Introduction

I must say that I had a tough time writing this review. I wanted to like Light Rangers as much as I've liked the six other games from Digital Praise that I've reviewed. But I just couldn't do that and be true to my feelings which, at best, are mixed.

The biggest similarity between Light Rangers and those other games is its foundation in Christian values. This time out, references to Christianity and the Bible are more direct, obvious, and plentiful. The importance of humility, patience, selflessness, obedience and wisdom is emphasized. The game is rated for ages 6 and older.

While all of those other games were developed and published by Digital Praise, however, Light Rangers was developed by Brethren Entertainment and only published by Digital Praise. The tone of this game has a distinct edge that's absent in the others, although whether this is related to the fact that its developer is a company other than Digital Praise, I can't say. The game does have its good points, but I found some of its other aspects to be more than a little off-putting.

Story

The city of Angeltown has been invaded by a quartet of nefarious nasties who, under the direction of Maniac Brainiac, are exerting their evil influence over the town's children. Playing as one of three Light Rangers, your task is to defeat the villains and restore the town's harmony by completing five arcade-style games-within-the-game.

I have no particular problem with the story per se, although I do take exception to some of the Light Rangers' behavior in the situations it offers (see Characters). The story rates a "B."

Graphics and Sound

Light Rangers is presented in the style of Japanese anime. Consequently, the game features characters with big eyes, exaggerated hair, extreme facial expressions, overstated actions, etc. (Interestingly, the Lead Design Artist is billed in the game's manual as "Psycho Ann.") Graphics and animation are quite colorful and nicely rendered.

A wide choice of background music is offered. While each selection tends to be a bit repetitious and no "turn off music" option is offered, players can change tunes at any time from within the game. Voice acting and sound effects are appropriate, although some of the dialog is also a little repetitious. For instance, one of the villains repeats, "Take that! Ha-ha-ha!" continuously throughout the entire arcade game level in which he appears.

Graphics and sound earn an "A-."

Characters

The Light Rangers are actually three ordinary nine-year-olds named A.J., Amos, and Angel who have been "transformed by the power of God's word" to do battle with the game's villains. They are assisted in their quest to clean up Angeltown by Sunday school teacher/computer scientist Dr. Goodman, whose secret lab in the basement of the town's church serves as Light Ranger headquarters. Also on hand is a robot named Crash, apparently tinkered together by Amos.

The evildoers consist of Dr. Nono, Mimi Me (accompanied by her little sister Me Two), Fast Forward, Vanna Vanity, and the aforementioned Maniac Brainiac. Each of these villains is featured in one of the five arcade games. With the exception of Mimi Me and her sister, all seem older than the Light Rangers. Some appear to be adults.

Our villains are assisted in their dastardly deeds by the likes of the "Noma" Virus, Scare Bears (my favorites; they float around saying "Boo!" while spitting energy-zappers), Zoom Bots, Sour Notes, Double-Trouble Bubbles, and Fruits of the Doom.

The levels in which the Scare Bears appear also feature Teddy Bears that have been taken captive. As each one is released, it does a little dance. That's a cute touch.

Neither heroes nor villains are described to any extent within the game, but descriptions of all characters are reflected on the game's official website. Also offered is some backstory involving Maniac Brainiac and Dr. Goodman.

According to the site, each Light Ranger has a unique spiritual gift. These don't come into play within the game, however, where the three heroes' capabilities are identical. The choice of which character to use in each arcade game is strictly a matter of personal preference, with one exception. The game that takes place in West Angeltown must be played as Crash.

Our three heroes also have distinctly different personality traits. Again, these are mentioned on the Light Rangers site but not in the game, although they do come into play there. This is where I hit a big snag with the character Angel.

Regrettably, some of Angel's in-game behavior just doesn't sit right with me. Although knowledge of her characteristics accounts for some of it, I question the kind of example her actions might be setting for kids, particularly if they haven't explored the Light Rangers site before playing the game (and even if they have).

