Game:

Cactus McCoy 2: The Ruins of Calavera (2011)

Category:

Walkthrough

Duration: 5:18

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Cactus McCoy is the story of a man who was turned into a cactus by a mystical green orb and must now return the orb to its rightful resting place by venturing out into the wild and untamed West lest he be turned to stone like the poor sap who held the orb before. Sure, it sounds silly, but it's a great game.

If you've ever played any of the popular sidescrollers on Kongregate or Newgrounds, you'll be familiar with the gameplay of Cactus McCoy. The arrow keys will move you around the levels, obviously. "A" jumps the cactus man and "S" attacks, pretty much the only controls you'll really need.

The first level of the game is your standard tutorial level. The graphics are all top-notch, with enemy sprites drawn and animated beautifully. The level graphics coupled with the cheesy music really evoke the feel of an old-timey spaghetti western. That is, however, if spaghetti westerns had anthropomorphic cacti running about swing lead pipes and throwing ninja-sheriff-stars around.

Being a tutorial level, it's not much of a challenge to get through. It can, however, be a bit tricky to get all of the achievements. The first one, taking down all of the wanted posters can be a bit tricky though.

The first three are fairly simple to acquire, as the levels will take you right across them. The fourth though, can be easy to miss. After passing the tutorial area teaching you how to shoot up, you'll come to an area that tells you to go down. Ignore the lying sign and instead climb up as far as you can. You should see the wanted sign to your right. Hop, not jump, but hop off the platform and slide across the wall to get it. Alternatively, jump to the platform right below it and jump up to get the poster.

The fifth poster is in the same area. After jumping the bottomless pit and climbing the wooden planks, head right into the narrow area. You should fight two baddies in white, but being the tutorial level, these guys aren't any problem. Keep going right, and you'll get the fifth poster. Backtrack and make your way to the next area.

Once you reach the next area, the wanted sign is in plain view. It's easy to get, just jump up to the platform where the guy is firing down on you and after dispatching him, grab the poster. The sixth is just to the right of this general area, and can be reached by jumping from the middle platform. The seventh can be a bit tricky to miss. After climbing the final set of stairs, instead of going right to the next area, drop off the ledge to the left to get the poster. Incidentally, this is also where the best hidden treasure can be found. Climb up onto the ledge again, but this time instead of dropping, jump as far as you can to the left. You should -just- be able to grab a rope and then make your way left and then up to grab the treasure.

The next poster can easily be missed by those, like myself, who are far too keen on smashing everything in sight. There are two crates in the area, one made of wood, another made of metal. You can stand on both, but the wooden one isn't in the right place to grab the poster, and moving it will smash it to splinters. Instead, grab the metal crate and move it just under the central ledge. Drop it there, and you should be able to make your way up to the ledge to grab the poster.

The other achievements are fairly easy to do, and as you can repeat levels to your heart's content, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to grab them all. The easiest of them all is "Brawler" which requires that you take down all the baddies in the area, something that you'll most certainly do. The fourth, "Bramble breaker" is easy as well, as you will run across all of the bramble bushes you need to smash without any of them being in tricky areas. The fifth achievement ties in the the third. To get "Marshall McCoy" you need to kill five enemies using sheriff badges, badges which are plentiful in the level. The hardest to get though, is "Fast Learner" which requires that you finish the level in under 1 minute and 40 seconds. To do that, you need to be familiar with the level, ignore all the enemies, and get past all obstacles as quickly as you can.

Well, don't let me stop you then, go on and grab those achievements in the wild cactusy west!

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