Bubsy, the gaming mascot that no one wanted is coming back. Yes, Bubsy the Bobcat may indeed have 9 lives as the much-hated figure returns for a fresh adventure. The Simpsons had Poochie, the gaming community had Bubsy. Bubsy even came with the hilarious catchphrase “Would could possibly go wrong” – Everything apparently! So why are they bringing this cat out of retirement?
Who is Bubsy the Bobcat?
A fair question. If you’re not at least in your mid 20’s you might have been fortunate enough to miss this. Put simply, the mid-nineties saw a ridiculous craze for video game companies to have their own mascot. Nintendo had Mario, Sega had Sonic, but with Xbox and Sony new to the game, developers were desperate to find that breakout character which could latch onto the brand.
This craze saw some success (Spiro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot) and some horrific failures – Bubsy the Bobcat being the most notorious.
Bubsy was designed as a smart-alec, wise cracking, hyper-active, larger than life style character. He epitomised every craze of the 90’s. He even had a cartoon show (that was thankfully cancelled after just 1 God awful pilot episode).
His main function however was as a video game character and in 1996, while Nintendo amazed us with Mario 64, Accolade dropped this turd into the litterbox.
The game looked awful and played worse. It was the epitome of 2D developers struggling to deal with the new craze of 3D environments.
The game was rightly panned and the character officially never saw the light of day again with Accolade closing the shutters in 2000.
Well, brace yourself, because the character that no one wanted is coming back!
Dear God No…
Yes, but hold your fire. This isn’t actually looking too bad. Firstly they have entirely given up on the 3D perspective and gone back to a side scrolling style. When I first saw the screenshots I actually thought I was looking at a Rayman game, and they’re not bad at all.
Now I’m not afraid to throw punches when necessary (check out my scathing review of Friday the 13th), but if they don’t do anything stupid and stick with what works, there may be life in this old cat yet.
When will this be available?
Accolade have said the game will be available later this year. We’re likely looking at a September/October release date. The game itself is set to be released on the PS4 and PC, so Xbox owning can either complain or consider themselves lucky.
When released in the mid 90’s this game was full of clichés everyone was tired off. The current release uses the word “gnarliest”… I sincerely hope they are being ironic. Otherwise, they might be doomed to fall into the same trap again.
