Squirrel Kombat by Kit Pierce The Macintosh gaming platform is making a comeback. That's what most of us are saying, anyway. With blockbusters like Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament coming, titles like Tomb Raider in all of her Lara Croftiness already here, and the hardware shipping in new Macs able to run the latest and greatest offerings with ease, gamers and developers alike are lining up again to play with the Mac. Yessiree, Mac games are back except for one little thing: They never actually left. Sure, retail releases seemed to be few and far between, but we always had shareware. I could start listing off titles to illustrate my point, but that would be tedious, so I'll refrain. Let me just say that if you wanted adventure, you always had shareware. If you wanted action, you had shareware. Strategy, RPG, arcade... you had shareware. Platform fighting games... er... not so much. There were some, don't get me wrong. But none that ever really lit my fire. Either they had really clunky graphics, or their keystrokes were dreadfully obnoxious, or their multiplayer capabilities were lacking, or what have you. Maybe in the future I'll do a round-up, but later. Right now I'm having too much fun with Squirrel Kombat. Monkeying Around The monkeys at Monkey Farm Software have released their latest opus, and it is a raucous romp into the riotous realm of rodentcide. The premise of the game is relatively simple, like most fighting games: In the battle between good and evil, there must rise a champion who will protect the innocent, right wrongs, and kick the butts of any and all squirrels who stand in their way. When you launch the game for the first time, don't make the same mistake as I did by being in a public place with the volume of your Powerbook turned all the way up. You will be greeted with the Monkey Farm Splash screen and someone screaming the name of the company at the top of their lungs. As soon as the game loads, the theme song also starts playing. A nice little ditty that sounds like the Chipmunks crossed with Sid Vicious. Squirrel Kombat comes with minimal documentation, but that's not such a bad thing. The quick start instructions are located in the Extras folder of the application's folder. It gives a quick run-down of the basic features on the game, how to specify options, and the general plea to register the game. But that's okay. The interface is straight-forward and limited to four buttons across the bottom of the screen: Play, Options, Scores, and Quit. Betcha' can't guess what "Quit" does. You'll want to visit the "Options" first. A Visit to the Options Here you can set things like the level of gore, and select your keys. I try to listen to the music that comes with the game while I'm playing, and as cute as Squirrel Kombat's song is, mercifully, you can disable the soundtrack in the Options section, too. You can turn the blood on, off, or zombify it to an interesting yellow color. Watching your opponent fly through the air streaming yellow particles can be a bit suggestive all on its own. Still, even though the violence is extremely cartoony, it's nice to be able to tone it down or turn it off completely. You also set the game difficulty here. Easy is a romp in the park. Enemies rarely used their special moves with any effectiveness and let themselves get thrashed in quick form. Hard got downright ugly. I usually kept the game set to its medium difficulty, but any and all shareware vidmasters should be ashamed if they play on anything less than hard. Squirrel Kombat will also let you remap the default key patterns. I thought this was a nice touch even though the default key pattern is about as logical as they come for a two player fighting game. My only gripe is that, with the sound, you only get options for "on" or "off" leaving the system sound level ultimately being the governor of the output volume. So, for instance, if you launch the game on your Powerbook in a public place and unwittingly have the system volume all the way up, you will cause yourself to be a spectacle, and there's no way to adjust the sound (other than off) without quitting out of the game and relaunching. Not a big deal, just a nuisance. Getting into the game is simple. In the play screen you get to choose from several different colorful characters with names like Kathy, Ninja, Speedy, and Ed. There's even an octogenarian squirrel named George. Here you also select from your play options: One or two player, one-on-one, tournament, two-on-two, or practice mode. Practice mode is why I don't mind the lack of extensive documentation. Practice mode launches an in-game tutorial where you are pitted against a cunning and vicious straw dummy squirrel. The step-by-step instructions educate you in the ways of basic carnage such as how to throw, body slam, and uppercut, to name a few. If that isn't good enough, refer back to the folder called Extras. Here you will find the special moves for each of the characters. This is a wonderful inclusion, but I wouldn't