Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Todd Replogle |
| Publisher(s) | Apogee Software |
| Release date(s) | March, 1992 |
| Genre(s) | side-scrolling |
| Mode(s) | Single Player |
| Platform(s) | MS-DOS |
Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure is a video game programmed by Todd Replogle and published by Apogee Software in 1992. It is a two-dimensional side-scrolling platform game produced for the PC platform, and features 16-color EGA graphics at 320x200 screen resolution.
Contents |
[edit] Technical implementation
The game's technology at the time was comparable and in direct competition with that of Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers 3 for the NES (which was released several years prior, but was still selling well at the time). Although Cosmo contained superior graphics capabilities in the form of three-layer masked horizontal parallax scrolling, this feature came at the cost of the game's frame rate. A file contained with the shareware version of the game urged people not to download it if their computers could not handle it.
[edit] Music and Sound
It is worth noting that while the game supported AdLib music, it did not support SoundBlaster sound. The sound effects were instead generated by the PC speaker. One could cycle through all the sound effects in the game through the sound test option in the main menu.
[edit] Story
The storyline, intended for smaller children, is about a little alien boy named "Cosmo". Cosmo's parents are taking him to Disney World for his birthday. A comet hits their ship, forcing them to land on an unknown planet and repair the ship. Cosmo goes exploring, and when he returns, his parents are missing. Seeing large footprints, Cosmo thinks that his parents have been captured and sets off to rescue them before they are eaten. There are 3 episodes in the game series in which Cosmo must navigate through either 10 or 11 alien-themed levels.
[edit] Endings
At the end of the first episode, Cosmo unexpectedly gets swallowed by a large alligator-like creature. The story continues in the second episode, where Cosmo ends up in the creature's body and has to find a way out. At the end of the second episode, Cosmo finds the city where he thinks his parents might have been taken. In the final episode, Cosmo finds his parents and has a great time at Disney World for his birthday.
[edit] Gameplay
The main character in the game is Cosmo, which the player controls around the levels. Cosmo can walk and jump, and can hang onto most walls with his suction-cup hands. Combining the hanging and jumps allows Cosmo to climb to higher places.
[edit] Fighting and health
Cosmo has a health meter with three units. Each time an enemy or hazard damges Cosmo, he loses one unit. If he loses all three units, or falls off a chasm, the player has to restart the level. There are Power-Up Modules that restore one health unit each, that resemble colored atom-shaped objects. There are also hidden Cheeseburgers that add new units to the meter, to a maximum of five.
There are several enemies found in the levels (see below). Most of them hurt Cosmo by touching him, though many have other attacks as well. Cosmo can kill many of them by jumping on them, or by using the bombs he can collect in the levels. Bombs can also be used to destroy other objects in the game.
There are also Shield cubes, which break open when touched and provide a temporary invincibility shield for Cosmo.
[edit] Items and points
There are several fruits that can be found on the levels, which give points to the player's score. Different fruits are worth different amounts of points.
After every two levels the player has an opportunity to enter a bonus stage, depending on the number of stars collected during the last two levels. Reaching twenty-five stars allows the player to enter into one bonus stage; reaching fifty allows the player to enter into a different one.
Other items include:
- Hovercraft: Allows Cosmo to fly.
- Hint Globes: Globules that are held up by a harmless bolt of electricity. These cause a message to be displayed if Cosmo runs into one. Blowing Hint Globes up will give the player 12800 points.
[edit] Enemies and characters
Many of these are not referred to by any name in the game, and are mentioned here by their appearance.
- Eye Plants: Pink stalks that have an eye growing in place of a flower. They appear on the ceiling or floor of a level. If you bomb an eye stalk, you'll get a free bomb returned to you, and if you bomb 15 eye stalks in one level, you will get 50000 points.
- Red aliens that you encounter during your travels, usually in habitable levels. They hurt Cosmo by biting him.
- Blue aliens that usually fall from the sky. They roll about on the floor, moving towards Cosmo, and if he touches one, it will hurt him.
- Aliens that have the look of a bird's head and shoot colorful bullets that can hurt Cosmo.
- Little birds that appear in most of the levels. These fly back and forth trying to peck at Cosmo.
- Worm: These are pink slug-like alien that appears every so often, sometimes from a box that is red with warning stripes (yellow and black) in the middle. It is harmless until you step on it and touch the bubbling puddle it leaves behind.
- Clam Plant: Just like the name suggests, these plants open and close every few seconds. Cosmo is hurt if he touches one when it is open.
- Ghosts that can hurt Cosmo but only advance towards him when his back is turned. They are similar to the Boo character of the Super Mario video game series. It is worth noting that jumping on these can help Cosmo reach places that are otherwise inaccessible.
- Robots that appears mostly in the levels of the series that have to do with electronics. The robots shoot bullets. Cosmo can use their heads to jump higher.
- Humanoid robots that are only faintly visible. If Cosmo jumps on one three times, it will become visible, and the fourth jump defeats it.
- Plant-like enemies that jump toward Cosmo when he is not looking.
- Plants that bite at you when you walk or jump over it.
- Robots with high energy laser beams that shoot upwards.
- Blue plants that grow out of walls and its head spits out a colorful bullet every so often.
- Zonk: The blue alien that you see at the "One Moment..." loading screen when you start the game, and the alien that helped Cosmo's parents to safety as later shown in Episode Three. Originally this was going to be Cosmo's name.
- Duke Nukem: Duke Nukem is found on Level 7, Episode 2 encased in a block of ice. You can bomb the ice to release him, in which case he will give you a cheeseburger (which increases Cosmo's health capacity). He refuses to help Cosmo as he is on a mission (to save the galaxy), but tells Cosmo to watch out for his next game: Duke Nukem II. In earlier versions of the game, Duke's name is displayed as Duke Nukum. See Duke Nukem for more information.
[edit] External links
- Official Cosmo website
- Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure at MobyGames
- Cosmic Caverns - A fansite for the Cosmo's Cosmic Adventures game series
- NewCosmo3: A complete additional episode - Requires the registered version
