Impossamole

Yes, you can now own the worst Monty Mole game on Steam. That's probably unfair to Impossamole, but I'd much rather be playing Monty on the Run or Auf Wiedersehen Monty. The Monty series has its roots in satire, beginning with the titular mole stealing coal during the miners' strike of 1984. After a few well-received instalments came Impossamole, jettisoning the satire for a bland "Monty as a superhero" plot and rather aimless console-style platforming, at a time when home computers were already getting flooded with console-style platformers. Yet... Thumbs up? Can't really judge it on its predecessors when they're not on Steam yet. At the price it's a decent little game, and an interesting throwback to a more innovative era in gaming. Presented in what I assume is the original PC conversion, it certainly looks colourful and slick. And the title theme is a cover of Rob Hubbard's Monty on the Run, it's got to score some points just for that.

I've never played the series of this game, and I saw some videos online of the previous installments, and the Amiga version of this game, and I think this is similar in game play. There are a few differences, like this, the Turbografx-16 version, has more faster game play, and is a little less forgiving in avoiding getting hit by enemies. Also, it was developed by NEC, and although as I said before they kept most of the gameplay, you will notice some Japanese influence in the characters in this game (walking cameras, incorrect grammar and a few weird power-ups). Also, this series has some good soundtrack, and this game is no exception as NEC did just about as good a job as British game company Gremlin Interactive. Although some of the stages have almost unfair difficult spots and sometimes easy bosses, this turned out to be a good platform game.

Awful. Controls are dire and the game is just plain bad anyway. This is not a Monty Mole game. It's a terrible platform fighter where nothing makes sense. I mean, I know it's old, but the other Monty games are probably still worth a play, but this? No.

Definitely the best version of Impossamole ever. Blows away the Amiga version, which is the next best version. The music is downright fantastic chip tunes. And it has a complete soundtrack, unlike all the other versions. The Amiga and other versions only have a title screen, high score screen, & maybe an ending theme if I'm remembering right. That's not to say this game is without it's flaws. The hitbox is off, both for Monty & the enemies. That's the main thing that holds the Impossamole games from being better in general. It takes some getting used to. However, I gave it a second chance, & ended up loving this underdog of a game. Also, the graphics in this version are great. Lot's of nice detailed sprites and tiles and huge bosses! However, Gremlin could've done quite a bit more. There's plenty of instances where parallax could've been easily added with some simple tricks using sprites a/or dynamic tiles, as this version was on the TurboGrafx-16 which only has 1 background layer. Still, quite a bit more could've been done to spruce up the graphics more. Also, one of the sound effects that may wear on you, is when you get hit. Especially when it's multiple times …

Impossamole is an ancient Commodore 64/Amiga/Amstrad/Atari ST game from 1990. It's a whopping 33 years old at the time of this review. The game lacks support for any modern gaming display resolutions (or widescreen monitors), hasn't been modernised or updated to run smoothly on modern gaming PCs. Despite this lack of modernisation, it carries a pretty high price tag for such an ancient game. This seems to have been put on Steam as a nostalgia gouge, or just a cash grab to try profit from abandonware. That's the MO for Piko Interactive, robbing graves and trying (pathetically) to gouge gamers for abandoned trashware. And that's not ok... this garbage is polluting Steam, and the prices Piko charges are just insane... they're swindlers at those prices for abandonware. It's not okay! Anyway, about the most important thing, the game! And why you shouldn't buy it (Piko's ethics aside). This is a pretty poor platformer... slightly better graphics than Auf Weidersehen Monty, but that's not saying much. Worse gameplay. You kick and pick up crates to hurt enemies, so there's a brawler aspect, but ultimately this is a pretty shallow experience. Worth remembering that about the sa…

Only recommend for the biggest Monty Mole fans. Probably the worst of the main 5 games, including Monty Is Innocent. But the price is quite cheap. Buy if you want.