DP has done reviews of PC games
before when we saw a game we thought would be of interest. Chex Quest falls into
that category. First of all, it’s free inside specially marked packages of
Corn/Wheat/Rice Chex. I believe that this is the first time that a CD-ROM or any other
software media was the giveaway in a box of cereal. How can they afford to do this you are
probably wondering? Well, CD’s are much cheaper to manufacture than cartridges. I
believe I heard it was only 50 cents. The biggest overhead is the development, but
that’s a one-time charge. Also Ralston Food is not in this deal alone, America Online is also on the same CD with their start up package (50 free hours for signing up). It amazes me how AOL is still pushing for more customers when they can’t even handle the traffic they have now. You do not have to join AOL to play this game. It is not online, but runs in Windows 95 & MS-DOS that you setup and playback with the CD.
What you get basically is a Doom clone with full screen animated movie clips at the beginning and end of the game. The hero looks like Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story) wearing waffle armor. The villains are the Flemoids which look like green amoebae. This was done to make it seem less violent. The weapon is the Zorch, which looks like a fancy remote control. You fly in your rocket ship to the planet Bazoik, working your way from the landing zone through the various rooms.
The graphics are not as crisp and clear as Doom or Duke
Nukem. But hey, what do want for nothing? The opening clip is a rather strange, campy
piece of animation that sets up the game scenario. You must clear each level to proceed.
You can call up maps. You have to pick up supplies to survive. Nothing new as far as game
play as far as I can see.
There are one or more bosses that can appear mid-level. So it is a good idea to seek out the heavy artillery ASAP. I have stumbled my way thru three levels. I do not know how many exist. But, each level is fairly extensive and requires finding color-coordinated keys to open some doors. There is a amusing inter- mission in which our local hero scrapes off the "slime" from the bottom of his boots. He uses a spoon, which also functions as the last ditch weapon. If you quit the game, you still get to see the ending sequence. All in all, this is a nice game with decent graphics. The programming was done by Id Software.
I still prefer to play games on a dedicated system rather than a PC. A PC is too expensive to take the rough treatment I dish out in the heat of battle. A lot of times I accidentally hit the wrong key and jump out of the game temporarily.
