The worst game of all time...period.
After the glitchy and broken Action 52 game(on NES), which contained 52 crappy games including the 1st Cheetahmen, you would think Active Enterprises would never create another game ever again. Wrong, they created this abomination called Cheetahmen II.
During it's development in 1992, the game was never released in stores. In 1997, some idiot(not trying to be mean, but still) found 1500 copies of Cheetahmen II in a warehouse, people got them and some are on ebay for 750 dollars. Who would pay that much for one of the worst games in the history of gaming, you wouldn't even want to add it to your collection if you wanted to get every NES that exists, it's that bad. It really, really should not had been made, at all and I'm going to tell you why.
Like in the 1st Cheetahmen game, you play as 3 Cheetahmen in correct order of the game: Apollo(uses a crossbow), Hercules(who doesn't have a weapon but uses physical strength) and Aries(uses 2 wooden clubs.) The basic goal of the game is to get to the end of the 6 levels and fight a total of 3 bosses while attacking enemies that get in your way. Sounds simple, but it's not, as it's one of the hardest games ever made.
Lets start with the good
The Good:
You don't have to play it
Well, that's it, and now for the bad
The Bad:
EVERY...SINGLE...THING
Ok, after the title screen, we watch a cutscene about Dr. Morbis and Cygore(main villians) talk about the creation of the Ape Man that will be used to kill the Cheetahmen and take over the world, you know, standard crap you've heard before. These cutscenes are probably the best part of the game sadly, but it's ruined by hearing that annoying music in the background that they used in the 1st game, make it stop.
Now we start this game and there are 2 noticeable problems already: Graphics and Sound.
Graphics-It uses the same exact engine as the 1st Cheetahmen, so you should know that the graphics are truly bad. I've seen Atari 2600 games that look better than this, nothing visually stands out(besides the cutscenes before you play the game, but still). This game also has bad animation as well, I'll get more on that later. The 1st 4 levels look the same as well(looks like something you'll see in Mortal Kombat, like a courtyard or something).
Sound-If you play the 1st game, you'll know that the horrible music that's playing right now is the ONLY MUSIC you'll hear in every level and boss fight. Sound effects are garbage too, the jumping sound effects are weird, getting hit sounds weird, and the music stops when you hit a enemy(and when a enemy hits you). That's right: Every time you kill a enemy(or enemy hits you), the music stops for no reason. It shows you how glitchy this game is, and there's more glitches too.
For some reason, you can't duck/crouch in this game, and most enemies are on the ground, meaning that as Apollo, YOU CANT HIT GROUND ENEMIES. Why can't it be like Contra where you can shoot in 8 directions, here you can only shoot left and right. There's no animation when Apollo is shooting his crossbow while running, you'll end up shooting arrows out of your neck, That's right: You shoot arrows out of your neck while running as Apollo. Talk about unfinished. Also, you can be facing the left but Apollo will shoot arrows to the right and vice versa(mainly when jumping while shooing), which makes no sense at all.
The level designs are some of the worst I've seen in gaming. Levels often repeat in the same order. For example, what you see at 1st in a level is pretty much what you'll see as you play the level to the end. They suffer from poor enemy placement. Until you memorize where the enemies are at, you are going to die more than often in this game. Flying enemies like birds can be placed where you would need to jump and then shoot before touching the ground to hit it. That's annoying, they come at you fast, and the controls are stiff. There's no jumping animation, it's just the same animation your on right now and can be hard to land to avoid all those ground enemies in the way. They'll put enemies in places where your going to land at times, making the game more difficult and cheap than it already is. It's nearly impossible to dodge it at times because enemies come at you so random and you usually have a split second to react, trust me, I managed to make it pass some parts without taking damage but you have to be perfect in order to do that. Simply put, the level designs just suck with cheap hits and cheap deaths that await to frustrate you. Most people won't get pass the 1st level, it's that bad.
The hit detection is just so bad. When playing as Hercules(in levels 3 and 4, where you must button mash like crazy), who can hit ground enemies, which is a good thing, if you kill one enemy, you can't kill another enemy even though your clearly hitting the enemy as well, and they can hit you while you can't hit them in the process, you have to wait until they get to the other side of the screen to hit the other enemy that your trying to kill. So broken. Another glitch is that if you stand on a platform above another platform and if a enemy touches the platform below you, not only will the enemy go through the bottom platform(because of another glitch)YOU STILL GET HIT WHEN NO ENEMIES ARE TOUCHING YOU. It will happen, and you'll cuss as well. It's so frustrating.
