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ChuChu Rocket! (Dreamcast) artwork

ChuChu Rocket! (Dreamcast) review


"Never in my life have I played a game as weird as this one. "

Never in my life have I played a game as weird as this one.

Yes, here you go folks. This is the weirdest video game I have ever played, and I mean that. The basic premise of this game is so messed up, and the actual game itself is even weirder. Whoever thought of this game must have been seriously drunk or high. I mean, just look at this game. The whole object of it is to lead mice into little holes. If that is not the weirdest concept, ever. Then I don't know what is.

OK, so maybe Seaman is the weirdest concept ever.

OK, maybe it is, I will admit that. But still, you gotta admit that this is one of the weirdest games ever to be made. It really is quite a work of art, however. Yes, this may be a weird game, one of the weirdest ever in fact, but it is also an outstanding game, one of my favorites on the Sega Dreamcast. I know I say that a lot, but I really mean it here. This is such a fun game.

The most hyped feature about the game was the fact that you can play this game online with other people over the Chu Chu Rocket Network. This is a great and innovative idea that actually turned out pretty good, as the game came with a network browser ROM. Once you connect to the network, you can play online against millions of other users (well, not millions, but there are a lot). You can play, chat, anything. It is a lot of fun. Definitely one of the coolest ideas in a video game, ever, and the result is good, as well.

The rest of the game is fun as hell to play, trust me. The basic concept of the game is a bit convoulted, as you have to lead little mice into chutes. How do you do this? Well, you just have to use arrows to guide them around the screen. You get several arrows at one time, so lets say the mice are moving up, and you want them to move left into the chute. Put the arrow in the path of where they're walking, to the right of the chute. The mice will hit the arrow, move left, right into the chute! It's a really novel, fun, and addictive thing.

Multiplayer mode is just as fun. In this mode, you can go up against three of your friends and lead your mice. This can get hectic because everyone will be placing arrows everywhere. In this mode, you can also use the arrows to lead bombs into your opponent's chute. This is a lot of fun, and I swear you can turn a battle around in like 6 seconds, by gaining a lot of points and having your enemies lose a lot of points. I gained like 400 points in 40 seconds once. Multiplayer mode is fun, and you can almost always use it because you can go mutliplayer on the network whenever you wanted.

Now onto the most important thing (aka least important thing) in a game, graphics. This is one of the best looking games on the Sega Dreamcast, a console known for quality graphics. There is not much here to look at, but what is here is good. The thing I like most is how colorful everything is. There is a basic grid with simple enemies, but everything is so colorful, and I especially like the explosions when a bomb enters a chute, the chute explodes in this 3D look that looks amazing. This is definitely a great looking game, and nothing beats the logo.

The music and sound effects in this game are rather interesting. This is one of the better sounding games on the Sega Dreamcast, guaranteed. The only problem with the music is the same things that plagues a lot of video games: the music can get rather repetitive. Yes, this is one of the most repetitive soundtracks ever, but I still got a kick of it, mainly because I think it tries to be annoying. Sound effects are rather pleasant, and did not get annoying at all, and I was so happy that there was not some stupid half assed announcer annoying me every four seconds with comments like ''30 seconds to go''. They annoy me so much.

You will want to replay this game a lot, for sure. The simple fact that this game can be played over a network is a lot of fun, because you will have something to do once you grow tired of the single player game. Once you do, you can just go on the network and play online with people from all around the world. That has got to be the coolest thing ever, and you should not grow tired because of this innovative and very novel idea.

This is not a very challenging game, but it is one of the more challenging puzzle games out there. The simple fact that the game moves so fast and the fact that you have to make split second decisions about where to put your puzzle pieces and arrows adds to the challenge of the game, but still, it is not one of the more challenging games. Once you figure out the puzzles, it's as good as done, and that is a bad thing, because this game does not have enough variety.

Overall, this is one of the most fun games I have ever played in my entire life, and it is well worth a purchase, because you will never grow tired of it, due to the network browser that comes with it. You may grow bored of the single player game quickly, since the stages can get tedious once you learn the patterns, but the network features make this game a classic.



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Community review by psychopenguin (March 08, 2005)

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