Review Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso Developer: 720 Games Publisher: Juniper Games Genre: Arcade/Adventure Release Date: September 2006 Platform: Review by Karla Munger October 16, 2006		Buy this game at Trade for this game at:
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The title character in Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso is a ginger-colored cat who carries a firearm. As Ed, the game's hero, you become his perpetual target.

I happen to live with a feisty female cat named Renfield. She's a force to be reckoned with when she's packing heat, particularly when she wants food (which is all the time, the little glutton). So I felt right at home with this game.

At first glance, Mr. Smoozles could look as though it's just another entry in the torrent of casual arcade games that seems to be flooding the market these days. Also, the game is available through a download-and-purchase setup, which could add to this impression. And with its cartoon-style graphics, it might appear to be a game for kids.

Au contraire, on all counts. Mr. Smoozles is nothing like that. It's more -- much more.

Arcade-style elements are present, but they only serve to enhance a fairly elaborate adventure game. Mr. Smoozles boasts an interesting and imaginative story and features exploration of a wide variety of locations, not the least of which is a multi-level sewer (I just love those). It also has players collecting various items needed to progress through the game, interacting with other characters, and solving lots of puzzles.

So here we have an arcade/adventure hybrid, with the emphasis on adventure. I had a great time playing it.

Now, who would think of creating such a game? If you guessed Steve Ince, formerly of Revolution Software, veteran of Beneath a Steel Sky and the first three games in the Broken Sword series (to name a few), you're correct!

The game features characters from Steve's online comic strip Mr. Smoozles, with some new ones thrown in for good measure. It's also the first game to be released by Steve's own company, Juniper Games.

What's more, several of the game's locations have pictures on the walls which, upon closer inspection, turn out to be an assortment of Steve's comics. Nice touch!

As I've already mentioned, you play Ed, who also happens to be a cat -- albeit a blue one. As the game begins, Ed and company watch in horror as evil Goragons from another dimension, who look rather like three-eyed pink elephants sitting in maglev devices, start rearranging reality. They also blast Mr. Smoozles with a mind ray causing him to go, in the vernacular, nutso, and teleport away five of Ed's friends. Fortunately, with your help, Ed manages to escape.

As he tries to get his bearings and navigate through a changed reality, Ed is pursued by Mr. Smoozles, who now has a laser gun and thinks nothing of trying to blow Ed to smithereens at every opportunity. As the game progresses, Ed must also contend with additional hazards such as mines -- both moving and stationary -- and a variety of hostile robots.

Apart from doing all of this, Ed's task is simple: stop the evil Goragons, rescue his friends, fix Mr. Smoozles' head, save a bunch of delightfully quirky beings he encounters called Smoos, and get reality back to normal. A cat's work is never done...

I found the story in Mr. Smoozles to be both charming and engaging. It always left me wanting to find out what would happen next. And sprinkled throughout are generous doses of humor as well as tongue-in-cheek references to some of Steve's other games. The bit where Ed contacts the Galactic Council's Customer Service Center is hilarious!

Mr. Smoozles is non-linear and can be played either in a window or in full screen mode. The graphics are crisp and colorful, and even in a window, all of the game's details are clearly visible.

There is no spoken dialog in Mr. Smoozles. Instead, it's presented in cartoon-style bubbles as text, which is only fitting for comic strip characters, wouldn't you say?

Three levels of difficulty are offered on the arcade side of things, and optional clues are available on the adventure side. But even at its easiest setting with clues enabled, the game can present some challenges. So Mr. Smoozles isn't just for kids at all -- it's a game full of fun that can be enjoyed by anyone.

Navigation in Mr. Smoozles is accomplished exclusively via the keyboard. Controlling Ed and interacting with his surroundings is simple and straightforward, and when special actions are required, the game lets you know exactly what to do.

The game also includes handy information panels that remind players of their current objectives and provide memory-refreshing lists of all navigation keys. And Ed gets to use a PDA-type device called a Reality Enabler that's surprisingly useful.

During gameplay, you definitely need to pay attention to where you are, what you're doing, and what's happening around you. The first time I played Mr. Smoozles, I was fairly negligent in this respect. I had definitely underestimated the elaborateness of the game, and I'd been lulled into complacency by its objective-tracking feature and the ever-so-helpful Enabler.

