The Hero We Deserve?

THEY can use super powered rings, why can't you?

Those of us who survived the early nineties knew that there were loads of dangers. Maybe it was getting hooked on crack and ending up a burn out that needed help from Kirmit the Frog and the Ninja Turtles in order to break the destructive cycle. Maybe it the possibility of getting kidnapped because you trusted a man you'd never met before. Or maybe it was just because of your Cabbage Patch doll who wanted to eat your head. But there was one thing that we were certain about: the ecology of earth was in danger... Or, at least, that's what Captain Planet and the Planeteers would have us believe.

The premise of the show was simple. Gaia, the Spirit of Earth, gets 5 teenagers to help preserve nature with the aid of 5 magic rings, each representing an element. Earth, fire, wind, water, and heart. Although the heart is definately more of a vital organ than an element, we're going to let that slide for now. Now, as a stand-alone, these powers were pretty awesome. Fire could conjure up flames at any moment. Earth could make you an Earthbender. Water would give you dominion over all water. Wind could... well... blow wind... And Heart would allow you to talk to animals. When these powers combined, however, we got a green-mulleted, shiny super hero named Captain Planet who would be the embodiment of all of these powers.

There are a couple of flaws in this show that maybe got overlooked. The first and most shocking to me is that they gave the troubled, inner-city youth dominion over fire. This just screams attempted arson. Even if he's not that troubled, giving a boy the ability to conjure up flames at his beck and whim is terribly irresponsible. Every boy goes through something of a pyromaniac stage, burning all sorts of crap just because it's there to burn. Another thing that I'd want to point out is that it seems like if anyone in any cartoon gets the ability to talk to animals, it's always the Indian kid, right? And finally, I'd just like to point out for anyone else interested that the voice of Linka was also the voice of Sally Acorn from the Adventure of Sonic the Hedgehog and is also the voice of female undead in World of Warcraft. (Kath Soucie)

Only two of these had disturbing fan art when I image searched the names. Try and guess which ones!

The show, understandably, got some parents in a fervor. I had friends whose parents wouldn't let them watch the show. The problem is that all of the villians are usually big-wigs in corporations. So, in the Captain Planet world, all corporate heads are terrible villians. There isn't a single company in this show that is eco-friendly. So, it gives something of a weighted view for young viewers. They grow up thinking the same thing. How much of that is steeped in truth and how much of it I just made up is anyone's guess. But I think that's the same reason why there's so much hooha about the new Lorax movie...

ANYWAYS, this series spawned a game with 10 levels of eco-friendly awesome.

HE'S HEADING RIGHT FOR US!!!

I had the opportunity to play this game all the way through, but to be fair, I only made it to level two with insane amounts of save states and then after that I hacked for lives and health. The main design flaw is that your attacks use energy. This is the same energy that you use as life. While this is not that important while flying in the helicopter (as one hit will kill you dead), this is terribly unfair when you're playing as Captain Planet. Understand that while Captain Planet only exists to fight things like pollution and toxic waste, the very thing he battles renders him weaker than a heart-attack patient. Blow some smoke in his face and he's on the ground. The game makes sure you remember this by coating the walls in any sort of slime that is very fatal to our beloved blue captain.

Level one has you trying to stop Hoggish Greedly as he's tapping oil reserves or drilling for oil or whatever. The point is that he's got an army of helicopters ready to shoot down a bunch of teenagers because he's violating every EPA law and code that has ever existed. After a seemingly never ending side shooter that's horribly redundant and insanely difficult, you land and the Planeteers summon Captain Planet. The ritual is simple: you draw a pentagram on the floor in chicken's blood and get someone to start reading from the 6th chapter of the Necronomicon. While you've got someone chanting, you sacrifice any sort of small animal in the center with the sacrificial knife. What's that? You only remember having to combine the power of the Planeteer's rings to summon him? Well... sure... I guess that would work too...

Captain Planet infiltrates the base. Here he can punch and fly. Also, he can kind of do this Sonic Spin-Dash attack which turns him into whatever element you have chosen. Now, it's at this point that I must point out that in order to change the element you have selected, you must press Start. To pause the game, you must press Select. Now, maybe it's just me, but it seems like they broke like, the only real law there is to video games: Start button pauses the game. You never mess that up. It might bring up a menu screen, but the game will be stopped after pressing Start. This led to many unnecessary deaths on my part when I tried to either pause the game or tried to switch out what power I had equipped.

Now, using these powers drains your health bar. Getting hit drains your health bar. Staying in one place probably drains your health bar. When you get to the end of the level, you fight Hoggish Greedly as he stands in a control room controlling two robotic arms that will keep grabbing you. The battle was interesting until I realized that attacking the arms does nothing, and instead I had to fly to the blind spot for the arms and bullets which is right in front of the glass to the room Hoggish is standing in. You punch through the glass and beat the level.

