Cadillacs and Dinosaurs

Overview

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is an arcade beat-em-up developed and released by Capcom for arcades (with enhanced CPS-1 hardware) on February 1, 1992. It's based on the Xenozoic Tales comic book series and is a video game tie-in to the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs animated television series (released later that year).

Set in a post-apocalyptic Earth (in which previously-extinct dinosaurs roam again), players journey through the landscape as one of four characters: mechanic Jack Tenrec, his love interest (and scientist) Hannah Dundee, and companions Mustapha Cairo and Mess O'Bradovich.

Gameplay

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs features four characters for the player to play as. Each character has their strengths that are emphasize more than each other. The game also contains Co-Op for up to three players.

Like other Capcom beat'em ups, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs has an eight-way joystick and two buttons for all three players. One button is for attack and the other is for jump; when both buttons are press together, the player can perform a special 360 attack that will knock down every enemy that surrounds the player - it's very useful in hectic situation. Other attack moves are provided for the player to fend off enemies a bit quicker than the regular attack combo. Pressing down and up attack will do a rising attack that can do more hits on enemies. The player also has the options to grab enemies to either bring in more hits, or throw the enemy across the screen. The other attack move that's available is the player can throw an enemy in mid combo, by pressing up after two hits, the player can pick up the enemy and slam him into the ground for more damage.

A variety items are presented throughout the game. Some items will add more points to the player's score, restore health, or a weapon such as a firearm or melee weapons. The firearms in the game range from a pistol, rifle, or machine gun, they all have limited ammo; sometimes enemies will drop additional ammo to prolong the use.

The enemies in the game have their own attack methods to defend against the player. For example, one enemy can charge at the player, while another can throw knives. Dinosaurs are also an enemy to the player, at first they will appear in red, which will cause some trouble for the player. Once the player defeats an dinosaur, their skin color will turn into green and walk away.