Hello and welcome back to my blog!
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is an arcade game launched by Capcom in 1993. It was a popular side-scroller, "beat 'em up" type of game with the likes of "Double Dragon" and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle". It was based on the comic book series, Xenoxoic Tales by Mark Schultz.
My connection with the game
I have a special connection to this game. Back in the days when I was a kid, we saw a game store open up close to our place with two big game machines both running Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and Tekken 3. I used to go there every evening stand with my cousin and watch others play the game and sometimes when we got lucky someone let us play for a minute or two. But we were just happy seeing the game. We used to call it Mustafa. I had no idea what is the name of the game as we rarely saw the title screen. All we saw was kids playing the game one after the other.
One day the shop closed suddenly and the game slowly vanished from our memories. But after I got my PC I searched for the game and saw that the name was Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and played a little. It brought back those precious old memories but I never got back to completing the game.
But one day I saw this post of @ayamihaya where she shared her experience of attending one of the biggest LAN tournaments of Bangladesh and she played the game Cadillacs and Dinosaurs and they call it Mustafa too. I guess it was a popular retro game in the subcontinent.
One of the popular playable characters is named Mustapha Cairo and I guess Cadillacs and Dinosaurs was harder for us (Indian Subcontinent) to pronounce so we called it Mustafa which I believe is easy to pronounce for us. This reminds me of a friend on Hive @incublus who is our Mustafa on Hive...hehe. He is as cool and badass as Mustapha Cairo.
Anyway, I was thinking of completing the game and writing a detailed review for those who missed this gem. I completed two runs of the game to understand the plot better because, on the first run, you get distracted by all the things you can kill...lol
Gameplay
This is a local multiplayer where up to 3 players can play simultaneously battling hordes of enemies and bosses. There are around 8 levels and each ends with a boss fight.
There are four playable characters each having a different combination of power, speed and skill. They also have unique special moves and one of the moves is so powerful that it reduces their own HP when it hits a target. For example, Mustapha Cairo has a spinning flying kick which attacks at 360 degrees and has much better reach.
Dinosaurs are mostly passive and roam around on many levels their skin color is green indicating they are chill but once attacked or woken from sleep they get mad and attack both us and the enemies.
Players can pick up weapons and use them. There are plenty of destructible objects in the game that will drop weapons/food and coins to increase the score. There are a plethora of weapons ranging from simple knives and rocks to powerful Bazookas, guns and explosives.
This was designed for those retro gaming machines so expect to die a lot. The game wants you to insert coins like crazy, especially if you are playing alone. I have not played it with 3 players maybe the game feels much more balanced and easy with two more players alongside you to help you.
One of the levels has a car chase scene where we have to chase down a baddie who throws bombs at us. It is one of the best levels in the game for me.
Plot
We are in the 26th century and dinosaurs roam around freely but a gang (the Black Markeeters) started hunting them for some nefarious purposes. Our heroes, Jack Tenric (Mechanic and Shaman), Hannah Dundee (Diplomat and Explorer), Mustapha Cairo (Engineer and Jack's friend) and the mysterious Mess O'Bradovich set out to find the truth.
They go to the "City in the Sea" (level/episode 1) and fight with Vice T. on top of a building where Vice spills the name of "Butcher" who is hunting in the northern woods.
We pass through the Swamp forest fighting off poachers and encountering some deadly dinosaurs. Most of the dinosaurs were dead and we found the cause of that.
Butcher seems to be a maniac and killing those poor dinosaurs. We confronted him and got rid of him.
Now we cut to a scene of someone trying to break into Jack's Garage so we cross a deadly desert in our Cadillac and take down the guy called Hogg.
This completes the third episode but now Jack's Garage has been taken over by some guy. We get back and start clearing our garage from the enemies.
In the end, we took out their leader Slice who was very quick on his feet and knew how to use knives well.
This is the time when we receive a call from an old man who wants our help from the dinosaurs.
We go to the "Village of Flames" (Level/Episode 5) and fight with both dinosaurs and human enemies. We found out that the village had been set on fire. Who would have done this to their village?
It turns out a guy named Morgan had done this after the old man refused to abide by his evil plans. Morgan killed the old man as we saw him. We fought with Morgan and defeated him.
But...Wait! He had a serum, given by a mad doctor, which he used to transform into a deadly creature called Morgue.
Our heroes killed that ugly creature and went in search of that doctor who was creating new life forms like that.
We crossed another jungle and mine, and they find a tentacled creature, Tyrog who attaches to the enemies and transforms them. It reattached a few more times until we managed to finally kill it.
Jack connected all the dots and found out that it was the work of Dr. Fessenden.
Our heroes went through to a basement, crossed a big library and finally saw some tech equipment. But there was no doctor and suddenly he appeared on a screen commanding his guys to kill us. We defeat his creatures called Silisaurs and head towards his bio lab.
The lab was full of specimens and creatures he experimented with, some of those attacked us as well. We went through a tunnel to reach the caves where the doctor was hiding.
On seeing us he injected himself with a serum and transformed into a deadly creature. Our heroes defeated it but that was only his first phase. He transformed into a 3 headed creature with so many abilities.
Killing it was not an easy task, expect to die a lot of times in this final boss. When we finally managed to kill the beast, a self-destruct sequence started and all the heroes ran for their lives.
Hannah fell on the floor and Jack stayed back to help her. The other two can be seen jumping out of the building and it looked like Hannah and Jack had died. But they managed to escape from there and all the heroes united which makes for a good ending to the game.
This game was a hit in Japan where it was first released. And later on, spread to other parts of Asia. There are so many 90s kids who remember playing this in India. Almost all my college mates have played this at some point in their childhood or seen it being played somewhere.
I can't blame them, it is such a satisfying title and very enjoyable when you play with friends. You can even combine moves when you play with your friends and the synergy between all the different characters is nice too. The retro music is a banger too.
It brought back so many happy memories from my childhood. I had a blast playing it.
Thanks for reading...
Note:
- All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
- Hive gaming text divider from Raizel posted in HiveGaming Discord Server.
- Screenshots are from the game Cadillacs and Dinosaurs used under the fair use policy.
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