The next level you're back in the helicopter. The wicked Dr. Blight wants to dump toxic waste into the water! Why, you might ask? Because screw you, that's why! That toxic waste isn't going to dump itself into the water! This level requires you to use the power of earth to throw a rock in front of three different trucks to stop them from dropping the sludge into the water. I was able to thwart the first one just fine. The second... well...

Damn you nature!

The second truck is nigh impossible to catch up to before it reaches the next dump point. (Your helicopter inexplicably explodes when it starts to dump the sludge) After watching my helicopter blow up half a billion times, I decided that this level was broken, on account of the truck perpetually going faster than you helicopter, and used a password to skip it. (637511, in case you were wondering...)

Another level as Captain Planet. These are ridiculously easy if you're cheating. If you're not cheating... well, if you're not cheating or using billions of save states, then you're probably still on level one. I beat the boss. Praise is had.

"Well done in stepping back and letting me get all the glory! Couldn't have done it without you!"

Level 5 has you playing underwater. Hoggish Greedly is now poaching sea creatures. (Hoggish is kind of a dick, in case you hadn't noticed.) This is a really hard level, since you move so slowly and you'll have these homing mines that make you explode. There are also these missiles that launch up and will make you explode. And these walls... that... make you explode... I think maybe the submarine is made of nitroglycerin? Well, there are other boats of better structrual integrity that are poaching the sea creatures. You use the power of heart to command the animals to attack the boats for you. Or fall in love with them.

The yellow squid, romantically entangled with a boat... Nature is beautiful...

Jokes about squids copulating with watercraft aside, this level really is a beast. But it pays off as you dock in Hoggish Greedly's base and have Captain Planet stop him before any fish get really hurt.

Oops... Well, better late then never, right?

The showdown with Hoggish is even easier this time around. You just need to get to him. There's a hallway of vacuum pipes that feed into meat grinders (like the one above) that you have to dodge and then once you get near Hoggish he gives up and Captain Planet blows up the base, because looting and polluting is wrong, but terrorism is hunky dory.

The next level is rather interesting. Looten Plunder is hunting the African Elephant for its tusks. Ivory is a big deal, even today. Of course, this is wrong. We must stop it. What we do here is... It's easier to show you, actually...

Not shown: Using the elephant to take out anti-air missile bases... Seriously...

The power of heart apparently can be used as some sort of flesh magnet to pick up and elephant. You then drop him off right before an anti-air missile silo for it to trample it to smithereens and then it trundles off into a wildlife preserve. Of course, in reality, an elephant can't survive a fall much larger than a foot, much less three to four times its height. But we couldn't have the Planeteers be killing off the elephants while trying to save them, could we?

Finally, after all (read: 3) elephants are safe from captivity, Captain Planet is summoned to stop the slaughter of the elephants. This is where things get messed up for a kids game...

Captain Planet is channeling fire power, in case you were wondering. Pictured above is an elephant's skeleton (tusks intact, interestingly enough) at the bottom of a pool of blood. Watered down blood, perhaps, but you are in a slaughterhouse after all. That's definitely not Kool-Ade.

After navigating the slaughterhouse maze and freeing a bunch of elephants along the way, you get to fight the boss. It's actually more of a chase that requires luck and memorizing the path that you run along. You just need to get close enough to punch the ship and then it disappears.

Now we're in the home stretch. The last two levels are facing off against none other than Duke Nukem!

He's here to radiate and chew gum... and he's all outta gum...

Not who you were expecting, huh? The creators of the Duke Nukem we know and love actually changed his name to Duke Nukum for a little while to avoid a potential lawsuit until they found out that Captain Planet's Duke Nukem wasn't actually copyrighted, so they changed the name back. And Gaia looks totally hot right there. Kind of like Storm's long lost sister or something. Mmmm.... Nature....

This is the most infuriating level of the game, aside from level 3. I used a billion save states to get to the end, because you're forced into little tiny pathways that always include a fatal trap at the end, while enemies are shooting at you from every which direction. Also, touch anything and you'll explode. That's why I didn't get any screen caps until the very end.

I never thought that I'd see the radioactive monster's evil lair as a sanctuary until now.

The last level of the game is kind of like Contra. Everything makes sense up until then. The last level is a myriad of colored balls and radioactive isotopes. All of which hurt you. The end fight is actually a puzzle. Duke Nukem will shoot some sort of laser at you. All around the room are little mirrors that you have to position correctly in order reflect the beam at the energy core that Duke is standing under. After three self-inflicted blows, Duke is susceptible to a single punch. And like that, Captain Planet has saved the day! Roll ending sequence!

YEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

...Unless you didn't make it that far...

Great Odin's beard! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!!!