0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bio Freaks

        

Bio Freaks also known as Bio F.R.E.A.K.S, is a 3D fighting game that was developed by Saffire Corporation, and published by Midway Games and GT Interactive. The game was originally slated as an Arcade release but that release was shelved and the game eventually released on the Playstation, Nintendo 64 and PC. Prototypes of the Arcade release were even tested before the projected was canned in favour of a console release.

The game released in May of 1998 in North American for the Playstation and September of the same year in Europe, the Nintendo release of the game was also in May in North America, while the PC release of the game came in August of 1998.

Notable people who worked on the game, Dave Simon who worked as the Lead Artist and Game Designer, he came up with the idea for the 2003 game Freaky Flyers. Largely though he has mostly worked in the Quality Assurance side of the game industry, with his most recent credits being Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and Planescape Torment Enhanced Edition.

Dave Wagner who worked as a Programmer on Bio Freaks, the following two years after it’s release he worked on the Ready 2 Rumble series, working as Lead Programmer on both Ready 2 Rumble Boxing and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing Round 2. he also worked as part of the Design team for both of these games.

Following the release of the Ready 2 Rumble games, he worked as the Engine and Tools Director for the 2005 released Darkwatch. And the following year worked as an AI Engineer on The Lord of The Ring The Battle for Middle-Earth.

Aubrey Hodges has had a very long career in the video game industry, largely working on the sound and music side of things, prior to working on the music of Bio Freaks, he worked on the music for the Doom series, including the original Doom, Final Doom and Doom 64, as well as the 1998 released Quake.

For a large part of his career from finishing his work on Freaky Flyers in 2003 up until 2008, Hodges worked on the Madden and Nascar series of games, working as the Audio Director on these franchises. Following his work on Madden and Nascar, in 2011 he worked on Army of Darkness Defence, and the following year as the Sound Designer on Paper Toss Friends. The same year his final two credits were for NinJump Deluxe and Fieldrunners, working on the Music and Audio for these games.

Bio Freaks is a fully 3D polygonal fighting game, which features 8 fighters as well as 2 boss fighters. The fighting in Bio Freaks uses a mix of hand to hand combat as well as ranged attacks, as well as special attacks for both close and long range. The game also features finishing attacks, similar in style to the Mortal Kombat series Fatalities. These attacks are used to execute you opponents, also limb damage can result in limbs being destroyed during combat.

Basic movement for your fighter is done by using the D-Pad, the face buttons correspond to a standard attack, with the X button a left kick, the circle button a right kick, square will deliver a left punch while the triangle button will deliver a right punch.

The fighters have the ability to dodge an attack this is done by pressing either the L2 or R2 shoulder buttons. A mentioned above each of the characters has a ranged attack, to fire the ranged attack the R1 shoulder button is used, characters can also fly using the trust button which is the L1 shoulder button.

The D-Pad has four main uses, the first is moving forward this is done by pressing the corresponding direction that you character is facing, pressing the opposite so if you are facing left and you hit the right D-Pad button you will perform a block.

Pressing down on the D-Pad will make your fighter crouch while the up D-Pad button is used for making your fighter jump. In addition to the various moves that each of the characters has, there are a set of basic moves that all characters can perform.

 

These range from an arena throw, which is done by pressing forward on the D-Pad followed by the X and Square buttons for a left punch and left kick. And Crouch kick which is done by pressing down plus either the X or Circle button.

Each of the characters has their own individual move list, in addition to these they also have aerial attacks as well as their finishing attacks. Each of these last two categories will not be the same number of moves for each character, for example Bullzeye has three aerial and three finishing moves, while Delta only has one aerial move and two finishers.

Each of the characters can also perform combos and juggles, each of the fighters only has one juggle move however combo numbers differ between fighters. Staying with Bullzeye and Delta, Bullzeye has a total of 9 combos plus two chain attacks as far as I have been able to find Bullzeye is the only character who can chain, while Delta has only access to seven combos.

 

These combos range from a 3 hit combo up to the maximum of a 7 hit combo, with combos they are done by chaining together a set number of attacks for example one of Bullzeye’s 6 hit combo is done by pressing RK, RK, RP, RK, LP, RP, RK. Juggle combos work in a similar way, with the exception of Down followed by Down + Right Punch are used first in order to juggle your opponent.

When in combat, like most fighting games the characters health bar is shown at the top of the screen below their name, this bar is fully great to begin with, with the bar turning darker for any health lost. Below the health bar are two circles that represent round victories, these turn red for each of the fight round won. Next to this is the shield bar, to activate the shield back and R1 are used, this will deplete the shield bar as you use it, the shield bar to refill when not being used.

Characters also have the ability to hover this is done by holding the L1 shoulder button, when you do this your character will activate their thrusters, at the same time a bar will appear on the bottom left of the screen showing how much thrust you have remaining.

Game modes wise Bio Freaks has five modes on offer for the player, the first is arcade mode, you have a VS mode, a team battle mode, a survival mode as well as a practice mode for you to hone your Bio Freak fighting skills.

