Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em (Mystique)
.thumb.jpg.2b3224b3fbb6279b59b123ee6b29aaff.jpg)
Entry posted by DoctorSpuds
2,681 views
Mystique is a punch-line to a bad joke that never should have been asked in the first place, that joke being “what happens when you put porn on the Atari?” This is an absolute travesty, and sadly enough there were two more punch-lines waiting in the wings, them being Universal-Gamex and Playaround. There is no way of sugarcoating these games; there are no positives that outweigh the overbearing negatives. These games are the lowest that the videogame industry has sunk, and that is quite an achievement considering the state of it these days. I own two of these atrocious games, them being X-Man (reproduction), and a nearly mint copy of Mystique’s crown jewel Beat ‘Em & Eat ‘Em (oh lord, I have to type this out for the rest of the review). I overpaid for this game, I was not a user of Ebay so I only used Amazon to get my games, and when I saw a copy of Beat ‘Em & Eat ‘Em in the box I snapped it right up thinking I got a deal, shows what I know. When it arrived I was not disappointed, the box was not creased, the leather case was as good as the day it left the factory, same goes for the cartridge and the manual. Despite the overall condition of the game I still overpaid by 20$, I felt very foolish when I looked on Ebay and saw factory sealed copies for the same price. Despite that initial twinge of regret, I still value this game as a collector’s piece, and a valuable piece of videogame history, and that’s what it should remain.
This game looks… All right actually. I would say the game, based on looks alone, takes place in a dingy warehouse, likely on the waterfront. The people in this game are… generously proportioned, the fellow’s member especially. The women in this game are bodacious, buxom, big bosomed, big booty, blonde, beach babes (and yes the carpet matches the drapes), who, when they complete a level, mysteriously grow a five-o-clock shadow. The screen itself, as stated before, very much resembles a waterfront warehouse, you can see the oddly brown skyline in the background, but not through the windows, which leads me to believe this takes place outside the warehouse, which makes this whole thing ten times funnier. I can just imagine some poor dude walking through the warehouse district at night, turning a corner and seeing this sight, he then turns and runs out of fright. You can’t make this shit up!
This game has the most basic of sounds, there is an ‘escalating’ noise when you start a new game and press the button, I’ll leave context to the imagination. You mostly just have little blips, which I will again leave the context for up to you. When you complete a stage you are blessed with a very decent rendition of “Shave and a Haircut”, which now that I think about it, fits perfectly with the theme this game sets forth. If you fail a stage you will get to hear a very, very important sound, according to the manual, “…and the female computer image(S) lets loose with the world’s first breaking of a computer wind.” In summation, you fail, game fart. There is one other noise that a few, more foolhardy, players will hear, that being the 1-up jingle, which is “Pop Goes the Weasel”, which is again, thematically perfect.
This game is a Kaboom! rip-off, plain and simple. You control one or two women, depending on the difficulty, attempting to catch the droplets of Kraft Mayonnaise that a well humored bloke is dripping down upon them (we all know what this game is about just let me have fun with this), with their mouths. Every drop you catch is worth one point, once you collect sixty nine points you will receive a 1-up, I’m fairly sure most people turn the game off before they complete the first stage, so it’s likely very few people will hear that glorious 1-up noise. Despite being what it is, and that’s shit, this game controls quite well, due to the fact that this is a Paddle game, and as we all know, Paddles always make things better. I’ve always known that Beat ‘Em & Eat ‘Em is the most playable of the Mystique library, and also the strangest, at least it’s not culturally insensitive. It also seems that Playaround, who wound up selling Mystique’s games after they went bust, repurposed the code for this game in one of their own games, Philly Flasher (you look that one up, because I have NO words for that one).
Even though it really doesn’t need to be said, this game is designated to the furthest reaches of the Collector’s Zone, many miles past the charred corpse of Fire Fly, and many more still past the bloated cadaver that is Space Chase. This is a game that should never have been made; the very idea of it is detestable. This is a stain that will never wash out of gaming’s legacy, nor should it be forgotten, it should be used as a marker for how low the bar went. How low did the bar go you ask? Well… suffice to say, you’ll need more than shovels to reach it.
I you're wondering, I created that 3D gif using 3D paint, I'm not sponsored I just wanted to see what would happen, isn't it glorious?
-
1
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
6 Comments
Recommended Comments