According to Greg Weisman, co-creator and -producer of Gargoyles, Disney has slated the release of Season One of the cartoon on DVD sometime in the fourth quarter of 2004. (It was originally scheduled for sometime in 2003, but Disney pushed it back - supposedly to "coincide with the tenth anniversary of the show".) If sales of this set are good, Disney will most likely release boxed sets for Seasons Two and (ugh) Three (A.K.A. "Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles"). Of course, given that the date given for the DVD release has changed at least twice, I'm not holding my breath.

No word on what special features (if any) the DVDs will have.


Full Title: Gargoyles
Platform: Sega Genesis/Megadrive
Developer: Buena Vista Interactive
Publisher: Buena Vista Interactive
Year: 1995
Genre: Sidescroller (Hand-To-Hand Combat)
ESRB Rating: K-A

Based on the Gargoyles cartoon show (produced by Buena Vista's parent company, Disney), this video game places you in control of Goliath, the leader of the gargoyle clan at Castle Wyvern. The game consists of five levels, each split into several subsections. The first two levels take place in the castle itself in A.D. 995, the remaining three in modern-day New York City.

Even players who are familiar with the show will be somewhat confused by the storyline. As the game begins, Viking wizards have created a talisman of great magical power - the Eye of Odin. (In the show, the Eye of Odin is, quite literally the eye of the god Odin, stolen from him at some point in the last thousand years.) Mad with power, they decide to attack, of all things, a small castle in Northern Scotland. As the game progresses, some of the events from the show occur - but in a fairly nonsensical manner. After the second level, despite having defeated the Vikings, you're put under a magic spell for letting the castle be destroyed. Just as in the cartoon, the spell is set to break "when the castle rises above the clouds", and it's done the same way - the castle is placed on a very tall skyscraper. Why anybody would do this, however, is not explained; nor is it apparent why you immediately find yourself waist-deep in malevolent robots. When you reach the end, you discover the source of all the trouble - Demona - but she isn't introduced until exactly this point, and it isn't explained who she is or what she's doing here.

Neither is the gameplay particularly outstanding. All of the enemies and traps are incredibly predictable; unfortunately, that doesn't make it easy to kill them - the patterns they run in often leave you only a fraction of a second to attack. On the other hand, all of the enemies except bosses and the "Thor 3000" robots can be killed simply by throwing them. The bosses themselves get more or less progressively more difficult: the Viking Wizard on the first level is fairly easy to beat; but if you can even get through the three Cerebrus robots to Demona, you then have to face her while avoiding a huge machine gun and some other odd attacks. It is doable, but you'll most likely get frustrated beforehand with having to fight so many mini-bosses to get to her. Replayability is minimal; the difficulty levels simply mean you start with a different number of lives.

Overall, Gargoyles isn't a horrible game, but neither is it very good. It's alright for an hour or so's diversion, but don't go looking for anything particularly challenging or innovative.