Beavis and Butt-Head

Viacom New Media; $ 62.99; Sega Genesis. MTV's two favorite miscreants have entered the home videogame arena with an entry that may amuse Beavis and Butt-head fans, but ultimately doesn't offer enough to hold one's interest for the amount of time it would take to actually finish the game.

Although the title carries an MA-13 warning label (meaning its content may be inappropriate for children under 13), it would seem the label was affixed mainly to assuage the fears of parents who know B&B only by reputation. The game's content is actually pretty tame: The worst of B&B's antisocial tendencies have been removed, and the most offensive it gets is in Butt-head's consistent use of flatulence as a defensive weapon.

The concept of the game is that B&B have (uncharacteristically) saved their money to buy tickets to a rock concert, only to have the tickets chewed to pieces by their reactionary neighbor Mr. Anderson's dog and strewn to the four winds by Anderson's lawnmower. The boys seek to collect the pieces so they can attend this "really cool" concert.

Game play consists of visiting familiar B&B haunts (Burger World, the mall, Highland High School, the drive-in, the hospital and of course, the street), gathering various items to be used against their foes or pawned for cash. The duo fends off attacks along the way with Beavis' belching and Butt-head's breaking wind. Their base of operations is the TV room couch, from which different areas of play are selected by using -- what else -- a remote channel changer. Appropriately, the game ends when the boys' attention span reaches zero.

Superficially at least, the title accurately captures the look and feel of B&B's TV antics, opening with their too-familiar "pull my finger" routine and going on to include many of the characters, phrases and mannerisms known to viewers of the show. But B&B's comedic spark lies in their talent for making the absolute worst choice out of all the possibilities in any given situation, and that element is sadly absent here. Lacking that, what's left is two gassy, poorly drawn dolts.

The game's learning curve is steep, and the instruction manual's sketchy and confusing description of how to work the controls forces the beginning player to burn through several games just to figure out how the thing works. Given the game's limited attention span potential, it's likely that by the time you've learned how to work the thing, you won't want to play any more.

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