You see, Angel loves animals. (In the interest of full disclosure so do I, and I do have a cat. But I don't consider myself -- nor am I perceived to be -- an animal fanatic.) Unfortunately, Angel is rather rough with them because she's overenthusiastic and doesn't know her own strength. For instance, in the game's opening cutscene, a cat sees Angel and reacts with obvious alarm. Angel then accosts the animal and squeezes it way too forcefully, as evinced by the cat's frazzled expression.

Further, in a still graphic that's displayed between game segments, Angel is clutching a cat so tightly that its eyes are popping out. A similar image appears during the North Angeltown arcade game, on a billboard that also quotes Scripture. In both images, Angel is winking at the player.

The Light Rangers site even reflects the following at the end of its section on Angel: "Editors note: no animals were harmed in the creation of this video game." Maybe this is meant to be funny. But for me, in view of Angel's behavior, it falls flat.

Disturbingly, Angel wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up. Hopefully, she'll have more control over herself by then.

I also find Angel's behavior questionable in a subsequent cutscene. During an altercation with one of the villains, she does something rather dreadful to that character's hair. Then everyone laughs about it.

I was later told that the hair in question is really a wig. This hadn't been clear to me from the cutscene, but even if it had, I would have found the scene to be no less a jaw-dropper. This is the sort of behavior I expect from bad guys, not good guys.

Ironically, the Light Rangers site reflects Angel's spiritual gift as compassion. I feel it's ironic that her name is Angel.

The above depictions concerned me enough to ask Digital Praise/Brethren Entertainment about them. I got some input from Light Rangers creator Scott Wong, who clued me in about the aforementioned wig. He also told me that the cat scenes are meant to show Angel's exaggerated excitement and inability to keep her strength in check, which are common aspects of anime and are supposed to be funny.

Not knowing a whole lot about anime going into the game, I decided to read up on it. I still don't think the cat scenes are funny, and I question whether a style in which these kinds of actions are typical is even appropriate for a game based on Christian principles -- particularly one for kids.

In the scene with the hair/wig, the villain in question calls Angel a loser for quoting Scripture during their skirmish, and accuses Angel of being jealous. Angel's actions are, at least in part, retaliatory. The scene is also meant to depict Angel teaching the other character a lesson regarding the futility of vanity. To me, it seems more mean-spirited than anything else. I don't feel it's a very good representation of Christian values put into practice. To my way of thinking, involvement in a righteous cause doesn't give one license to do or say whatever one wants in the advancement of that cause.

Lastly, it's my opinion that all three Light Rangers come across as just a tad too self-righteous. I also found their attitudes when dealing with villains to be somewhat abrasive. This could be a turn-off for some folks. Personally, I don't care for the idea of nine-year-olds practically lecturing adults and other children. I prefer a gentler, more subtle approach.

Based on all of the above but largely on Angel's behavior, I give the game's characters a "C-."

Navigation

The following pertains to the Windows version of the game, which I played on WinXP Home SP2.

Both mouse and keyboard come into play in Light Rangers. A mouse is used to interact with various interfaces, and the arcade games are keyboard-controlled.

The game employs a device called an EPAD, which offers a choice of two key configurations -- one centering on the standard ASWD setup, the other using arrow keys. There is no option for player-defined hot keys. The EPAD also allows players to return to headquarters and regroup, replenish energy, select background music, and control volume.

A User's Manual is included on the Light Rangers disk. Although a link to it is provided in the game's initial splash-screen menu, the manual is not accessible once gameplay has started. Consequently, in order to refer to the manual while in the middle of an arcade game one must exit Light Rangers completely, which also results in the loss of all progress made in that particular game. Further, the splash screen menu is not displayed if the game is entered through its link in the Start Menu. It only appears if the game is entered via autoplay, or through the CD-ROM drive via My Computer. This is not mentioned in the Manual.

The game's main menu differs considerably in overall appearance from the one pictured in the User's Manual. Further, although reference is made in the manual to an "Options" button on the main menu, no such button appears on that menu within the game. While this wasn't a huge deal to me, it does have the potential to be confusing. When I asked about it, I was told that the manual does reflect an older main menu screen, but that the names of the buttons are the same. They aren't.

