Blues Brothers 2000 - The not-so-hit movie becomes a not-so-hit game (or we'll see)! - Miscellaneous - http://phatbowling.com/homertips/Blues_Brothers

A Blues Brothers videogame doesn't
sound too bad if you're fond of the John
Belushi-Dan Akroyd classic. But Titus'
Blues Brothers 2000 has a huge
challenge ahead of it as it asks N64
owners to get into a game based on a
movie that few enjoyed. On the other
hand, it's got to be pretty cool playing as
Elwood Blues.

The Facts:

Musical puzzles.
Four-player adventure/battle
mode.
Fully explorable 3D environments.
R&B music score.
Five worlds with five sublevels
each.

Following the plot of the 1998 movie,
BB2000 has you, as Elwood, fresh out
of jail trying to round up enough cash to
get the infamous band back together.
The strange part comes from the fact that
the levels have realistic and fantastic
elements all rolled into one. In one part,
you’re faced with pistol toting bad guys
and in the next, you’re running from giant
spiders. Our resident John Goodman
fan/lookalike, Matt Casamassina,
confirms that there were indeed giant
spiders in the movie, so
whaddyagonnadoo. You run around the
25 different levels solving puzzles, finding
money, and punching enemies as you go.
There’s even a Blues Brothers butt
stomp for the platformer fundamentalist
in all of us. Elwood can use his hat as a
weapon but we weren’t very successful
with it. In fact, we actually lost his hat all
together when we threw it and exited to
the next level.

The game has musical puzzles where
players have to make Elwood perform
certain musical numbers and dances in
order to advance. By the time you reach
the end of BB2000, you will have a full range of musical talents that you
can use to complete your mission. Titus plans on securing the rights to
music from the original Blues Brothers movie and using it for the different
musical puzzles. Sam & Dave’s R&B hit, Soul Man, has already been
installed in the game and we heard what had to be a full length version of
the song. The additional music licenses would certainly help BB2000 in
its appeal to kids.

The main character looks like a very flat, very blue, two-dimensional
personality running around. The 3D environments get a bit murky at times
and really reminded us of the backgrounds on the first Turok game. Even
if he is a little too flat, we can still appreciate details like Elwood’s socks
showing because of his floodwater pants and his full-blown sideburns that
seem to hang off his face.

There was a problem with the collision detection so it’s tough to
comment on the enemy A.I. or overall gameplay. Once, we were trying
our best to punch a creature that looked like either a pig, bulldog, sheep
or all of the above and before we realized it, we were out of range - the
vile beast devoured poor Elwood in one bite.

Outlook: Blues Brothers 2000 could really be a bigger hit than the movie
especially among kids who can appreciate the real music. We didn’t get
a chance to perform any of the musical numbers but if it’s set up as a mini
game version of PaRappa the Rapper for example, then the challenge
could be pretty addictive. The licenses for the original film’s music could
really be the determining factor in the fate of this otherwise typical 3D
platformer.

Pictures:
http://n64media.ign.com/media/previews/image/blues2000/BB2000Shot10.jpg
http://n64media.ign.com/media/previews/image/blues2000/BB2000Shot14.jpg
http://n64media.ign.com/media/previews/image/blues2000/BB2000Shot6.jpg
http://n64media.ign.com/media/previews/image/blues2000/BB2000Shot1.jpg

Doc.

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