PS3

Disney's Hercules Action Game

PlatformArcade

Plays offline: Yes

Overview

Hercules (also known as Disney's Hercules, Disney's Hercules Action Game, Hercules Action Game, Disney's Action Game Featuring Hercules, and Disney's Action Game Featuring Disney's Hercules in Europe) is a 1997 platform-action video game developed by Eurocom Entertainment Software. It is based on the 1997 film of the same name. It was released on the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows, along with a different version developed by Tiertex Design Studios for the Game Boy released by THQ the same year.

The game is mainly two-dimensional, although the player can walk to other planes via pathways or stairs in many missions. There are ten levels and three difficulty modes: Beginner, Medium, and Herculean. The last two levels are playable only on Medium and Herculean difficulties. There are three rush levels in the game in which the player must run forward through the map and avoid obstacles without being able to stop or fight.

The game follows the same storyline as the animated film. Hercules, son of Zeus, is stripped of his godhood and must prove that he is a true hero in order to regain his immortality, and join Zeus and the other gods on Mount Olympus. To do that, Hercules must pass several tasks and defeat many villains, and in the end, face Hades, the ruler of the underworld, who is also responsible for Hercules' loss of immortality.

Most critics applauded the game's mixture of polygons and sprites, both for the high quality of those elements and the way they were seamlessly integrated with each other. GamePro partially disagreed, citing severe pixelation, but acknowledged that the hand-drawn animation is impressive. The usage of music and voices from the film was also widely praised.