Virtuoso

I wanted to like the 3DO with all my heart. I saw it as simply a neglected system; one that simply needed the love and affection of a die-hard gamer such as myself. After all, most people passed on the Turbo Grafx, and it's one of my favorites. Games like Virtuoso are EXACTLY why no one should miss the 3DO. Games like Virtuoso may turn you off of video games entirely!

I suppose there is a sort of plot to go with this one. Basically, a world-renowned rock star extraordinaire can't handle the life of ease and riches, and escapes to a cyber world called Virtuoso to blow off steam. Sounds innocuous enough, right? Unfortunately that's exactly the same point at which this title ceases to be anything close to interesting.

When you begin a game, you are given the option of choosing the "surreal" landscapes; surreal meaning "derivative 3D simulation". Your choices are Mars, Haunted House, and Underwater, or Ocean; it doesn't really matter because you will NEVER actually see the water. That is the first problem with this game; there are so many enemies that you cannot aim at and hit that you will die before you get to what you were intended to see! In the Haunted House level I couldn't find the entrance to the damned house, and was instead killed by snowmen out front. Snowmen!? What the hell is scary about a snowman?!?

The navigation, on the whole, is poorly conceived as it is. By pressing the X (select) button, a top-down view of a map is shown, and you can move around on it far better than in the actual game. I navigated my character to the "checkpoints" effortlessly, and with the ability to avoid all of the enemies. What the hell is the point of playing this game if you can skip the "game" part of the game and just go right to the end of the level?!

The music isn't even hard-rocking studio crap that you would expect. It honestly sounds like they hired the first garage band they happened upon at a VFW. If you've ever been to a VFW you know exactly how bad this music is.

The ONLY thing that I liked about this game was the unbelievably corny actor they hired to portray the "world famous" rock star. He looks like the Hells Angels would look of they rode Goldwings and drank light beer. If you back the character up to wall you're treated to a first-person glimpse at fictitious rock-stardom in all its pixilated glory.

There is NO reason to play this game. If you're given this by a friend, figure out what the hell you did to make him hate you so much. This is the WORST game I've ever played! Uggh!