Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso – Hands-On Preview

When I first started playing Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso, I have to admit I was thrown off by the arcade-like look and feel of the game. Now I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of traditional adventure games, where the emphasis is more on exploration and puzzle solving at your own pace, rather than scampering around frying alien brains with plasma blasters. Any game which attempts to mix action elements with traditional adventuring is looked upon by me with intense suspicion. So when I found out that Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso was an arcade-adventure hybrid, I wasn’t frankly all that excited.

Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso is an arcade-adventure where you control Ed, a cute little cat, as he tries to stay alive by avoiding the zap-happy Mr. Smoozles, who has gone bezerk. The reason for Mr. Smoozles’ strange behavior is that his brain has been warped by the Goragons, who have invaded earth and are using Mr. Smoozles’ house for their base. Ed must free his friends who’re being held captive, restore normality and defeat the Goragons’ plans. To do this, Ed will need to embark on quests that involve interacting with characters and collecting various items, and then using them at the appropriate occasion, much like in an adventure game. What’s different here is that Mr. Smoozles will be hot on your trail, and if you’re not careful and get zapped one too many times by him, you can actually die. However, if you are not a big fan of dying and restarting from your last save game, you can tone down the arcade elements in the game by playing in the easy mode. I found that having Mr. Smoozles chase me around was not all that annoying, and merely added to the sense of urgency of the scenario while I completed my quests.

I have to confess that my initial skepticism faded away as I spent some more time with the game and found an interesting story unfold before me. Playing this game reminded me a little bit of two old classics – Commander Keen and Bomberman, except that you won’t be planting bombs or zapping aliens, and there is plenty of wholesome adventuring goodness sprinkled all over. The preview version of the game was a lot of fun to play, and assuming that the designers put the required effort into the storyline, pacing and puzzle development, Mr. Smoozles Goes Nutso will definitely be a game to watch out for.