Cosmic Carnage (32X) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
147A playthrough of Sega's 1994 versus-fighting game for the Sega 32X, Cosmic Carnage.
Played through as Cylic on the normal difficulty level. Fatalities and the good ending are shown.
I remember this game getting panned pretty hard by magazines when it came out, but I've always been rather partial to it. It looks much better (technically, at least) than anything on the SNES or the base Sega Genesis, with a cool scaling zoom (a la Samurai Shodown) that shifts based on the distance between the fighters, and there are some cool pseudo-3D effects with some moves when a leg or a foot get bigger based on how close to the "camera" they come. It's also pretty nicely violent, with blood spraying in huge quantities when you take someone's head off. It's not all daisies, since some of these effects cause some pretty ugly slowdown, but the animation looks great.
The sound is also pretty good - sure, it could've been done nearly identically on the Genesis, but the soundtrack is pretty catchy and full of dance-music style bass. I also really dug the sci-fi theme. I did find myself wishing for a few voice samples, though.
The gameplay is fairly unique in itself. Though the moves are all basic Street Fighter II style command inputs, you can change your character with different strengths of armor for their legs, arms, and torso, and each of these choices will, in addition to changing the obvious speed and power of the character, will change which special moves are available during the fight. The fatalities are all super graphic, but unfortunately, there aren't many of them, and they are the same between each character. Finally, the ending you get it determined by how long it takes you to get through the game - if you take too long beating everyone, the countdown will finish before you can escape. If that happens, c'est la vie. You finish the game, but you don't really win.
Cosmic Carnage is nothing revolutionary, but it is a solid title if you want a fun (albeit generic) original fighter for the 32X. It looks and plays better than the 32X Primal Rage port, even if it doesn't match up to the quality of Mortal Kombat II and WWF The Arcade Game.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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