Game:

Cool Spot (1993)

Duration: 8:11

3,021 views

6

So how do you feel about partaking of all this unsubtle advertising for 7up? I think as time went on and hardware advanced, games grew far too complex to just throw down a small project for the purposes of advertising...huge teams became the norm, and you'd really need a property with a lot of money behind it to throw some real oomph behind a whole slew of people involved in its creation, like say a major motion picture tie-in.

What about those weird games that Burger King made a while back, featuring its creepy "King" with the oversized mask? I actually wouldn't know if they turned out to be of any real value, but it was an interesting pitch to try to make in an era where advertainment that explicit and blatant had all but been eradicated as a matter of business logic.

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Stage 4: Wading Around

Wading around? No! This "wading pool" as they would have you believe is far too deep for Spot, and he doesn't swim, you see...so I don't think there will be any of that going on, not on my watch! Well, maybe just a little, but that's just because Spot so desperately wanted to take a belly flop...even though his face and his "belly" are technically the same thing...ouch, that must sting!

I will say one thing, this stage would appear to ignore proper perspective...some platforms are much lower than others, but never do they seem nearer or further away from us, and the same goes for Spot himself when he's traversing them at these different ranges. The same goes for the surface of the water, because you'll notice if you fall into it, you'll make a little splash right in line with the nearby platform, which obviously means the contact area of your doom is located at different heights...it can all get slightly disorienting once you get a-leapin'...

One thing I believe I've noticed is that for some reason, this version of the game (the Super Nintendo edition) seems to lack something I noticed quite readily in the Genesis/Mega Drive version...when you land on a boat or a ducky, they make sounds! In this one...not so much. It would've been a little touch that could go a long way, and it doesn't seem like a whole lot to include, so I kinda wonder why it wasn't included in this one. Oh well.

Wait a minute...what's that sound? Oh my, a mean little frog is sitting down there, just out of view. Wait, what's he doing? He's spitting at Spot! How crude! It's actually rather easy to miss some of them entirely if you're going fast enough. Some, like the one that wanted absolutely no one to use his favorite rubber ducky...well, that might make them a little harder to ignore.

Oh, and there we have it! One of those mysterious floating spiked balls of an inexplicable nature or origin, and we're not in a bonus stage! I thought so, but I honestly wasn't sure for some reason. I must protest on general principle the one that was just floating around above an offscreen lily pad, because I'm honestly not sure how we were supposed to see that one.

And then once we reach the end of the pool, the stage takes a sudden change in direction and focus, to the dizzying heights of...I guess this is a toy store of some kind? Speaking of shifts in focus, notice how we went from a seaside theme, and then randomly ended up inside some building's wall? I guess that wall was some manner of bizarre playland including a huge inflatable wading pool?

There's also a big focus on hanging model blimps, rockets, UFOs, and...wait...that toy plane...it's moving! It's flying around! No strings! The guy inside it is dropping bombs all over the place? Yeah, things turn a tad for the more surreal, I suppose...as if fiddler crabs in boxer shorts and mice in pajamas weren't enough already. Hold on to your seats, the spectacles only get more unusual from here on. Of random note, the flying saucers aren't suspended on strings, and they appear to be hovering by some propulsion as indicated by visible exhaust seen coming from the bottom...miniature aliens? What on earth have we wandered into?!

This is a rather cool display of models hanging from the ceiling and all, but it's really hard to get a bead on your surroundings for precision platforming. The parallax looks kinda nice, but given how quickly the screen scrolls in response to Spot's motions, it can leave you simply hoping that you make landfall where you'd intended if you're not too used to the effect.

Also, some platforms end sooner than you might think, and it's also really easy to underestimate the speed at which Spot will automatically roll down certain inclines on the rockets. Oh, and be careful of the flying saucers (kinda small compared to the other models, aren't they?), because they'll flip sideways after you stand on one. I also manage to "slip" and fall by jumping later than I ought to, but at least nothing too disastrous ever happened to the li'l guy. Well...not too many times, I guess.

(They tried to pull a pretty sneaky trick with the remaining coolness points near the end of the stage!)

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