Unusually for a sad commercial merchandise licence, and despite the truly appaling rap-style rhyming used in his name all through the (insultingly poor excuse for an) instruction manual, Chester Cheetah has the makings of a video game star. He's cool (shades), loveable (furry animal with gigantic face and a nifty repertoire of cute looks to camera), and funny (watch him as he howls along to his own guitar playing and say I'm wrong). Which, as I'm sure you know, are three of the four attributes required for video fame and fortune. The fourth, naturally, is a good game. Whoops.

It's not that Too Cool To Fool is a bad game as such. There are some elements of clever design, like the way that gameplay devices are introduced a level or so before they actually become important, giving you a chance to get used to them before you get chucked in at the deep end. I'm thinking particularly here of the guitar 'power-up' which appears in harmless form in level two as a warning to help out the unwary who might otherwise get caught out by it's much more dangerous environment in level three (didn't stop me falling for it, of course, but that's my own problem) or the boat in level one which allows you to develop some familiarity with its controls almost without pressure of danger, so that when it comes into more demanding play later on you've at least got a fighting chance.

Sadly, though, Chester's big chance at the big time is scuppered by an enemy far more common and far sadder than bad game design. Too Cool To Fool falls by the wayside because of an unfortunate set of vital statistics - it's got six titchy little levels, five continues and one difficulty level, namely that of a seven-year-old with one eye shut and both hands tied behind someone else's back. You'll finish the
first two levels without even noticing any bad guys exist, and by the time you reach the (very slightly) harder later sections, the game's generous and kindly learn-as-you-go structure lauded earlier in this very review has left you extremely well prepared for the very little challenge that it subsequently throws at you.

It's heartbreaking, really - in many ways, despite what seems like an uninspiring start, this is actually a pretty neat and enjoyable platformer, not least thanks to the excellentness of your character, but while the gameplay contains several of the attractive elements of (sorry) Super Mario World, it's also a full 90 levels shorter. You'll get maybe two hours out of this one, and lacking even the traditional programmer's cop-out option of tougher difficulty settings to stretch the lifespan out a bit, it'll never see daylight again. Like Marc Bolan, James Dean and Buddy Holly before it, a criminal waste of a true dude.

47 PERCENT