Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. and I do not go way back. I remember seeing reviews for it in EGM at the time of release but I didn’t think it looked particularly interesting. It was yet another gory and edgy fighting game meant to cash in on the popularity of Mortal Kombat. It seemed doomed to obscurity and has been largely forgotten. I decided to give it a modern look when I found it for cheap. Does Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. Go toe to toe with the likes of Tekken or even Mortal Kombat? Hardly.
The opening scrawl gives us insight to this unique world. The story here takes place in the future where America has fallen and mega corporations now own the land on which it once sat. Rather than having large scale wars to fight over it they instead send their best cybernetic combatants forth where the outcome is determined in a simple one-on-one fight. This scenario gave the developers a lot of room to be creative with the roster and they managed to make a few memorable faces. You’ve got a line-up of pretty flamboyant people with robotic limbs (zipper head in particular will stick with you) and weapons. You also have a clown and a robotic lizard. It makes little sense, but that was the intention I suppose. The characters definitely have that 90’s style attitude to them that I don’t miss.
Matches appear at first to be typical fighting fare. You and another opponent square off and compete to reduce each other’s life bar to zero, and the best of three wins. Bio Freaks relies on its gimmicks to set it apart from the pack. The first and most obvious are the fully 3D arenas. These are much larger than in a typical fighting game with dashing both forwards and back playing a strategic role in the action. Your characters can also fly. Yep, you didn’t misread that; you fight your foe mid-air or simply go up in order to avoid their attacks. Many of the arenas have multiple levels you can reach, and some contain hazards. This can cause some issues with the camera and that left a sour taste in my mouth. Midway tried to take the carnage a step further by allowing the characters to lose limbs in combat. If you’re thinking it’s just a graphical change then you’re wrong; this actually affects what moves can be used. It’s one of the more interesting ideas Bio Freaks brings to the table.
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| Here’s the roster of ‘freaks.’ Yep, this game tries to be pretty edgy. |
On the plus side I was pretty impressed with the controls especially considering this is the Nintendo 64 pad we’re talking about. This game uses all six face buttons as your primary attacks, and in typical fashion these can be linked together with directional inputs to perform special moves. The sheer number of moves each character has, and how unique even punches and kicks are between them, is pretty impressive for this era. As per the Mortal Kombat influence there’s also finishing moves, but these are actually done as a way to end the match rather than after your foe has already fallen. The only thing I don’t like is the side step. Using a shoulder button (or Z if you’re using the joystick to play) your character will rotate either to the left or right which allows you to dodge attacks. Unfortunately they move too much with the single press of a button and it can be disorienting and takes too long to complete. This feature feels a little sloppy in my opinion.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the gimmicks. They’re easily the high point of the game are the only reason anyone even remembers Bio Freaks. Unfortunately they just aren’t enough to save this sinking ship. In typical Midway fashion the best way to play is by mashing on the attack buttons. There’s a combo system in place, but it’s very shallow and you’re best off with the random inputs. What’s worse is that every character comes with a projectile attack (a gun of some sort) that’s linked to a single button. Far too often you’ll find you and the enemy trying to shoot each other from across the stage, and the pitiful shield system isn’t enough to dissuade this tactic. At the end of the day you’re left with a shallow button mashing, projectile spamming fighting game that you’ll soon grow very bored of. No amount of edgy character designs and gore can make up for such a flawed fighting game engine.
For a Nintendo 64 game Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. Is pretty impressive visually. Even though the arcade version was never released I can’t help but feel this cartridge is pretty close to what their original vision was. The characters are quite detailed with some decent texture work and more rounded designs with few jagged edges. The real high point however is in the animations. While the fighting flows decently with unique motions for every character the developers really show off how much detail they put into it with the character introductions at the beginning of every match. While a lot of this is just the characters banging around and yelling it looks motion captured to me and is pretty detailed. I found Psyclown’s acrobatics to be particularly impressive. Unfortunately the backgrounds fall a little short. There’s a lot of generic dungeons and grungy factories here that miss their mark, but by and large you’ll hardly notice or care.
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| The graphics aren’t half bad especially the character models. |
Button mashers are a dime a dozen, and were back when Bio Freaks was released. That’s probably why no one remembers this dark fighting game. That, and the fact that it’s not very good. The game does a few things right but by and large if I want to watch characters beating the blood out of each other while I frantically mash buttons I’m going to go with something else. The only reason anyone ever even looked twice at this title is because of the fact that everyone was so starved and depraved for a sixty four bit fighting game back when it was released. Bio Freaks has interesting characters, some decent mechanics, and great graphics but the button mashing is just… well it’s just too much.
