Cool Spot (PC)

Author's product rating:   

Gameplay/Playability
Graphics
Sound
Value for Money
Longevity

Advantages:	Nice animation .
Disadvantages:	too difficult, not enough variation .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

COOL SPOT
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Now before i begin, this review is in no way about acne or any spot fighting creams, nope the spot in question here is a clever marketing trick, which most British people wont understand at all! In America 7-UP decided to use the little red spot as a mascot, but over here we had more sense than to have a silly spot, so we had the almost as annoying Fido Dido characture.

This game based on the spot, was released back in 1994, by Virgin Interactive.
Originally released on the 16 bit consoles, Megadrive and Snes, this was later ported to almost all systems around.

GAMEPLAY
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As with a lot of games released at the time, this is a side scrolling platform game, and this is where the game suffers its biggest downfall, it was released alongside some absolute classic platform games such as "The lion King", "Jungle Book" and "Earthworm Jim" not to mention the Mario games or the Sonic series, now being released into the world amidst all these great games, you would need to be an absolute scorcher of a game to stand a chance, and unfortunately this isnt.

Whilst in no ways a bad game, it just doesnt have enough inovative ideas to stand up alongside these games.

The basic idea of the game is that all of your friends have been kidnapped, and you must rescue them, this involves running around levels collecting a certain set number of red dots, once you've got enough of the aforementioned dots you must find your pal and free him from his cage.

Trying to stop you in your task are lots of enemies, in fact probably too many enemies, you will get quite frustrated with the amount of times you will die on this game.
The enemies are all linked with the level you are playing on, for example on the first level which is a beach, you will encounter crabs and other shellfish.

To help against these enemies your spot has the ability to throw little fizz bubbles, these can be thrown in all directions, so if somethings attacking from above you can shoot upwards etc.
This is the only weapon available during the game, and really you could do with a bit more variation.

There are 12 levels in total, but ive not actually seen all of these, shock horror, ive not actually finished this game!
But ive got quite close and all the levels are basically the same with different graphical variations.
There are a few secret areas on each level, but not enough to keep adventurers happy, and the levels lack a bit of finess.

If you collect more dots than you need on a level, you will be entered into a bonus game, I personally find this more fun than the actual game.
The bonus stage sees you in a bottle of 7-UP, again you must collect as many dots as possible, you must use little bubbles of gas to jump on to get higher, this is reminiciant of an old game called Bubble Dizzy, which was released back in the 80's.

But other than that, the game hasnt really got a lot to offer, the levels get samey as soon as youve completed the first one, and top make matters worse there is no save option, so you will find yourself on the first level a lot of times!

DIFFICULTY
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This is actually a very hard game, but only because there are so many baddies and they take a lot of hits.
The controls and actual gameplay are very simple to get to grips with, and you will know what to do within seconds of playing.

GRAPHICS
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The graphics are quite nice, but again not up to the standards set by the above named games.
In fact they are a teeny bit dull.
The backgrounds are quite colourful, but are basically the same picture the whole level through.
The charactures are about the right size, and animated nicely, but you will have seen better.

OVERALL
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This game set itself out to be a great game, i remember reading previews thinking it would be the best thing since Jet Set Willy, how disapointed was i when i finally got it!!
Although in no way the worst game ive played, but ultimately its a very boring unoriginal game that seems like it was rushed out, there is a lack of variation that these games need.
As with a lot of these old games, it is available as abandonware, and some might actually like it, but personally it is not for me!

Thanx for reading.
Kyle