You have only 3 lives, there's no checkpoints, and no continues after loosing all of your lives, this game was meant for hardcore gamers, but they'll hate it because this game is nearly impossible to play. The point system is useless: You don't get extra lives, no power ups, no high score table, what's the point of a useless point system?
In some levels, your health bar doesn't even display at all. You heard me, which means you can't tell how much damage your taking before death, what kind of crap is that?
Why is every level after 3(4-6) called level 3, I just beat level 3, there can't be 3 level 3s.
More glitches abound: When playing as Hercules or Aries, you can fly, go to the top of the screen, see yourself at the bottom of the screen and die. All you have to do is jump, punch, jump, punch, repeat and you can bypass most enemies with it. If this game wants to be cheap, I should be cheap as well, oh well.
Bosses range from too easy to too hard. In levels 2, 4, and 6, you fight a boss. The 1st boss is Dr. Morbis, and he has to be the easiest boss I've seen in any game. As Apollo, you must simply shoot him as he runs towards you, going in one direction(lef to right), teleports to the other side of the screen(huh) and repeat. What is that, there's no strategy at all, even a 5 year old can beat him, I'll laugh at you if you die against him, he's easier than the levels you had to go through. In level 4, you fight the ape man as Hercules, and if your low on health, you'll never beat him as he is too hard to beat. You must get up close to him and punch him, and you'll always take damage as you punch him, I'm serious, and with bad hit detection, you must be at the right spot to hit him. He basically moves back and forward randomly and guess what happens if you don't kill him before he gets to the other side of the screen: HE NEVER COMES BACK. That's right, the ape man will never fight you again since he's off screen, won't come back because of a glitch and your stuck doing nothing. You must restart the entire game, how horrible is that? And if you do kill him, it doesn't get any better as this BS moment happens:
The game is so buggy and glitchy, you will, never, ever, go to levels 5 and 6. The game locks up and your stranded in level 4 doing nothing at all. You can't go any further, your done with the game, and thank god, I know no one can take anymore of this game.
But wait, you can download a patch if you have a certain copy to get to levels 5 and 6. When you use the patch, level 1 is now level 5 and level 2 is now level 6. Sad, isn't it. But these levels are such a breath of fresh air as the levels have different backgrounds, but the beyond abysmal gameplay is still intact.
In levels 5 and 6, you play as Aries, who is just like Hercules. The music gets worse as it barely plays and doesn't sound right and will hurt your ears. They basically took the levels from the 1st game with levels 5(blue cave) and 6(green base), so lazy. You basically hit any enemies that get in your way.
The gameplay feels so stale, lifeless and boring, there's nothing new or innovative about it. Your going to get tired of shooting, punching and smacking your enemies before you know it.
The final boss is Cygore, and he's a push over as well. Moving from left to right trying it to hit you with his mechanical claw, simply walk up and button smash and you beat the game, but there's another problem:
There's no ending, no cutscenes, no high score table, no congratulations or game over screen, it's just like the 4th level: Your stranded and can't do anything either until you turn the game off. What a way to end one of the worst games of all time.
Strangely, they try to rip off the Mario games by being able to jump below certain blocks and get coins for useless points. I smell a lawsuit.
Replay value comes from 2 player support as you take turns completing each level, but honestly, do you want your friend to suffer as much as you did playing this game? I think not.
The Conclusion
I could make a better game than this in Game Maker, and I should try to make my own Cheetahmen game, probably call it Cheetahmen III(which they were going to make but it was canceled), make my own graphics and get Cheetahmen remix songs that sound good, at least my game will be good. This unfinished, frustrating, boring, glitchy, buggy, terrible mess should not have been made or found in a warehouse, if this game was in stores, you would probably want to kill the developers for making this, well, you probably wont kill them, but your going to do something about it, arent you? Find every copy of this game and destroy it, there's no fun in this game besides destroying it. This game makes E.T., Big Rigs, Shaq-Fu, Action 52 and Super Man 64 look like good games. I'm serious, IT IS THE WORST GAME OF ALL TIME IMO.