Lethal Weapon (SNES)

Lethal Weapon

Platform: SNES Year: 1992 Developer: Ocean Software Buy: Amazon

For other games in the series, see Lethal Weapon.

Lethal Weapon is an action game based on the Lethal Weapon movies. It was developed and published by Ocean Software and released in 1992 in North America and Europe. Despite using the third movie's cover art, the game is not based on any particular film in the series, and instead has its own storyline.

The game starts out in the police station, which serves as the game's level select; there are five missions, but only four of them are accessible from the start. Here, the player can also switch between Riggs and Murtaugh. Martin Riggs can run faster while Roger Murtaugh can jump higher. Each level has several segments across large maps, so it can take a long time to complete each mission. The game also has a difficulty setting, but this doesn't affect the game's ending. Before each mission, the player is given a briefing of the situation, along with a still image from the movies. Some of the missions include stopping a bomb from going off in a mall and rescuing Leo Getz from terrorists.

One of the more interesting features of this game is its health and lives system; The player starts each level with a few shields. Whenever the player takes damage, the shield is turned into a vest, and then when the player is hit again, they lose it completely. If the player falls down a shaft, they lose a whole shield. If they lose all of the shields, they switch to the other character. If the other character loses all their shields, then it's game over and the player can opt to use one of a few continues, the amount depending on the game's difficulty.

The game received lukewarm and negative reviews from critics. While some praised the game's graphics and music, others panned the game for the same, as well as the slippery controls, as well as the game having nothing to do with the plot of the movies.

Screenshots

This page needs more screenshots.

The game's title screen. The mission select where you can walk around the police office. Killing an enemy in the first mission.

Music

Lethal Weapon for SNES does not feature any of the familiar film scores by Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton, but has a nice assortment of tunes on its own. There are only a handful of songs in the game, and they are written as moderate-paced rock tracks filled with distorted guitars, electric bass, and even some synthesizers. Each mission has its own theme (though the final mission uses the second mission's theme), all of which are pretty lengthy, which is good, as each stage can take several minutes to complete. The title screen music was used in all of the Ocean-developed ports and was composed by one of their main musicians Barry Leitch. The rest of the music was composed by Dean Evans, with sound effects by Keith Tinman. Dean and Keith also worked on Ocean's other movie-based title Cool World (SNES) which shares some sound effects and similar musical styles.

Dean used MEdit for DOS to create the game's soundtrack, which was connected to a SNES for playback. According to Barry Leitch, he did not personally work on the SNES version, which means Dean must have arranged Barry's title music for the SNES.

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Length	Listen	Download
01	Title Screen	Barry Leitch	3:41		Download
02	Mission 1	Dean Evans	4:41		Download
03	Mission 2 & 5	Dean Evans	4:11		Download
04	Mission 3	Dean Evans	4:40		Download
05	Mission 4	Dean Evans	4:26		Download
06	Game Over	Dean Evans	0:04		Download
07	Level Completed	Dean Evans	0:04		Download
08	Congratulations	Dean Evans	1:10		Download

Credits

• Ripper: Death Adder
• Recorder: Doommaster1994
• Game Credits:
  • Music: Dean Evans
  • Title Music: Barry Leitch
  • SFX & Speech: Keith Tinman
  • Unknown Programmer: Unknown

(Source)

The credits are displayed after the game is completed. The sound driver was most likely programmed by Jonathan Dunn, but verification should be made. Jon is confirmed to have programmed a sound driver for the SNES, but the one used in this game is a different driver based on Nintendo's Kankichi-kun sound driver.

Game Rip

Format	Download
	Download (Info)

Audio Devices

Lethal Weapon uses the SNES' S-SMP chip for music and sound effects.

The game uses Ocean's variant of the Kankichi-kun sound driver from Nintendo.

Releases

EU Title: Lethal Weapon Platform: SNES Released: 1992-??-?? Publisher: Ocean Software     USA Title: Lethal Weapon Platform: SNES Released: 1992-12-?? Publisher: Ocean Software