Mr.Do!

Let’s talk about feel.

1. The way the cherries are grouped in bunches of eight and, if you collect them in one single little tactile flourish, you’re rewarded with a rhythmically synchronised tune.

Ah man, I must have heard that tune ten-thousand times.

Subterranean Bozo-Boy In Fruity-Shoot Land.

2. Just lightly nudging an apple across to block a passage, and the way the monsters form an angry queue before one of them gets bored and tries to tunnel under the apple…

“Noooo!” shout his mates. “Come back – you bloody fool!”

And then the apple falls and crushes them all.

Patience, see.

Can they not SEE the apples? Do they never LEARN?

3. That thing you do, where you’re digging through the coloured gunge, pursued by a monster, and you realise that you’re not going to make it to the safety of an apple before he catches you and so you just… sort of…

Backfireforward!

That one is best when Mr. Monster practically has his clammy hands on your shoulders…

“Heh heh. Behind you – you polka-dotted little fuck. I’m going to chop bits off you and feed them to your mum…”

BACKFIREFORWARD!

Just a bit closer, tough guy…

4. The bouncy-wouncy snowball of joy. Good enough, that it makes Mr Do! look like he’s carrying one of those girly big all-in-one glove things. Even better, in those moments when the hastily fired ball takes on a life of its own, jangling and clattering around the tunnels, dodging everything until it stops teasing and finally hops back into your loving arms – juuust as a monster is closing in. That can’t be accidental.

5. The retina-zapping, hallucinogenic glory of the between-level breather screens. Here’s Mr. Do! having a bit of a dance with the monsters – including, crucially, THE LETTER ‘E’.

*Nods, knowingly*

Just look at them pupils. He’s well raging.

6. The wanton slobbery of the food bonuses. Bollocks to Pac-Man and all that healthy fruit. Here, we gorge ourselves on cake, crème caramel, ice-cream sundae and an egg.

7. The cheerful candy-stripes dancing around the high-score name entry. I’m not gay, but I like that.

8. The fact that all of this plays out to a constant, recurring, ever-quickening version of the Can Can.

So, yeah.

Feel.

SICKBOY, December 2004.

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