JET FORCE GEMINI

Reviewed By: Tyler
VOLUNTEER GUEST REVIEWER

GAME TECH INFO

Computer Platform: N64
Produced by: Rare
Price Range: $15-30
Learning curve time: 30 min.
Age level: 10+
ESRB Rating: Teen

Genre: Action/Adventure
Christian Rating: 4 of 5
   (slightly offensive)
Gameplay: 3 of 5
   (average)
Violence: 2 of 5
   (heavy)
Adult Content: 5 of 5
   (none)

This game takes place far in the future. You can choose to be Juno or vela, but you start out as Juno and you get to take the role of other characters as you progress later in the game. You and your sister are on a high-tech space shuttle when a flashing light suddenly goes off on the ship. Your ship gets sucked into an enemy spacecraft belonging to the drone. You desperately fight the ant-like creatures. You and your friends each go in a different direction, then boarding their own personal space craft. When you land, you find the land deserted from the friendly tribals. The drones have already gotten to them, and your friends are separated.

I enjoyed the games graphics. They are very smooth and realistic. The characters look like real humans when they walk. The game has wonderful effects as well. You feel like you are really on a space ship in one of the levels, and it drops you right in the setting of a swamp in another one. The weapons are not real-life weapons, instead they are laser weapons with modern weapon characteristics.

The gameplay is not the best from what Rare usually gives us. It is not terribly bad, it just isn't the best I have seen in other games. One of the main problems is the camera angles. I often find myself looking at the character facing at the screen, shooting bullets at random. Besides these problems, the game is at least worth a rent.

From a Christian perspective, the game is not horrible. You never kill a human once in the game, although you are given the chance to kill innocent bear-like creatures called tribals. You kill these creatures called drones. When you kill these, they are mutilated and slime splatters everywhere. I do not see a problem with this though, considering the fact that the drones are identical to ants. The tribals are a different story, though. The tribals are meant to be rescued, but can be slaughtered in gruesome ways. Watching a creature that looks exactly like a panda bear being blown to bits with sticky “blood” splattering everywhere is not a nice thing for anybody to watch. The tribals often stick together like a family, a baby, a big sister, a mom and a dad. If you kill the mama tribal, the baby starts to cry--a very sad scene indeed. The tribals get mutilated when struck with weapons like the tri-rocket-launcher also. But, if you choose to rescue the tribals, blood and gore are very rare with them.

The game contains no language or adult material. The game is also free of Satanic symbols and evil messages.

Overall, the game is worth a rent. If the violence concerns you, then imagine you are killing bugs (which you basically are.)

Year of Release—1999

Positive—You can also be the dog, lupus, after you find him. One more thing, to be able to access cheat codes, you must collect the heads of the destroyed drones. It also tracks on how many tribal heads you collect, but that doesn't unlock anything. (I think) Also, when you hold the default 'R', you go into a first person aimer mode. Your character becomes transparent when this happens! That shows the time and effort put into this title of Rareware. My Ratings: [5/4]
—Mikee, age 14

I disagree with the reviewer about lack of gameplay. This is the only shoot-em-up game that I like. Most shoot-em-ups are very low on my fun level meter. This is ranked in my top five favorite videogames (Rocket Robot, Rayman 2, Jet Force Gemini, Lemmings and Space Station Silicon Valley). This is in my opinion the best Rare has ever done and that's saying something because I own Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, DK64, DKC and DKC3. I do agree on the fact that the camera behaves like a drunk sometimes, but it is not the worst I've seen and it's a small price to pay for such an excellent game. This game is SO long I had played it for 7 hours and I said to myself "I'm at the final level already and in only 7 hours! This is not very challenging." 7 hours is not a long time for a video game but little did I know they would throw an unexpected surprise in that made me play for another 15+ hours. This game has SO many places to go, it is unbelievable that they could cram that much gameplay into one cartridge. And if that wasn't enough there is also a co-op mode that is easily enabled during gamplay, and THREE other multi-player modes! There is some pretty gruesome fighting scenes with green blood splattering all over the place. That is the worst it gets. Definitely not for the 12-under group. This game is not for everyone. It can be very difficult at times, and quite long for people who are not familiar with video games. But I recommend it to anyone who likes shoot-em-up games or adventure games. My Ratings: [4/5]
—Caleb Thiessen, age 17

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this Christian Spotlight review are those of the reviewer (both ratings and recommendations), and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Films for Christ or the Christian Answers Network.