The fifth and final arcade game is not addressed in the User's Manual (I located info about it on the Digital Praise website). I was told that this is a "secret bonus level" and that Brethren Entertainment didn't want to spoil the surprise by adding it to the manual. To me it was just the final arcade game, without which the story would have had no resolution. I'm not sure why it would be considered either "secret" or "bonus."

Further, the fact that there are five arcade games is mentioned on the Light Rangers packaging and on its official website. Moreover, even before the fifth game is played, a slot for it is reflected in the Cinema area, from which cutscenes are accessed. Consequently, an observant player would know that a fifth game exists, but would be unable to find information about it without searching outside both the game and its manual.

Navigation garners a "C-."

Gameplay

The arcade games featured in Light Rangers are of the typical top-down and side-scrolling varieties. Each has several levels, culminating in a Boss Level. The mechanics of these games are simple enough that players should seldom, if ever, get stuck.

One of the games changes from day to night and back again, which I think is a nice touch. On the other hand, one of the Boss Levels features a rather arcane scoring method that isn't addressed in the User's Manual. I never quite figured it out.

The arcade games come in three difficulty levels. I tried them all and feel that the range they represent is appropriate for the game's target audience.

Light Rangers can accommodate up to five players via a players list. When the list is full, a name must be deleted before another one can be added.

Players start each arcade game with three "lives." When energy is running low, it's replenished by answering multiple-choice questions about the Bible. If this isn't done in time, the player loses a life. Lose all three, and you're transported back to headquarters where you can access that particular game again and give it another shot. Players have infinite chances to complete each game, and at no time do any of the characters "die."

The only way I could discover to pause the game's action was to activate the EPAD. However, if the timer is in use (see Special Features), it will continue to run when the EPAD is open. This is not covered in the User's Manual.

Unfortunately, Light Rangers permits no saves other than those performed automatically at the end of each arcade sequence. As previously mentioned, if a player has to leave the game while in the middle of a particular arcade activity, all progress is lost.

Players needing to brush up on their knowledge of the Bible may do so through the game's Library/Training Center, where they can practice answering questions. This screen also offers the options of changing the background music, and turning the music and sound effects on and off using check boxes (these choices pertain only to this particular area, not the entire game). For me, though, clearing the check boxes only locked the current background music in place. I was never able to turn anything off.

Each of the arcade games in Light Rangers includes a bonus for collecting all of one or more types of coins. This is reflected in the User's Manual, but not within the game. Also, there's no indication of the total number of coins available within a given game (some coins aren't readily visible and their numbers vary). So players can't tell if they've been successful until all levels have been completed and a final score is displayed.

One of the games also offers a bonus for each level completed within a certain amount of time. Again, this is mentioned only in the User's Manual and not within the game itself. Further, elapsed time is not displayed on-screen during this particular game, so players are unable to tell how they're doing. As with the coin bonus, success is indicated on the score screen only after all levels have been completed.

Throughout the activities, players are offered various types of in-game power-ups, each with a specific duration. Not all power-ups appear in every arcade game, and the use of each differs from one game to the next. The User's Manual does address game-specific usage, but the purpose of one of the power-ups featured in all five games is only described for one of them.

Power-ups aren't cumulative, nor can they be stored. Picking one up will cancel one that's already running, even though there may be time left on it.

Only some of the power-ups come with an on-screen display of elapsed time. Players have no way to judge the duration of the others.

I did discover -- quite by accident -- that at some levels, power-ups need not be picked up right away. But in most cases, if they aren't, players must remember where they are and accessing them may involve considerable backtracking. At other levels, power-ups are one-time shots. Those that become available must be picked up and used immediately or they're lost.

One of the power-ups consists of a shield which operates on its own energy. Players also have access to a second type of shield via the keyboard. Although this is, indeed, mentioned in the User's Manual, its distinction from the shield power-up isn't made clear. The second shield may be used at any time, but when activated, it draws on the player's energy and depletes it incredibly quickly. Very close attention must be paid to its use.

Unless otherwise noted, the User's Manual offers none of the information I've just recounted concerning bonuses and power-ups. I discovered all of it during gameplay.

Players can also purchase power-up and gadget enhancements using Cross Coins collected during the arcade games. These purchases are possible only between games.