In the not too distance future, the United States has fallen, like the many empires that have come before have done. After the Techno-Industrial civil wars that tore the nations states apart, technological development went into overdrive, resulting in massive corporate competition and corporate espionage, with the government trying to desperately hold control over the country.

The effects of the corporate war, was the economy of the United States to go into a tail spin, once the dust had settled a new America rose from the ashes of the old, this new Neo Amerika has dumped the shackles of government and in its place the technological corporations have taken over.

Above is the PlayStation version of Bio Freaks, and below is the Nintendo 64 version of the game

In order for these organizations to maintain their power and order over the population the SGC is formed. The SGC or the Secret Games Commission is formed to organize a tournament between the various corporate organizations to decide which one will gain control of all of Neo Amerika.

The tournament results in the creation of the Biological Flying Robotic Enhanced Armored Killing Synthoids, otherwise known as the Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. Each of the corporations is represented by one of these Biofreaks at the tournament.

 

Critically the game was largely received as above average by the handful of critics that reviewed the game, with the exception of a couple of review scores, which found Bio Freaks to be well above average, with one review scoring the game very impressively.

As usual we will start with the best of them, which comes from Dutch publication Power Unlimited who scored the game at an impressive 92. the review called Bio Freaks an asset to the beat’em up genre, the reviewer saying that the game has a unique atmosphere and all of the ingredient of a good fighting game. They concluded by saying many atrocities, life-threatening battle arenas and sick characters. An absolute must have.

Next up with a solid 83 rating for the game are Absolute Playstation, the reviewer commenting that the game is ideal for a gamer with a slight twisted sense of humour. The reviewer continued by praising the games animations calling them fluid, as the fighters move and fly around very smoothly.

The reviewer continued by commenting on the lower number of combos available, they still however provide enough to keep the game interesting, concluding they said. If you don't take it too seriously the effects will provide a few laughs among your mates after the pub closes.

For the third highest review for the game we head over Germany and Mega Fun, it is here we see a drop in review score down to a decent 73, the reviewer praising the sharper graphical looks of the Playstation version as well as the atmosphere and variety of the game.

The review was however not without issues with the game, the major issue was the collision detection, which the reviewer found that this could now and then misfire. They also found that the special moves not that easy to use, even after a long training session, concluding they found the game to be a class weaker than the present brawlers that are available, they also said this should be kept away from children’s hands.

Game Revolution were next up, with their 67 rated review, the reviewer finding not many problems with Bio Freaks, but the ones that are present are big enough to seriously affect how fun the game is. Concluding the reviewer found that the game is more of a comical game, overly gory and with simple controls, that provide a good diversion but not much of a lasting experience.

IGN were close behind this review with their above average score of 65, the reviewer finding that the game is likely to attract many games, who are tired of the usual old Street Fighter style game, with few venturing into the style that Bio Freak has, overall the reviewer found the game to be surprisingly fun.

Lastly we have GameSpot who awarded the game an average 57 review score, the reviewer finding that Bio Freaks will fall into the category of just one of those fighting games. The review recommended renting the game at least once to see the beautiful graphics and to try something new, concluding they said, while some gamers will be taken by Big Freaks, most will tire pretty easily.

 

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where if you are looking to trade in your copy of Bio Freaks you will be looking at $4 for your copy of the game at trade in. If on the other hand your are looking for a copy of the game from Gamedude, you will be looking at an outlay of $9 for a copy.

Next we head over to Retogames.co.uk, where we don’t find the Playstation version of the game available, or even listed. We do find the Nintendo 64 version of the game available, currently Retrogames have only one copy of this available, a complete copy in excellent condition, the outer box has an 8.5/10 condition rating from the site. This copy of Bio Freaks for the Nintendo 64 will however set you back £25, which converts to around $35.

Moving on to eStarland.com we find two copies of the Playstation version of the game available, the first is a disc only copy of the game, this copy will set you back $5.23. The second copy on offer is a complete used copy of the game, this copy is priced up at $9.50.

Also on offer from eStarland.com is a trade in for the game, with eStarland paying up to $4 for a complete copy of the game. This price will depend on the completeness of your trade in copy, with a disc only copy worth just $1.40 at trade in.

Lastly we head over to Amazon.com, where we find a decent supply of the game available, where we find the first three copies on the market are all complete and in good conditon. The first of these is shipped by Amazon, so the free shipping only applies to Prime users and those spending over $25.

The other two copies are priced at $5.97 and $5.99 once the shipping costs have been added in. following these early complete copies we find several incomplete of disc only copies of the game. The next complete copy we find is in very good condition, with the disc having been professionally cleaned, this copy will set you back $9.58 once shipping has been factored in.

If you are looking for a better quality used copy of the game, then these are several like new copies on the market at a reasonable price. The first of these is priced at $12.99 once shipping has been added in, another like new copy is the same price with another just 5 cents more at $13.04.

If however you are in the market for a new copy of the game, you will find a good number on the market. The new copies of the game however currently have a minimum price of $21.18. A handful of new copies are priced between this and the $31 mark, but from her prices rise pretty sharply, with the current price peak for Bio Freaks coming in at $53.99.

Written by

P J Gibbon