suggest trying to learn them all. There are just too many minor variations to keep straight. The game has enough characters to learn a few well and keep your opponents guessing. The gameplay is fast and fun. The little rodent sprites jump all over the screen furiously whomping the heck out of each other. Some of the moves are a little unbalanced in their power, for instance, the Flying Side Kick beats almost every other move, but overall the game seems to work out okay if you take the time to learn some of the special moves. It's also much more fun if you do. Try Super Squirrel's phone booth maneuver if you don't believe me. Or try out Kathy's Squrrrel Power arsenal. She'll kill you with kindness. I enjoyed the tournament play very much. It's satisfying to take one little rodent and move all the way up the ladder leaving furry destruction in your wake, but two-on-two was a special treat. You and a friend each pick a character and double team the computer in a tournament or by the match. If you and your friend take your fights to opposite ends of the screen, the screen splits vertically. This can be a smidge disorienting at first, but you'll get used to it quickly enough. And the best part of team play is that you can't hurt your teammate in team play, which allows you to concentrate on the the carnage and mayhem to your heart's delight. The game also tracks your high scores in case you care about bragging rights later. It would be fun to see a network carnage option in the future, but I'm dreaming now. A nit about gameplay: I was disappointed that, unlike it's namesake, there aren't any fatality moves in Squirrel Kombat. At least, there aren't any documented fatalities. Who knows, maybe Monkey Farm is reading this and they'll decide to do something about it in Squirrel Kombat II. The Techs Down to the technicals. Though the graphics are a bit crude, and take getting used to, I decided they were appropriate for Squirrel Kombat. The animations are cute, and smooth, and that's important in my book. The arenas are large. Most of them go up for a while, too. There's a couple of bird nests up in the branches of the forest. If you touch the eggs, a mother bird will come out and peck at you. Various scenes also harbor other environmental hazards: acorns falling from trees will whack you for some collateral damage, and chunks of ice will pelt you in the tundra. Touches like these really expand the depth of the game. It almost feels silly saying that the premise of pugilistic squirrels locked in mortal... er, squirrel combat has depth, but it does. I was afraid the Squirrel Kombat was going to get boring once the novelty had worn off, but it hasn't, and I've been pounding it for more than a couple of weeks now. The sound adds much, too. Ever whimsical, the squirrels grunt when they jump and squawk like Bruce Lee come back from the dead when they perform a move. Mind you, I turn off the theme song, but it may heighten the tension of the game for you . Who knows until you try? If you again refer to the extras folder, you will find the lyrics to the song. Sing along! You'll find that this will annoy your friends and enemies alike, leading your way to victory. In a world where it's getting harder and harder to even find a shareware game that doesn't want at least a PPC 604, Squirrel Kombat merely requires a PowerPC 60Mhz or better,15MB of RAM, 5.7MB of disk space. It runs in 640x480 and changing the system color from 256 colors to millions had no effect on gameplay. The game requires that you have the DrawSprocketLib in your Extensions folder when you launch the game. The appropriate library is included with the download, or you can get the entire Game Sprockets library, version 1.5, from Apple. I asked Monkey Farm about input sprocket and game pad support for Squirrel Kombat. They said that, while input sprocket support is not yet implemented, there has been enough demand for them to investigate implementing it in the future. Until such a time, any joystick or game pad that lets you remap the buttons should work just fine, making some of the more awkward moves easier to pull off. Why should you register Squirrel Kombat? According to the website, in addition to all of the other wonders and joys of the demo, you get 11 Non-Secret characters, 5 awesome and unique fight scenes, no more nagging, and access to secret cheats! We like secret cheats. Being an old-school Street Fighter player with a good sense of humor, I enjoyed this game. Squirrel Kombat has found a place in my library, capturing the spirit of the platform fighters well, and helping to keep the Mac the best platform for shareware that there ever was. Pros • Cute, whimsical, and engaging all at once • Straightforward gameplay • Good multiplayer implementation • Extras folder • Excellent shareware platform style fighter • Low system requirements • The theme song is a hoot Cons • Graphics appear crude at first • Somewhat confusing special move combinations • No fatalities unlike its namesake • That #$@! theme song