A High Scores screen is supposed to track players' progress and offer opportunities to collect bonus items using a special code (see Extras). Unfortunately, I have yet to make sense of the information displayed in the five available high-score slots.

I first accessed the screen after I'd played Light Rangers from beginning to end several times. It reflected my name followed by the same score in all five slots.

Brethren Entertainment addressed this for me, but what they said didn't mesh with what I was seeing. I was told that by default, temporary names and scores are already entered on the screen. These did not appear for me. They went on to say that in order to be ranked on the High Scores screen, one must complete all five levels of the game. As already mentioned, I'd done that several times.

I then tried completing the game a few more times using a second name. This made no difference on the High Scores screen.

I added a third name, and went on to complete the game additional times under all three names. When I last checked, my first screen name was still reflected five times, along with five identical scores. This was the case no matter which name I used to enter the game. The High Scores screen continues to baffle me.

I encountered several glitches during gameplay in the form of script errors. Also, at one point the energy-replenishment screen malfunctioned and left me with a non sequitur Bible question and no choice of answers. On another occasion, as I was leaving a cutscene, Windows abruptly crashed and my computer shut down.

Gameplay rates a "C-."

Special Features

Light Rangers offers a couple of tools for parents: the Question Editor and the Egg Timer. I had problems with both of them.

The game comes with an assortment of 200 multiple-choice Bible questions that players must answer throughout the game in order to gain energy. The Question Editor allows parents to add their own topics and questions to the database without restriction as to subject matter. At first, I thought this was a great idea.

What is not explained, however, is that in order to have such questions appear with any continuity, a full 200 of them must be added. Brethren Entertainment gave me this information directly when I asked about it. Adding less than 200 questions will result in the game adding questions from the default set until the number reaches 200. In that case, questions added through the Editor will be intermixed with default questions, because the display of questions is randomized. None of the default questions may be deleted from the database.

The User's Manual does state that additional questions can be downloaded from the Light Rangers site. I looked high and low for these, but came up empty. I then found out from Brethren Entertainment that no extra questions are currently available. They hope to have some ready soon.

According to the User's Manual, the Egg Timer "enables parents to control the amount of time that a child is allowed to play the game on a given day," which is a little misleading (more about that shortly). Its use requires a password.

The User's Manual provides a default password which can subsequently be changed. However, this password will continue to work even if a new one is created. This means that any player who knows the default password -- the discovery of which only involves looking in the Manual -- will always be able to override time limits and thereby defeat the purpose of the timer.

I had a lot of difficulty with the password field. Entering characters in it proved to be quite tricky. At times, trying to add a single letter resulted in repeats; in order to avoid this, I had to tap the key very, very lightly. At other times, a character couldn't be entered unless I hit the key forcefully several times (which would sometimes also trigger repeats). This contrariness appeared to be arbitrary; it didn't always happen with the same keys.

I also discovered (again, by accident) that keys other than letter and number keys will enter characters in the password field. Even the "print screen" key I pressed while making a screenshot entered something there.

Passwords are encoded as asterisks, so I was unable to tell at any time if the characters I intended to enter had actually been entered. Only after a considerable amount of time and effort -- not to mention a lot of "invalid password" messages -- was I finally able to gain access to the timer.

Another thing the User's Manual doesn't mention is that passwords are case-sensitive. This only adds to the hassle of entering the default password. Three of its letters are capitalized.

Time is controlled in 15-minute increments up to a maximum of two hours. (Note: a sample graphic in the User's Manual reflects a 10-minute setting, which is not possible within the game.) When I was finally able to try the timer, I had already completed the game several times using two different names. I set the timer for 15 minutes and entered the game under one of the names.

A "Time's Up" screen did, indeed, pop up after 15 minutes. It said that either a correct password would have to be entered in order to extend my time, or I'd have to leave the game. I opted to leave.

I found myself back at the Control Tower, which is the area from which the arcade games are accessed. I was actually able to re-enter the game, but after maybe 15 seconds, another "Time's Up" screen appeared. After again landing in the Control Tower, I went back to the main menu. That's when I discovered that, contrary to what's stated in the User's Manual, the imposition of a time restriction apparently applies to all players.

