Toxic Crusaders (Sega Genesis)
We live in the dump but the rent’s real low!
[bliptv h%2Bh1g5iTPQA.x?p]
LOCR Producer:Things can take a while to get released in Australia… That’s the whole tagline for the Leftover Culture Review, we used to review retro videogames as if they were just starting to trickle through the system here in Australia and even though it was a parody on how behind we feel down-under it’s not entirely untrue.
In Australia, things like video game consoles tended to get released here in the following year (or two), but there’s plenty of examples of things simply not making it to Australian shores. Systems like the Turbografx, Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar and even entire franchises. Case in point, I was never exposed to the Toxic Crusaders. Not the cartoon, not the action figures and lastly, not the video games. I have had some friends, especially friends with multicultural heritage recognising the Toxic Crusaders so I’d love to hear from any other Australians whether Toxic Crusaders made it to their toy-shelves and TV sets.
I should mention I’ve based my assumption on the fact there’s no Mega Drive version of the Toxic Crusaders Videogame and all the Toxic Crusaders figures available online were either from the US or the UK.
Like anyone else on the internet remotely interested in 90’s culture and video games, I’ve seen Cinemassacre’s Angry Video Game Nerd cover the Toxic Crusaders games on the Game Boy, Genesis and the NES but James Rolfe had the opportunity to grow up with the Toxic Crusaders. I’ve come into the franchise totally naive.
This is a title that brings me back right to beginning of the Leftover Culture Review, checking out retro video games in the guise of ‘these are new in Australia because we’re so far behind’. The difference is we were just left out, but with the internet and eBay firmly placed in our 21st century tool-belts, I can finally discover this awesomely 90’s franchise and genuinely get excited about some pure Leftover Culture that I’ve only just discovered.
The Toxic Crusaders was a really colourful cartoon, all those bright neon colours. They made an easy, excellent leap into the videogame realm. For a side-scrolling beat ’em up, it feels like a fast game, you’re constantly maneuvering and you can take out most enemies with a few hits. I discovered that it’s been incorrectly labelled a single player in a few places. The Toxic Crusaders is totally a cooperative beat ’em up providing you have a second controller plugged in and ensured there are two characters selected at the character selection screen.
Is this going to be a game I can recommend? No. It’s terribly standard, but I did enjoy playing it and I purposely ended on a more personal example of how much this means to me.
