Mister Mosquito
Score: 90% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Eidos Interactive Developer: Fresh Games Media: CD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Action/ Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: Mister Mosquito places you in the life of a mosquito, trying to eek out a living during a very hot summer with the Yamada family by doing what you must - sucking their blood. I won't go into any more detail on the scenario, as the first time you play (without a saved game), you'll be in for a long narrative intro which you can't speed past. (Attention all developers: this is a bad idea. If they want to get past it, let them. Feh.) As for the look of the game, the 'levels' consist of well-designed rooms in the Yamada family home. The rooms look good and present an interesting 'bug's-eye-view' of the world. The sound effects are nice, but I find that the in-game speech is a bit repetitious. One amusing effect is the 'bullet-time' blurring effect when you're attacked by one of the Yamadas. The story is helped along in-between levels by a very strange view of conversations between the Yamada family members, usually mentioning the fact that they've been bitten by a mosquito (that's Mr. Mosquito to you, thank-you-very-much...) and then talking about other things in their daily life. Some of the interactions are just weird, but the thing to notice is how they get more hostile to each other as the game progresses - all due to your irritation. (Itchy - itchy!!!)
Gameplay: What can I say? In Mister Mosquito you're a mosquito. You suck. The game, however, is quite fun. I first brought this game out at a party and threw it in the PS2 and tried it out with a group of party-going onlookers. Within a few minutes, they progressed from giggling to chanting 'Suck, Suck, Suck' as I skillfully drained an unwitting Yamada of her youthful blood. The game doesn't take itself too seriously, and flying around as a mosquito in a room of people can lead to some very, um, 'interesting' camera angles. Nothing nasty here, but enough to solicit some off-colored comments from the peanut gallery. In other words, it was a great time. Truthfully, Mister Mosquito is not the worlds best party game, as it's a one-player game, but it's great for a few laughs among friends and a way to waste away a few hours on your own.
Difficulty: The controls in Mister Mosquito take a bit of getting used to. Not a long time, really, but a little bit of practice. Luckily, Mister Mosquito has a pretty decent rate of increase in difficulty. One of those nicely balanced not-too-quick-and-not-too-slow ramps. The early levels give you the time you need to figure out what's going on (and what to do about it), while the later levels show that everything you know might help you, but it won't make things easy. This is one of those games that you can play through a few levels and get to a place that you can't pass, then come back the next day and be able to make your way through another couple of levels.
Game Mechanics: If you can get past the controls, Mister Mosquito is a really nice game. Wierd, but nice. There are times that the game leaves you scratching your head and wondering what you're supposed to do NOW. (psst - you can't suck blood from a body in motion. Meditate on that and be enlightened, young grasshopper...) The only thing I really found sort of aggravating was that in the cut scenes you never see the Yamada's mouths. While they sort of pull this off as a 'style' thing, I can't help but think that the difficulty in matching mouth animation to audio had to play a BIG part in this stylistic choice. It just seems to be a bit distracting to me... (Psst - when you see me review a game and the worst thing I can say is something as trivial as that... you should run out and buy it. Now. Go...) All in all, Mister Mosquito is a really cool game that's an excellent (if slightly strange) addition to your PS2 collection. The perfect game to pull out at your next all-nighter, say around 3 or 4 in the morning - when everything's already funny... Just try it. You'll thank me...
-Geck0, GameVortex Communications AKA Robert Perkins
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