[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Boil Over with Mr. Cool
September 8th, 2008 by Benj Edwards
“The ice cube cometh.”
Yep, Mr. Cool is little more than Q*bert on ice — but this one requires a touch of SuperCool to win. Somehow, Mr. Cool himself looks like he was plucked from an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
I remember playing this for the Atari 800 and not being too impressed. But oh well; clones will be clones. (Psst — remember Donkey King?)
Discussion topic of the week: Share your memories of video game clones. Any favorites? Any ridiculous examples?
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September 8th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I remember playing Oil’s Well to death for many years on my Atari XE. Still do play it now and then. Wasn’t until much later that I found out it was a clone of an obscure arcade came called Anteater.
Oddly enough, Oil’s Well was by Sierra On-Line too.
September 8th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Oil’s Well is great — I was actually just playing it last week on my 128XE. Oddly enough, though, I played Anteater before I ever heard of Oil’s Well, courtesy of MAME. Turns out there were a number of vintage arcade clones of Anteater back in the day.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
The clone I hated most was the Nintendo Made Tetris, AKA, Dr. Mario. I ****ING HATE DR. MARIO! Tetris FTW
September 9th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Wow, you’re right, his face is a dead ringer for Master Shake! Doesn’t look like that great of a game. Wasn’t Silpheed ported by SOL at the same time? People were probably playing that instead.
September 9th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Oh yeah, my favorite video game clone would have to be that homebrew Defender clone for the Dreamcast that starred the Linux penguin. Awesome game, good music to boot.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Jezzball was a clone of Qix. It was devious in how simple it seemed, but I played it into the wee hours of the morning.
I have to agree with th3fr3ak, Dr. Mario was inferior to Tetris in nearly every way.
September 9th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Dr. Mario is an art form unto itself. While it was inspired by Tetris, it definitely isn’t a Tetris clone. As far as “falling block puzzle piece” games go, Dr. Mario is easily #2 after Tetris in my book.
September 10th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I agree that Dr. Mario isn’t a true clone; it is the red-headed stepchild locked in the attic you feed fish-heads to.
I should mention that I am color blind, and was only diagnosed in my teens. All color-match games were infuriating because I didn’t understand why they were so easy for my friends.
Memories…
September 10th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I can definitely see how being color blind would dampen your enthusiasm towards Dr. Mario. Did you have trouble with any other video games because of that?
September 10th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
You could still play PuyoPuyo, cuz they all look different…
September 11th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
oh man, I’d have to say “Rival Turf” for the SNES. I rented it back in the early 90s. It’s a total “Final Fight” clone but you can actually play it with 2 players. It wasn’t nearly as good as the later “Final Fight” games or Sega’s “Streets of Rage” series but it was guilty fun at its best. I knew it was bad but I just couldn’t stop playing it.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
My fave clone is Coco-Loco, a coin-op Pac-Man knockoff from the early 1980’s, in which the Pac character looked much like a banana peel when his jaws were open.
July 6th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
My pet peeve about Mr Cool is that it is barely 2D, maybe just 1.5D while the original Q*Bert is isometric 3D. If you’re going to clone a popular game, try to make it just as good or better, not leaving out half the game concept. There were clones that improved upon Q*Bert though, games like Flip and Flop, Pogo Joe and Rainbow Walker come to my mind.