At that point, I was unable to re-enter the game under any name. The screen on which one chooses a name is accessible only after the game has been entered through the main menu's "Play" button. With a time restriction in place, clicking "Play" only results in a pop-up message saying that "Access has been restricted by Parental Egg Timer."

The only alternative I could see to this quandary was to eliminate the time restriction altogether. For parents, this would mean allowing access to someone they want to restrict in order to let other players into the game.

Also, if the timer kicks in during one of the arcade games (and chances are likely that it will), all progress in that game is lost unless the player gets back to it immediately -- and I mean don't go anywhere, do anything, or even move -- by having someone enter a valid password on the "Time's Up" screen. (Once a player is timed out and opts to leave an arcade game in progress, even if he or she is permitted to re-enter it right away, that player starts back at square one.) This is another unfortunate consequence of the absence of player-initiated saves.

In view of the fact that some of the arcade games can be rather lengthy, a player who is limited to 15 minutes (or even 30 minutes or longer for younger players) might never be able to complete the game. This doesn't seem quite fair to me.

Both the Question Editor and Egg Timer are innovative features that I feel would be welcomed by parents if they were put together differently. Due to the many snags I hit in using them, these two features get a "C-."

Extras

Once cutscenes are viewed within the game, they can be viewed again at any time. This kind of feature has always appealed to me. However, after in-game cutscenes are viewed for the first time in Light Rangers, they no longer appear for that particular player if the game is replayed. Instead, one level leads directly into the next without transition. This strikes me as being a little peculiar.

Also, players can use the aforementioned Cross Coins collected during arcade games to purchase desktop wallpaper and pages to print out and color. Within the game, the wallpaper screen is described by Extras tour guide Amos as having not only wallpaper, "but other fun stuff, too." I saw nothing but wallpaper there.

As touched on previously, the High Scores screen reflects a code in each score slot. In my case, the code in every slot consisted invariably of 14 zeros, which seemed a little strange to me. The screen states "Use your WEB CODE on our website to unlock bonus items," and provides a link to the Brethren Entertainment site, which I dutifully followed. But I was unable to locate any bonus items there.

In contrast, the User's Manual says to use these codes on the official Light Rangers site. Unfortunately, I didn't see any bonus items there, either.

I was subsequently told by Brethren Entertainment that creation of bonus items is still in progress. They hope to have some available soon.

I give the Extras a "C-."

Conclusion

I tried to get a better feel for Light Rangers by asking lots of questions, but the answers I received -- particularly concerning the game's content -- evoked more consternation than anything else. Although the game is cartoonish, this doesn't necessarily preclude it from being taken seriously by kids. Cartoons can have a negative impact -- just look at the stink that was raised over South Park.

I also played Light Rangers from start to finish more times than I've played any other game I've reviewed, thinking that maybe I just wasn't "getting" it (after all, I'm not a kid). But doing so only resulted in the discovery of more incongruent aspects. Try as I might, I was simply unable to get okay with some parts of the game.

I'm told by Brethren Entertainment that time constraints prohibited the inclusion of different attributes that would have made one Light Ranger better suited than the others for a particular arcade game. I suppose -- although it hasn't been confirmed -- that this could also account for the glitches I encountered, the lack of extra questions and bonus items on the associated websites, the problems with the special features, and the less-than-helpful User's Manual.

The absence of promised bonus items could be quite a disappointment for younger players, and troubles with special features and the inability to find pertinent information in the User's Manual could result in frustration for parents. I really wish Brethren Entertainment could have devoted more time to developing this game, ironing out its problems, and completing the Light Rangers site.

The game's ending provides a setup for a possible sequel, and the User's Manual does make reference to a Light Rangers series of video games. If a sequel is in the offing, it's my hope that it will reflect more polish, continuity, attention to detail, and desirable behavior than is reflected in this one. It would also help if associated items, such as those appearing on websites, could be in place before the game is released.

Light Rangers could have been a wonderful game for kids. As I've said, it does have some good points. Unfortunately -- and I truly wish this were otherwise -- I feel they're overshadowed by its flaws.