Cheese Cat-astrophe

[Stan]

The man, the pain, the freak, he's ready to deal out the next game. Hit us.

[Phil]

Right peeps after some careful deliberation I have finally chosen…Cheese Cat-astrophe starring Speedy Gonzalas. Apart from being the last ever game released by Sega in UK, Speedy is a top notch platform game.

You control (guess) Speedy who’s on a mission to rescue his girlfriend Carmel and the other villagers who have been kidnapped by Dr Cheesefinger A.K.A Sylvester The Cat. To rescue an hostage you must first find the key which is hidden somewhere on each level. To help you on your travels you have your trusty sombrero as an aid to kill all the different enemies you encounter, which range from crabs to diving vultures!

One thing you’ll notice when first playing the game is the speed in which Speedy runs. Yes no slow platformer here, it’s like the mouse has had a red hot poker shoved up his arse….this Mexican can move! It’ll take a few goes until you master the controls, on the early levels it’s very easy to run into enemies and loose valuable energy. With a few goes however, you soon get used to the speed and it’s quite easy to kill or jump over enemies.

The graphics are bright and colourful on each level and although the scrolling is a bit flickery, you’ll be having too much fun to notice. The boss scenes involving Sylvester are particular impressive and well animated. The sequence where Sylvester is riding his exercise bike and also where he is controlling the cheese grabbing machine are worth mentioning in particular.

Speedy Gonzalas is not a traditional left to right platformer. No no, the game offers the player a great variety of different levels. One level involves travelling down a river of paint in a sombrero; another involves climbing up various ledges using a rope.

What’s next then? The muzak I hear you cry. Well an array of jolly tunes play in the background, some are funky, some are just plain annoying but they all add a fun and crazy Looney Tunes feel to the game.

To sum up, Speedy looks great, plays great and generally sounds great. With 12 levels in total, completing the game on normal or hard is quite a challenge, but if you're after a fun platformer then you should give the rodent with the irritating helium accent a try. Arriba arriba…

[Stan]

This is a sweet-ass game and one awesome pick, I've always meant to finally play through it.

[rupert]

nice one, a game i havnt given much attention. I'l have a good do on this tonight

[wonderboy]

i don't have it and must buy it, even if it's just for the cover alone.

[Jo Musashi]

I don't have it either but I'm usually impressed how a lot of the later-era SMS games with cartoon characters have really amazing graphics and gameplay. The Mickey Mouse games are an example.

[dezanuebe]

This is a really sweet game, i only got to the fourth area... but nybe i´ll give it another try tomorrow!!!

[kungfukid]

Yeah, great game. I like how fast the action is in it too. Good graphice, good gameplay and the sound is pretty good too. I haven't come close to completing it yet, but I'm gonna keep trying! Has anybody completed it yet? And if so what are the last couple of levels like?

[Aypok]

Maybe I need to give this game another go... I got ahold of it a few months back and spent about fifteen mins playing it. I didn't find it fun at all. I think it was because I couldn't work out how to kill the vulture things that swoop down and kill me...

[rupert]

yeah somtimes it can be easy to dismiss a game if it doesnt immediately excite you. Especially if you get 10 games at once in a bulk buy. I recently re-played deep duck trouble and found it to be much better than i first though.

[Phil]

Completed it many times on easy and normal but never on hard! It actually get's easier as the game goes on and you'll fly through some of the levels cos they're rathershort! The bosses take most of your lives especially Slyvester on his exercise bike where you have to throw bombs at him and avoid the laser beams. Very very frustrating....funnily enough this is a lot harder than the final showdown..........

I actually picked this game ages ago and haven't played it that recently. But I've probably played it as much as Sonic 1, so no wonder I think it's really easy!!

Btw I wouldn't bother trying to kill the vultures..........

Also If you're struggling, try playing the game at 50hz, it does make a difference. Also, what I used to do was collect as many sombraos as possible on the first level. Just keep entering the caves again and again and you'll earn loads of points meaning extra lives.

[Stan]

I must say this is quite a fun game. Very easy to get into and not as simple as you'd think. I died a ton of times on the second level. Those tarantulas on the first are damn hard to predict. My only gripe is the soundtrack, it sounds too infantile to me. Graphics are flawless, however.

[Phil]

Played it on Meka for the first time in ages yesterday. Got to the 2nd to last boss, but couldn't manage to beat him with my crappy PC controller!

The music can get a bit annoying, especially when you're fighting against Sylvester, but the graphics are superb in my opinion.

I've only managed to find 1 extra life in the entire game on the mountain level, has anyone else found another one?

[ShadowAngel]

phil said:

I've only managed to find 1 extra life in the entire game on the mountain level, has anyone else found another one?

In the entire game there is only this one extra live, but you also get extra lives for every 3000 points iirc.

The game is nice. Really on of those titles were you think it sucks (like other games made after comics or television series) but it is really a fun little game with very nice graphics

[Stan]

Angel is back! Good to see you again!