Overview

Title: Captain Planet and the Planeteers

Publisher: Mindscape

Year: 1992

Genre: Shoot-em-up

Players: 1

Initial Impression

Captain Planet looks awesome. He reminds me of Silver Surfer smoking rainbows.

Gaea is attractive, though my failures as a planeteer sadden her.

Gameplay

You can flip the plane around with "B," although I wasn't sure why you would want to do this other than positioning your aircraft. The movement is a bit clumsy, and the playing area seems somehow scrunched compared to other shmups. "A" attacks.

You can shift weapons by pressing the "Start" button, cycling through all of the powers of the Planeteers, Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Heart. All of the weapons seem attack-based except for Heart, which appears to be some kind of tractor beam--perhaps to rescue trees, fish, or stranded vegan protesters--and Wind, which doesn't seem to affect the enemy planes, at least not at the basic power level. Ammo is limited with the energy bar being shared between all weapons types. Fire and Earth drain fairly slowly, but use Wind, which cretes a Mega-manesque spinning shield around your ship, sparingly because it's a real battery hog. You can power up your weapons and get energy boosts by killing entire waves of enemies, though this is difficult to do without the Wind power.

Don't mind the ATAT...Shoot the legs and soar under.

The game is somewhat fun, although I found it to be quite difficult. I didn't even make it through the first level, and I ended up playing for about 20 minutes in all (which speaks to both the difficulty and the entertainment value). I actually felt like trying a few more times to get to the boss, but I gave up. Challenging game!

Review

There are some clear problems with this game--maneauverability being the primary issue, but that being said, it is still moderately fun. 3/5 stars.