Gargoyles are a race of winged stone creatures that come alive as the sun disappears into the night. Goliath, their leader, has learned of a great danger that could mean the end of the world: an ancient relic known as the Eye of Odin. Travel through 1,000 years of time in Goliath's quest to destroy this evil artifact once and for all. Of course, there are those who do not want you to succeed!

The story behind Gargoyles takes us back to 994 A.D., where a psychotic Viking chieftain orders his servile sorcerers to create for him the ultimate weapon of destruction. He wants to conquer the world. The bad guys create a bad ass weapon called the Eye of Odin. The evil Vikings then decide to wage war on ancient Northern Europe and the British Isles, specifically Castle Wyvern in Scotland. This is where the baddies make their first mistake. Castle Wyvern is under the protection of Goliath, the powerful leader of a mysterious race of creatures known as gargoyles. Goliath has the power to fly (for extremely short periods – he's pretty heavy) and climb sheer stone walls with his razor sharp talons (not someone you'd want to piss off). Needless to say, the first couple of stages in the game have Goliath rampaging through his home turf and slipping the big hurt on these feather-helmet wearing meanies. Next, we are sent down into the bowels of the castle's Rookery, where the eggs of Goliath's clan rest in precarious nests. Goliath must rescue the eggs from the meanies or his race will face extinction.

Gargoyles are more than just creepy-looking winged creatures that sit atop ancient churches and Gothic structures, they are the rulers of the night. While most people have never seen a gargoyle when it comes “alive”, chances are that those things that go “bump” in the night are these mythical and mysterious beings. And now, you must lead Goliath, the leader of the gargoyles, on a quest to save the world from the nefarious Eye of Odin before it annihilates the planet. As you move under the shelter of darkness, you'll come up against the worst legion of enemies you've ever seen, Raptorbots, Spiderbots, and Waspbots, all with the intention of making sure you fail. In Gargoyles, it's up to you to save the world, while most of it is still asleep!

Enemies range from primitive Vikings to advanced robotic insects as you progress through the game's 18 levels. Climb huge, gothic buildings while avoiding fire and projectiles, attack in mid-air, claw enemies on the ground, or somersault to break crumbling walls. Does the title sound familiar? Gargoyles is based on Buena Vista's animated series (1994–1997) of the same name. Defend your home from the evil of the night!

Gargoyles features:

• You play as Goliath, leader of the gargoyles
• You must stop the Eye of Odin from destroying the world
• 18 levels of stone-cold action
• Hordes of robot enemies to battle
• Climb walls and maneuver upside-down

The graphics in Gargoyles are beautiful. The backgrounds are draped in rich hues of blue or black and red, shadows sprout from perfectly logical locations, stone structures (a lot of them in this game) have definable solidity and weight, flames lick the air and look painful to the touch and our protagonist, Goliath, is a fierce looking buff mother with an amazingly graceful and highly useful wingspan. The pre-medievel looking settings of the first few levels quickly give way to the jarring beauty of downtown Manhattan and all of sudden you'll realize you're into something very special here. You get to flap and fling yourself around subways and skyscrapers and, if you bite it, a snazzy animation pops into frame, where you get turned to stone and struck by lightning, only to crumble into a million shards of rubble. The bad guys in the game are equally impressive. Some of the Viking vermin you encounter look like they've slipped out of your Weaponlord cartridge, while other baddies appear to be members of the X-Men and all of their roboto-mutato brethren. Thor 3000, especially, is an imposing sci-fi threat with his metallic claws, polished shine and deadly plasma bolts.

The music in Gargoyles is quite like you'd imagine: Gothic. There are lots of clanging church bells and ominous bass drums. You still get the requisite techno underpinnings to the tunes but there has definitely been an attempt to inject some aural atmosphere into the proceedings, which is thoughtful. Sound effects in Gargoyles are very tasty. The flap of Goliath's wings is poetry, pure and simple. I've never heard such a discreetly intuitive sound effect on the Genesis; it really adds to the sensation of this enormous stone beast struggling to propel himself skyward. Victims of Goliath's claw slashes scream in convincing agony and flaming fireballs sound painful.