Superhero League Of Hoboken

Funny things, superheroes. They seem to spend most of their time prancing around in shockingly-snug lycra numbers, doing untold damage to no-gooders and returning peace and harmony to the planet as we know it. And all that with their underwear peeking precariously over their tights. Great, fantastic, but there never seems to be a superhero around when you actually need one, for example, when your toilet floods or the local confectionery emporium has run out of Curly-Wurlys. At least the motley selection of superbrains in Legend's latest role-playing adventure romp, Superhero: League of Hoboken, seem to have been blessed with a few more earthly powers. After all, when did Superman (for all his actually manag-ing-to-move-around-in-a-phone-box abilities) ever manage to eat spicy food without showing the slightest sign of distress, put animals to sleep, or see inside pizza boxes? He couldn't, could he? Not even in his so-called New Adventures.

Superhero: Legend of Hoboken comes across as an eco-friendly, environmentally-sound, caring-sharing, let's slip on a catsuit and cape and trounce some baddies kind of game for the 90s. It's set Sin a futuristic New York (not terribly original, I know, but who cares?) where everything seems to have gone horribly wrong: toxic waste is rife, radioactive monsters are running loose in the streets, the polar icecaps have become insignificant pools of water, and there is a desperate shortage of oat bran! Gasp! Even worse, normally innocent sheep have turned from cute woolly barr lambs into bloodthirsty carnivores! It's just all too much! What's a superhero to do?

Well, the ones in this game don't seem to have much trouble deciding - they band together in a remote part of New Jersey to go out there and take on perilous streets dominated by chemical waste and roaming bands of mutant villains, with only a pea-shooter and an Ace bandage for protection! The eventual object of the game is to reach the Empire State Building, wherein lies the evil Dr Entropy, the man determined that New York should remain festering in toxic waste forever and who, naturally, is none too pleased when a whole bunch of heroic sorts bound into town proclaiming the rebirth of a new society. Defeat the Doc and New York will, once again, be a civilised place where, as it says here, superheroes can always find a date on a Saturday night.

You take on the role of the Crimson Tape, a cheesily grinning heroic kind of guy with the astounding ability to create organisational charts. With him, you get to choose a further three superheroes to take on your quest, from such dignitaries as The Iron Tummy, the aforementioned spicy-food nosher, and Robomop: an android with the ability to clean up almost any mess. Each level on the game consists of a series of missions, which the foursome have to use their logic, intelligence and general ability against all things inhuman to complete, move on to the next level and be that step closer to reaching Dr Entropy. Starting off from your headquarters, you head off around town by means of an on-screen location map, showing you exactly where you are at all times and informing you when you reach points of importance or if you bump into a band of nasties. There will be a number of these toe-rags to overcome throughout the game, ranging from The Terrible Two (wailing two-headed radioactive babies), to McMutants (walking mutant hamburgers - yes, honestly!), to writ-waving lawyers through to Supermom, a demented mother who will kill you by forcing you to - lordy! - wear horrible sweaters and eat Brussels sprouts. However, you can overcome all evil-doers by a choice of methods, including pea-shooting them into submission, using your superpowers, or, if you're really a complete coward, just running away (but this is inadvisable as you'll only come across them later in the game). Expect to die a number of times before finally working out which is the best way to defeat your foes.

Experience points are gained every time you are victorious in combat, which will go towards advancement in the game and (hopefully) your eventual invincibility. Each time a certain amount of experience is gained, you advance to the next class of superhero, until eventually you reach First Class. Continued experience points on this level lead to decorations: medals of honour and the such like, which basically mean that you can belt the living daylights out of enemies without a shred of harm being done to yourself. As the game progresses and more missions are completed, expect new-found riches (which can be used to buy even more evil-looking weapons and other assorted goodies) and a wider selection of superheroes to choose from (which means you no longer have to put up with the rather weedy-looking, Tropical Oil Man, whose shirts look as though they were ironed by his mum, and the not-entirely-useful, Mademoiselle Pepperoni (who looks inside pizza boxes for fun).

Ahahh! a bit of useless paper

There are an infinite number of rooms for you to explore and objects to pick up, all of which will serve a purpose at some stage in the game, even if at the time they do just look like useless bits of paper blowing around all over the place. Although it all threatens to become very complicated, more and more logical moves fall into place as the game goes on. If you do happen to die and have to start again from the beginning, use the Rapid Fight section to whizz through conflicts that you've already done, to speed up the gameplay and generally keep things moving along.

Superfun?

The entertainment factor here is good. Even though the chances of you being killed before you've even had a chance to complete your first mission are fairly high, the whole thing will withstand repeated play to discover more of the absurd monsters, available superheroes and witty dialogue peppering the gameplay, and the graphics look set to be pretty eye-catching too! Every room is worth exploring, and every object worth tampering with just to find out what witty riposte the game will come up with in response to each little detail you explore. It's likely to appeal most to fans of schlock horror movies and anybody with a sense of humour. This is far from being the easiest game in the world to master, but chances are you'll have such a good time attempting it you'll be past caring within five minutes.