I like Cheetos. I want to start this essay with that caveat perfectly clear. I like Cheetos, I like the puffy kind, and I like the Flaming Hot crunchy kind. So please, as you read, remember I like Cheetos.
Ok, so maybe some of the above is hyperbolic. That’s ok, what is to follow might just convince you otherwise.
In the tradition of other video games based on product tie-ins, for example the very fun SPOT game for the NES based on the 1990’s 7up mascot or the variety of bizarre Kool-Aid man games for the home consoles of the 1980’s, Chester Cheetah: Too Cool To Fool is a video game based on the exploits of a then popular, I suppose, marketing icon. The game is a simple platformer in which you must guide Chester through five (although the manual says six at one point, more on the manual in a bit) levels of trials and tribulations as he attempts to escape the Four Corners Zoo and regain his “radicool”* motorcycle, so he can, I don’t know, be more cool or something; the plot is pretty weak. The five levels of Four Corners Zoo feature all of your standard platforming elements with no real innovation or deviation. There is a water-type level in which you must cross a lake filled with alligators then navigate the lake in a boat. There is an air level where you ride a bird through the skies, a cave level where everything is dark except for your immediate area, you get the idea. If it has been done better in another platforming game it is probably here. The levels are incredibly short and lack depth or imagination.
*Sorry kids, it is in the manual like that…
The game is well themed. Apart from Chester running about, there are several other references to the product this game endorses. Part of your goal is collect paw print shaped Cheetos (remember those?) to regain your health. In the bonus stages, there are old school (then contemporary) Cheetos bags in the background. There is even a coupon for a bag of Cheetos in the back of the manual (but it expired Dec. 31, 1993, sorry). So if the true object of the game is to coerce me into the store to purchase a bag of puffed corn covered in orange “cheese” flavored powder, then the game has a good chance of success. After all, eating a bag of Cheetos is far superior to suffering through this sorry excuse for a video game. Heck an empty Cheetos bag is more fun than this game…but I digress.
The main problem with this game, however, is that it just plain isn’t fun. Oh sure, you can play it, but saying this game is fun just because you can play it is like saying Brussels sprouts are food just because you can eat them. Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool is the Brussels sprouts of Super Nintendo games. The levels are short and simple and lack much of interest outside the main goal of obtaining the motorcycle part and moving on to the next level. The controls are simple and the game is pretty much pick-up-and-play, although going up the pipes in level one is almost accidental rather that intentional. Swinging and climbing on the vines in level two is also a grind-it-until-you-find-it endeavor, but all in all you can work your way through the levels with fundamental gaming skills. There are items to collect, but they are generally irrelevant.
