Amiga Power


Cougar Force

Author: Stuart Campbell
Publisher: Tomahawk
Machine: Amiga 500

 
Published in Amiga Power #3

Cougar Force

If I was to start this review by telling you this game was overpriced by at least £30, would you think I was being overly negative? If not, then just take my word for it and talk of it no more. If, however, you want some reasons, here are ten to be going on with.

  1. The animation is the worst I have ever seen on a full-price Amiga game. Yes, even worse than Quest For Glory II. Your hero (he certainly isn't mine) wibbles around as if he was on elastic, his head perpetually bobbing like a nodding dog in the back of a particularly shaky Lada.
  2. Enemies appear at random, and disappear if you walk off the screen and then back on again.
  3. The colour scheme is garish and sickly.
  4. The action is appallingly slow.
  5. Fighting with the baddies is laughably imprecise - it's a case of wiggle the joystick at random and hope for the best.
  6. The game design is incredibly lazy. Many of the dangers are random, and some of them (like the grenades thrown from unseen hands off-screen that home-in on your position) are unavoidable. Invisible walls make an unwelcome appearance and the screen layout is illogical too - you can walk right for 30 screens, then walk left for one screen and be back where you started.
  7. The instructions are useless. (I still haven't managed to work out how to fire the fun you find on Level One.)
  8. The screens flick rather than scroll, but unbelievably there's still a major pause every time you move from one to another. Was this game written in Basic or what?
  9. The on-screen text messages are badly-translated, unfunny, smug and generally abusive.
  10. Section Two is almost totally unfathomable. (It's a sort of flight sim thing - the 3D is alright, but as a game it's downright useless!)

Convinced yet?! If you're not, I can only imagine that you're either the best friend or the grandmother of whoever had the nerve to put this lump of unforgivably hideous rot on the market. The only point I can think of in Cougar Force's favour is that the hero does mildly amusing things if you leave the controls alone for a while. This is good, because if you buy this game, you're going to want to leave the controls alone for a very very long time indeed.

The Bottom Line

Every month I think I've seen the worst full-price game ever, and every month I'm wrong. This is too crap for words, but luckily not too crap for a number, and that number is...

Stuart Campbell

Other Amiga 500 Game Reviews By Stuart Campbell


  • Toobin' Front Cover
    Toobin'
  • Space Station Front Cover
    Space Station
  • Quest For Glory II: Trial By Fire Front Cover
    Quest For Glory II: Trial By Fire
  • Hare Raising Havoc Front Cover
    Hare Raising Havoc
  • The Executioner Front Cover
    The Executioner
  • Bug Bomber Front Cover
    Bug Bomber
  • Quantox Front Cover
    Quantox
  • Cybercon III Front Cover
    Cybercon III
  • Mega Traveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy Front Cover
    Mega Traveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy
  • Cabal Front Cover
    Cabal