Previous Next

Kim Basinger, eh? You can now get her on your ST thanks to Ocean's latest release. Rob Mead sighs pathetically...

If you think cartoon land is full of lovable, fluffy bunnies being terrorized by dozy game hunters, think again. The doodles in Cool World have got evil on the brain and the destruction of human civilisation in their hearts.

It all started when comic book creator Jack Dweebs inadvertently created a parallel universe between the cartoon world and the real world. His doodles are now upsetting the cosmic balance by crossing over into the real world and stealing objects to take back. You play a cop called Harris and you have to stop the doodles' destructive behaviour before it's too late.

Based on the film flop of the same name, Cool World is a platformer which takes the tension between reality and fantasy as its theme. You have to guide Harris around four levels of cartoon mayhem, traversing the divide between the real world and the cool world, where the doodles live.

The four levels are hidden behind sixteen doors controlled by officious doodles who you have to bribe so you can gain access - money is gained by zapping the many doodles which wander harmlessly around the streets. The doors are spread over different streets and access to each section is reached in a random, illogical order. This has you wandering all over the place, although a map screen eases things considerably.

Once you enter a level, you're confronted with swarms of manic doodles - anything from stone gargoyles to mutant babies - who zip back and forth between the cool world and the real world. Luckily you're armed with a magic pen which enables you to shoot and absorb the doodles before they cause too much damage. Once zapped, doodles release their stolen objects or bonuses for you to collect. Erm, that really is all, folks.

Sad to say, but Cool World is a major downer. Just like the film, it fails to live up to the hype - your hopes are unrealistically raised by the glam opening sequence but it's just one long anti-climax after that. The street sequences, for example, are furnished in glorious 2D with you guiding Harris across a horizontally-scrolling backdrop. Sure, the sprites are well-animated, but Harris isn't particularly easy to control, and the whole thing is laughable, not to mtention tedious. It's frustrating to have to wander about from door to door when all you want to do is just skip from level to level.

Unfortunately, things don't get any better on the platformed sections either. You spend all your time switching between cool world and real world, trying to stop the doodles from gaining the upper hand, but even this soon gets monotonous and you never really feel there's any point to what you're doing. To make matters worse, the joystick controls aren't particularly responsive and Harris frequently fails to leap to the desired location. Graphically, the game features some reasonably colourful backdrops and well-animated sprites, but they in no way compensate for the tedious gameplay.

The chip-based sound effects consist entirely of phut-phut noises as you fire the pen and the music sounds like the psychotic lift trash you love to hate.

Cool World is a disappointment, yet another below average platform game to add to the piles already available for your ST. Slick scrolling and well-animated sprites can't disguise the fact that this game gets very dull, very quickly. Sadly, the intro sequence is the most enjoyable part of the game!

Smooth horizontal scrolling and well animated graphics initially impress.

But Cool World is ultimately let down by its tedious one-dimensional gameplay.