The Flash

The Good
The commercial success of the Batman film (1989) reignited the interest in adapting films and television shows based on comic book franchise.

The Flash television series had a brief initial run in the early 1990s. It was an expensive show to produce, and comic book fans disliked many of the changes made from the original source material, as well as the the shows, initial, campy-cheesy atmosphere.

Personally, I think that the Flash series had some promise and their were signs, near its demise, of improvement. At any rate, the initial run of the series was sufficient enough to warrants its own video game, albeit only for the original, black and white Game Boy.

Flash on the Game Boy actually looks like the superhero, albeit in portable, black and white graphics. The player gets to control Flash through thirteen, platforming-themed city levels.

It seems that the Trickster has planted bombs around the city and hired an army of criminal thugs to guard them. The game features solid graphics, music and sound effects.

Brief, but nicely done, intermission sequences help move the story along and the passwords prevent the game from being too difficult.

Flash races against the timer to beat up comic book criminal thugs, locate the bomb at the end of each level (which looks like jumbo-sized TNT) and battle the occasional super villain boss before going up against the Trickster.

It is pretty standard beat 'em, platforming, but for the most part (given the obvious hardware limitations) it is well done.

The Bad
The basic control mechanics in the game were made needlessly complicated. First off all, it must me said that your super speed is not especially helpful in the game.

When you move Flash left or right, he he animated as running, instead of walking. You can make him run faster, as long as you collect junk food and money to refill his special, super speed energy bar. Not to be confused with your other energy bar that stands between you and video game cancellation.

The downside to the super speed (apparently, no super villain had thought of simply stealing all of the hotdogs or not putting them all over their lair) is that you may miss an important jump, run into a wall or run into one of the many criminals and other comic book minions that are freely roaming the city.

Perhaps to highlight the "need for speed" the bombs located in each level will explode within a few minutes, which does not leave you much time to explore the levels or collect the items used to replenish your health or super speed.

Last, but not least, someone decided that it would be a good idea to have the 'B' button make Flash jump and the 'A' button make Flash punch. Most of the time in Nintendo games it was the other way around and with good reason.

The Bottom Line
Flash is not a terribly game by any means. It is just not a especially flashy video game.

The basic, beat 'em up format, with only a limited number of attack moves, is fairly well done for the original Game Boy, but its not especially creative and is not likely going to give 'Double Dragon' or 'Streets of Rage' a run for their money.