Cheetahmen II

If you were a young male growing up in the late 80's and early 90's, there was one thing you most certainly liked: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. From their start in 1984 as comic book heroes (of which the nº1 cover is an absolute classic) , to the unbelievable success of the original 1987 - 1996 animated series, and 3 live action films (one excellent, one sort of good, and the last one dreadful) the Ninja Turtles attracted nothing less than a legion of followers.

All this is a shame, because it blinded the world to the glory of yet another half-man half-beast fighting ensemble, the Cheetahmen. As the name suggest, the Cheetahmen are a group of 3 Cheetah/Human hybrids, trained in the art of martial combat. They are also the main protagonists of two of the worst video games ever made.

For the time being, i will refrain from commenting on Cheetahmen I, as it is part of the world infamous Action 52 cartridge, which i will most certainly address in a future occasion. Therefore, i will now focus my attention on Cheetahmen II. If you, for whatever reason, tend to surf the Japanese Internet (BECAUSE YOU ARE A PERVERT*) you have heard of this game, since its music has spawned countless remixes on nicovideo.jp. The music in this game has been pawn as terrible, but that must have been by people who have never played the game, because if they did, the music would be the least of their concerns. Cheetahmen II was developed by Active Enterprises c.1992, but never released. However, in 1996, 1.500 reused Action 52 cartridges containing Cheetahmen II were found in a warehouse, and sold in the second hand market. It has since became a cult classic, prized by games collectors worldwide for its rareness and awfulness, fetching remarkably high prices in specialized auctions.

About the game: Cheetahmen I has set the back story for the characters. Dr. Morbis, an evil geneticist goes to Africa in a Safari, and kills a Cheetah, capturing its 3 cubs, in order to conduct evil experiences. The end result: the Cheetahmen. He later trained the 3 Cheetahmen in martial arts, for whatever reason. However, the leader of the Cheetahmen, Apollo (the other two being Hercules and Aires), a skillful archer and an accomplished scholar, began to question Dr. Morbis intentions, and eventually persuaded his brothers to turn against their maker. When confronted with its former minions, Dr. Morbis decides to create more Animal/Human hybrids to oppose them, and so he does. The game consists on the Cheetahmen fighting their mutant brethren. This is pretty much the back story of both games. It was explained in a comic book bundled with the Action 52 cartridge (the idea was turning the Cheetahmen into a cash cow like the TMNT, with comics, action figures, animated series, whatever). It should be noted, however, that the NES version of Cheetahmen I features a introductory movie, where a young gamer was pulled into the tv screen by some mysterious robotic entity, and becomes the Cheetahmen (yes, all 3 of them, it's weird and I didn't really fully understood the damn movie, so whatever).

Throughout the game 6 levels, you play the three Cheetahmen, 2 levels each. The second level ends in a boss battle, and then the current Cheetahman morphs into the next. The game is terrible. The controls are non responsive, collision detection virtually inexistent, the enemies usually either fly at eye level or crawl in the floor. The damn Cheetahmen cannot crouch, and it is extremely hard to attack while jumping. To make matters worse, they often come in pairs, one flying, the other crawling. This means that most enemies cannot be killed, nor avoided, which makes the game extremely difficult, and the best way to clear the levels is by using the various exploits the game allows due to its numerous bugs and glitches. The last two levels cannot be played unless you manage to find a patched ROM, because a programming error does not allow access to the said levels, UNLESS... you are lucky enough to trigger a glitch which makes the game BEGIN in those otherwise unattainable levels. In fact, the game is glitchy as hell:

The good: it is one of those games, so bad it's good. The music is just weird. It has a good general sense of WTFness.

The bad: everything

The ugly: don't even get me started on that

It is strange, it is bad, it is WTF. And to think that this was the best effort by a software company to create something remotely similar to the TMNT franchise is another prime example of corporate greedy optimism shown only by the likes of Atari 2600 and its E.T. game (one could argue PAC-MAN as well, but it DID sold 7million copies). So, give it a try. You can find the game here and a NES emulator here. I have no idea if this is the patched ROM that allows access to the last levels. I didn't play that long, and seriously doubt that you will.

Screenshots by Fox Kitsune. Check the review here.

* It's a joke. You don't have to be a pervert to surf the Japanese Internet, although it helps.