Impossamole

Yes, you can now own the worst Monty Mole game on Steam. That's probably unfair to Impossamole, but I'd much rather be playing Monty on the Run or Auf Wiedersehen Monty. The Monty series has its roots in satire, beginning with the titular mole stealing coal during the miners' strike of 1984. After a few well-received instalments came Impossamole, jettisoning the satire for a bland "Monty as a superhero" plot and rather aimless console-style platforming, at a time when home computers were already getting flooded with console-style platformers. Yet... Thumbs up? Can't really judge it on its predecessors when they're not on Steam yet. At the price it's a decent little game, and an interesting throwback to a more innovative era in gaming. Presented in what I assume is the original PC conversion, it certainly looks colourful and slick. And the title theme is a cover of Rob Hubbard's Monty on the Run, it's got to score some points just for that.

I've never played the series of this game, and I saw some videos online of the previous installments, and the Amiga version of this game, and I think this is similar in game play. There are a few differences, like this, the Turbografx-16 version, has more faster game play, and is a little less forgiving in avoiding getting hit by enemies. Also, it was developed by NEC, and although as I said before they kept most of the gameplay, you will notice some Japanese influence in the characters in this game (walking cameras, incorrect grammar and a few weird power-ups). Also, this series has some good soundtrack, and this game is no exception as NEC did just about as good a job as British game company Gremlin Interactive. Although some of the stages have almost unfair difficult spots and sometimes easy bosses, this turned out to be a good platform game.

I remember playing this game on the TurboGrafx-16 in the early '90 so I was surprised to see when it was released on Steam. Well, it's pretty much a straight port of the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine version of the game. You play the part of a character called Monty Mole wearing a super hero outfit going around and kicking enemies into the shape of a box, tossing them around and using power-ups to help you along the way. The game plays using the original 4:3 aspect ratio and I didn't see any option to stretch to fullscreen. It wasn't a problem for me but I'm sure others would like to see that option. Also, it's not mentioned in the store page but it does have controller support. Keyboard keys are set by default so make sure to go to the settings (ESC key) then go to Change Keys and and bind your controller buttons.

Definitely the best version of Impossamole ever. Blows away the Amiga version, which is the next best version. The music is downright fantastic chip tunes. And it has a complete soundtrack, unlike all the other versions. The Amiga and other versions only have a title screen, high score screen, & maybe an ending theme if I'm remembering right. That's not to say this game is without it's flaws. The hitbox is off, both for Monty & the enemies. That's the main thing that holds the Impossamole games from being better in general. It takes some getting used to. However, I gave it a second chance, & ended up loving this underdog of a game. Also, the graphics in this version are great. Lot's of nice detailed sprites and tiles and huge bosses! However, Gremlin could've done quite a bit more. There's plenty of instances where parallax could've been easily added with some simple tricks using sprites a/or dynamic tiles, as this version was on the TurboGrafx-16 which only has 1 backgr...

Only recommend for the biggest Monty Mole fans. Probably the worst of the main 5 games, including Monty Is Innocent. But the price is quite cheap. Buy if you want.