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There is no way to tell what the film Cool World is like because it is not out yet. The only thing I can say is that I quite fancy the cartoon representation of a woman on the poster (her name is Holli – sigh), which has me, and my psychiatrist, more than slightly worried, especially as I was just getting over my crush on Jessica Rabbit. That aside (ahem), let us look at the game plot. This guy, Jack Deebs, has been writing this groovy underground comic called Cool World and in the process he has unwittingly created an alternative universe. This universe is peopled (or charactered, anyway) by doodles, who are the stars of the comic, and they are intent on transferring objects from the real world to Cool World by jumping through vortices between the two. All this would be fine if it were not for the fact that as a direct result the universe is going to destruct. You play Harris the Policeman, and it is up to you to save the universe from this unusual threat. It all looks fantastic potential for a great game.
Ah, the game. It was looking good on the fantastic intro sequence, and my heart ached as the current object of my desire danced on the screen in front of me, and somebody else had to push the fire button to get me on to the game itself. And then… oh dear. You are on this horizontally scrolling level, which could hardly be called platform as there are only two dimensions to it, shooting purple gorillas and Bart Simpson look-alikes armed only with a handy pen. I cannot believe it, it looks like a Spectrum game. I was cursing and preparing myself for a 29% job, when it got better. It turns out that was just the start, where you are travelling the Cool World streets collecting coins in order to bribe your way into the other levels.

And the other levels are an improvement. This is a platform game after all, but with the added twist that you have got two levels at once – the real world scenario and the Cool World scenario – and you skip between the two using the vortexes. You have to shoot the doodles, which turns them into ink bubbles, and then suck them back into your pen to completely destroy them. In the Cool World you have to pick up real world objects and send them back where they belong. You get an indication of how many doodles are in the real world and how many objects are in the Cool World, so you are constantly skipping about between the two to keep the balance in check. When the danger reaches critical level you lose a life and you have to keep the balance during the time limit to go to the next level.

And that is it really. It is fairly engrossing for a while, as you battle with time and are forced to jump arund a lot between the two worlds. This makes for a mildly entertaining game, and bumps the rating up by 30% from my initial disappointment, but it is not a complete stormer by any means. The control of the character is very crude and feels clumsy at times. The backgrounds look good, but not stunning, and it is really an average platform game that is raised slightly above average by the time limit and two-levels-in-one scenario. I was left with the impressions that a lot more could be done with such an interesting plot. But never mind, eh? There is always the title sequence…
TIM TUCKER