I also have a lousy memory. Along with compounding my difficulties, this allowed me to forget that I have a terrible sense of direction. As a result, I got ridiculously confused and lost -- and this was on the game's easiest setting with extra clues turned on! What was I thinking? Or more to the point, was I thinking? (Don't answer.)

So I ended up starting completely over and took lots of notes. This made for an infinitely more satisfying game-playing experience.

Fortunately, there are certain areas of the game that offer Ed a safe haven. Not only does Mr. Smoozles not follow him to these locations, some contain no mines or other nasty hazards. I really appreciated being able to relax and ponder my next moves without having to worry about being attacked or blown up.

I did discover that the game rather frowns on certain actions. Without giving away too much, I found myself in a situation where I had to destroy some mines (the ones that move) in order to get an item I needed. To do the mine thing, though, I needed a piece of information I'd have to find.

As it happened, only one mine remained in the area at that point. In a dazzling display of smug ineptitude, I'd managed to overestimate my mine-dodging abilities and collide with the others, thereby blowing Ed to bits repeatedly (sorry, Ed).

But aha! Ed still had two lives left. So my devious (okay, lazy) gamer's mind suggested that I simply get rid of the last mine by deliberately letting it run into Ed -- so that's what I did (sorry again, Ed). Voilà! No more mines.

Unfortunately, the game didn't like this at all and refused to recognize my brilliant workaround. I was still obliged to retrieve what the game said I needed in order to get rid of the mines, even though there were no mines left. I could almost see the game shaking its finger at me and saying, "Shame on you! No cheating!"

Although Ed does pick up additional lives during the game, it is possible for him to die. This is not a permanent condition, however.

Well, that's not exactly true. There is one exception, but to reach it you have to screw up really badly. To save myself further embarrassment, that's all I'm going to say about that.

In all other cases, the game simply gives Ed a new set of lives and returns him to the point where he bit the dust. I had no problem with this. After all, these kinds of games are supposed to be fun, not exercises in how to repeatedly die and start over!

The music in Mr. Smoozles, written by 19-year-old composer and pianist Josh Winiberg, is a delight. Josh is amazingly talented, and I daresay he has a great future ahead of him.

A wide range of musical styles is presented in the game, from rather slow-moving and portentous, to cool and jazzy, to ragtime, to upbeat and high-tech. This greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the game, and I didn't even mind when some of the tunes got stuck in my head for several days.

The game's puzzles involve such activities as discovering information, solving problems, locating objects, and fixing things. All are organic and fit nicely with the story. While none of the puzzles is inordinately difficult, a few of them did have me stumped for awhile. But by giving them careful thought and applying some logical reasoning, I was able to complete them -- as well as the entire game -- without referring to outside hints or cheats.

So, is there nothing to criticize here? Well, there are a few things, but nothing of earth-shattering importance as far as I'm concerned.

The game remembers where you left off, and you can elect to return to that spot the next time you play. But Mr. Smoozles offers only eight save slots. I tend to save often in case I really mess things up or want to revisit a particular part of a game later, so I could have used more of them.

The game also has an inventory system in which items are represented graphically only. I would have welcomed some text as well, because it was sometimes hard to identify items solely by their icons. I did play the game more than a few times, however -- including once on each difficulty setting -- and in the process, I became a lot more familiar with the inventory items. Still, labels would have been nice.

Mr. Smoozles takes a relatively long time to load. The first time I launched the game I thought nothing was happening; my pointer didn't indicate that my computer was busy or that anything was happening in the background, and my hard drive indicator showed negligible activity. So I clicked the shortcut again.

When it still appeared as though nothing was happening, I clicked the shortcut a third time. Imagine my consternation as I watched one instance of the game, then another and another finally spring to life, each playing its own intro music. What a cacophony! So when you play the game, be sure to allow extra time for it to load.

As I've said, though, I consider these things to be trifles. All-in-all, I think Mr. Smoozles is a delightful game, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Its fanciful story held my interest, its puzzles were fair without being simplistic, and its humor left me feeling light-hearted. I most definitely recommend it to gamers of all ages!

Final Grade: A- (find out more about our grading system)

If you liked this game, then Play: Rayman, PacMan Watch: Dark City (particularly if you enjoy being creeped out) Read: The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire (I'm kidding!)

System Requirements:

• Windows® 2000/ME/XP
• 1.8 GHz processor
• 32 MB Graphics
• 256 MB RAM
• 40MB hard drive space (for game and saves)
• DirectX version 8 or above