#367 – Lethal Weapon

Perhaps we’re all too old for this, er… stuff.

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER: Ocean

DEVELOPER: Eurocom

GENRE: Action

RELEASE DATE: April 1993

So many kids loved Lethal Weapon 3, the violent, profanity-filled Mel Gibson and Danny Glover film, that developer Ocean decided to buy the license and make a beat-em-up out of it. You know… for the kids. Even if the young target audience have a passion for cop-buddy movies where Joe Pesci acts annoying and swears a lot, there’s no way they could forgive this passion-less, by-the-numbers beat-em-up. Play as Riggs or Murtaugh (you switch between them by stepping out of the screen or dying) and destroy the entire world’s allotment of generic bad guys. Seriously, you’re punching, kicking, and shooting Chinese communists, Rastafarian rebels, dumpy fat Americans, the whole nine yards. It’d be laughable if the results weren’t so boring. The best beat-em-ups are two-player, so you can bring a friend along for a sometimes tedious, button-mashing ride, but Lethal Weapon keeps it decidedly single-player. Despite the overall mediocrity of the game, it controls surprisingly well and the difficulty is well-paced. The first three levels are pretty easy, but it starts to get slightly more difficult with each passing stage. Riggs is fast and agile (due to his feathered hair, no doubt) and Murtaugh is tougher, but slower. Despite these simple pleasures, Lethal Weapon is yet another addition to the long list of games that didn’t need to be made. Handle with caution.

D+