Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa
Arcade
Nostalgia Factor:
I feel as if I have to get one thing out of the way before I dive too deep into this review: I am not familiar with the Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa franchise. Even though the cartoon originally aired when I was 10 or 11 years old, somehow it escaped my attention - as did the video game adaptation.
I probably STILL would never have heard of the franchise if I didn’t stumble upon a YouTube review of this game by SNESdrunk. I’m always looking for new stuff to check out on my RetroPie, and as soon as I saw the appealing graphic style of this game with its bright, cartoonish worlds that brought to mind the TMNT and Simpsons arcade games, I knew I had to play it. Combine that with gameplay very similar to Sunset Riders? OMG sign me up now.
How would I like the game in the end? Let’s find out!
Story:
Not knowing anything about the source material, I can’t tell you much about this game’s story. You play as a group of, uh, cowboys that are actually cows. Your job is to rescue, uh, some female animal creature that’s been kidnapped by the bad guy. What’s the bad guy’s name? Uh, I don’t know. And it doesn’t really matter.
I like to compare this to TMNT. The four “cow” boys (har har har) are like the Ninja Turtles. The woman you rescue is like April O’Neill. The bad guy is like Shredder. That’s really all I took away from this.
Gameplay:
Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa is a 2D run and gun shooting game. There’s really no way you can’t compare this to Sunset Riders. It is SO similar. You pick your character. You start off with a single-shooter gun. You run through each stage, picking off bad guys as you go. You get gun upgrades that allow you to launch faster and more spread out wide range attacks. Unlike Sunset Riders you can get hit three times before you die, with the opportunity to refill your life meter via special items. You get three lives. Each time you burn up those lives you have to plug in a quarter to continue.
The game is comprised of a number of stages, and you can pick the order in which you want to complete these stages. At the end of each stage is a boss character you have to fight against. While most of these stages are your standard run and gun fair, the game does keep things fresh with some flying segments, as well as a stage that takes place on mine carts that are constantly bouncing up and down off the track. Fun stuff.
If you have played Sunset Riders, literally NOTHING you see here will surprise you. To say that this game was simply “inspired” by Sunset Riders would be an understatement. It is like the same game but in a different, easier skin. Just picture an alternate reality Sunset Riders where the cattle have taken over the planet – and you’ve got C.OW.-Boys of Moo Mesa.
Graphics:
This game looks phenomenal. I keep comparing it to Sunset Riders, but as far as graphics go there is no comparison to be made. This game looks SO much better. Again, not being familiar with the source material, I can’t say whether or not this game matches the vibe of the TV show, but seeing as how Konami nailed the look of both the Simpsons and the TMNT arcade games I have no doubt that it does. Bright colors, detailed characters, cartoon-like stages and enemies that really pop off the screen. It looks amazing, like you’re playing a Saturday morning cartoon come to life.
I can’t believe this game came out in 1992, when I was just ten years old. They were still making NES games in 1992. This game is just light years better looking than anything you’d normally see back then.
Sound:
As far as this game’s music is concerned, it’s like they didn’t even try to separate its identity from Sunset Riders. If I closed my eyes and you started playing the music from the first stage of this game, I would have immediately told you it was Sunset Riders, no questions asked.
Unfortunately, while this game may sound like Sunset Riders at first, don’t expect its soundtrack to be quite as good as the game it was inspired by. It’s still a decent soundtrack, but no real memorable tracks and nothing that sets it above the pack. What I did like about this game’s audio are the voices from the boss characters. Yet another Sunset Riders inspired touch, but this time they nailed it spot on.
Overall:
If I have to mention Sunset Riders one more time I swear to god I am going to throw up. It’s hard not to do, however, when this game is SO very clearly imspired by it. The gameplay and the music are dead ringers for Sunset Riders, or at least a “poor man’s” version of the game. I feel as if to call this title a poor man’s version of anything would be doing it a disservice, though. This game is a lot of fun to play and it is easy to see that a ton of love and attention and detail went into its presentation. I almost want to track down the old cartoon and start watching it just because of this game!
Moo Mesa is a pretty forgiving game considering the genre it hails from. I nearly made it to the third level without dying even once before I ran into a boss character who killed me over and over again. And therein lies the real challenge of the game, at least in my opinion: the boss battles. The stages themselves are pretty easy. They’re short, you have unlimited ammo, you can just keep firing ahead and killing enemies as soon as they come onto the screen because most of them die in one hit. Power ups are very plentiful, as well. But the bosses? They are bullet sponges that take a LOT of shots to kill. Their patterns for the most part are easy to memorize, but you are likely going to get hit and die a couple of times before you’re really able to pin down those patterns. Because I’m playing on an emulator with unlimited “quarters” to plug into the system, I was able to get away with just standing there and firing away at the bosses in a war of attrition until they died. Took some of the fun or the challenge out of it, but whatever.
All in all this was a really good game. I enjoyed it so much I played through it twice. And seeing as how this is a cooperative mutiplayer title. it’s something I plan to revisit some day with my son Channing when he’s old enough to play video games. I can’t wait!
Would I recommend Wild West: C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa to anyone who hasn’t played it before? Absolutely, regardless of whether or not you are familiar with the source material. It’s a fast paced and entertaining game that is a lot of fun to play. The only downside is that it is pretty short and easy. You can beat this and be done with it in about a half hour. It has no real legacy to speak of whatsoever, either. As soon as you finish playing this game, it will quickly become a distant memory.
But hey, it is still a lot of fun to play while it lasts.
Final Score:
B
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