Game:

The Crow: City of Angels (1997)

Duration: 11:19

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Made in 1997, TC:CoA is a horrible video game based on the movie of the same name, which in turn was a sequel to the original movie, "The Crow" (which was actually quite good, all the sequels were mediocre at best though), which, in turn, was based on a comic book series created by James O'Barr that was spawned from the personal tragedies within his own life.

The story takes place some time after the original movie. The setting is Los Angeles, where the drug Kingpin, Judah Earl, controls everything in the city. Similar to events in the first movie, a misfortunate event confronts the main protagonist, Ashe Corven, and someone dear to him (in this case, his eight year-old son, Danny), as they accidentally witness Judah's thugs murder a drug dealer. They get caught, which causes Judah's gang to make an example out of them. The two are viciously beaten, shot multiple times while they pleaded for their lives, tied together, and their dying bodies are cast off a pier.

Roughly one year later, a young woman named Sarah (who is from the original movie, though not played by the same actress; she was a young girl in the original) has dreams about Ashe and Danny to the point that they haunt her. The events are similar to when Eric and Shelley were murdered and Sarah is soon visited by a large crow. She follows the crow to the harbor where Ashe was killed and witnesses his resurrection and as he rises from his watery grave. After a series of events and explanations from Sarah, Ashe realizes that he was brought back to get a chance to seek vengeance against those who ruthlessly took away his life and those he cares about.

While "The Crow: City of Angels" basically had all the right ingredients for an action game or beat-em-up (guy goes around killing everybody for revenge), the game was handled so poorly and with the utmost disrespect; one of the few positives of the game is that Ashe Corven can actually be put out of his misery and that there's a power button on your Sega Saturn so you can turn it off. Better yet, there's probably a window in your house you can open and rumor has it that the CD makes for a mighty good frisbee.

The problem isn't that the game is unplayable... the real question is "why bother?" The game has terrible graphics (the FMVs are very grainy, enemy models all have the same animations, Ashe's animations are marginally better, and the backdrops are horrendous and low-res), your character actually stops at regular odd intervals in an area so the game can LOAD the camera to change the angle of the scene, the controls are terrible and similar to many Resident Evil games (only sluggish and your character reacts well after you already hit a button), and the music is repetitive. Ashe has a limited array of attacks at his disposal and even with the crappy controls, the A.I. is too stupid and the hit detection too poor to make the game particularly challenging. You go from scene to scene killing everyone you can find, leaving your crow marks everywhere, and you keep doing it until you win. You move slow as molasses. Need I say more?

The only advice I can give is to avoid the game altogether. If you aren't a completist collector or if you're a casual gamer, you will probably despise this game as its craptitude rots in the pit of your soul. It was released for Sega Saturn as well as Playstation and PC (the Playstation version probably being the most uncommon). This is a video of it in action.