they're styling and profiling. The music fits too, especially the second level music. Man, the Cyborg's got it going on. The problem, however, is how the sprite animation fits with the combat itself. This is one of those games where they just got way too cute, and there's all these extra frames in your attack animation that have to play out before you can actually land, a punch, or do any kind of damage. This is always a bad approach, because while you're sitting there waiting for your attack to finally hit the enemy, you get kicked in the nuts, again and again. I mean it's fine to go for style over substance in a game, but Cyborg Justice is a game where that approach pretty much fails. Sure you can customize your Cyborg with all sorts of different combinations, but some render your character utterly useless to the point that the game is almost unplayable. It's pretty ridiculous. Now, if you do manage to get the hang of this game's wonky timing and off-beat combat, then it's a matter of mastering moves, and once again, the game gets a little too cute, and tries to reinvent the wheel with all sorts of goofy inputs to execute attacks. For instance, to jump, you press C and either up or forward on the D-pad, then you press B in midair to do a flying kick, or press C again while pressing down while you're in midair to do what is an admittedly cool attack, but it's incredibly finicky to try and actually hit an enemy while doing this without getting clobbered yourself. Even just using the out-of-the-box weapons you signed up for is a struggle. To use it, you double tap A and hold the button down, but they're so slow. You really have to make sure you're in a good enough position to use it, because otherwise you're just going to take damage. I should mention you really do need the manual if you want to play this game because certain parts have their own moves entirely. For example, if you pick the summer salt or tank legs, you double tap the C button to activate them, but if you pick the pneumatic legs, you press up, then left or right, then double tap C, and you have to do it exactly right or it won't work. This game is filled with stuff like that. Remember that cool move where you can rip the guy's arm off? You got to press back on the D-pad and A at the same time while still staying close to the enemy while hoping he doesn't attack you. It's really just a matter of lucky timing while hoping the computer AI cooperates. Now, if you're able to pull this off, it is really freaking cool, because once you have an arm, you can throw it at him by pressing B or replace it with your own by pressing A. Once the enemy's arm is ripped off, you can rip off their torso by doing the same thing, only this time you can press A to absorb their energy and regain some health. Not only is that a cool feature, it's absolutely essential if you want to beat the game. The thing is, this game insists on shoehorning this feature in the game immediately. There's a part in the first level where there's a huge gap, and you can only cross it if you've got certain legs equipped, either on your own from the beginning or by taking them from one of these enemies. I mean, come on, how are you supposed to know that? So yeah, Cyborg Justice is definitely not a good pickup and play game like most other beat-em-ups. And if you approach this game that way, you're definitely going to be frustrated. The biggest problem is also one of the game's strengths, the sprite animation. While it's cool-looking, it actively gets in the way of combat at times. Still, I don't think Cyborg Justice is irredeemable. It's just that you have to be willing to put in the time to find out what Cyborg Combination works best for you because, believe me, some of them freaking suck. And then you gotta put in the time to get the moves down and get the timing down. And whether or not this game is worth that much time is up for you to decide. Personally, while I dig what this game was going for, I don't think it was worth the time because the combat is a bit too sloppy and inconsistent and the pace is really slow. I can see how this would be at least somewhat fun with the second player, but even then, I really got tired of seeing the same backgrounds loop over and over and fighting the same enemies over and over. I see this game as a missed opportunity, but hey, these Cyborgs never miss an opportunity to strut. Shut up, baby, I know it. All right, I wanna thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.