Me-Ouch

Do you know what a Buzz Wire game is? It is that game where you have a long randomly shaped piece of thick metal wire and a metal hoop on a stick that you need to guide from one end of the wire frame to the other without touching any part of it with the hoop. Touch it and it buzzes, hence the name. PUSS! Reminded me a lot of that.

Instead of a hoop on a stick however, the aim here is to guide the head of a cat from one end of a maze to the other, without straying outside of the lines. These mazes will offer a variety of different challenges. Some of them are static while others move, and in more ways than one; constantly changing the maze so that navigating to the end can become very complex. The levels, although not procedurally generated, are random with the first set of levels breaking you in. The static levels are easy enough and offer little in the way of an actual challenge, mostly these are about navigating them with speed. It’s the moving mazes where things become a little more difficult.

Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One/S/X (reviewed)
Price: $11.99
Price I’d Pay: $6.99

Some of these mazes have paths that shrink and grow, while others have parts of the maze vanish and reappear. There always seems to be a rhythm to the movement of the mazes, but that doesn’t always mean that things are easy. In fact, it doesn’t take too long at all for the difficulty to ramp up. The game is very generous with the lives it gives the player however. Starting off with 9 lives (of course), depending on how quickly a puzzle is solved additional multiple extra lives are granted. But they will be needed, as I often found myself banging my head, or cat head, against a particularly tough level. When this happens the lives soon disappear rapidly.

Make it to the end of each world and lying in wait will be the boss level. These levels, although following a similar structure, change things enough to make them stand out. Controlling the cat around a limited area is still the goal here, but while also collecting enough power-ups to charge an attack against the boss. This kicks off a bout of button mashing, and the boss’s health takes a hit. It may sound easy, but there are still moving mazes to move around, and the boss also fires at you, meaning things can get real hectic.

My frustrations were also compounded by the controls, which consist of using just the analogue sticks. Use one in any direction to move the cat head and push the second in the same direction to increase the speed in which it moves. But I found the lack of precision inherent in the analogue sticks to cause many a problem. I could never just move the damn thing in a straight line. And I get that this is no doubt intentional, to increase the difficulty of the game; but I just ended up finding it frustrating. Maybe I need to work on my hand-eye coordination.

Presentation wise PUSS! certainly is striking, using strong colors and sounds and leaning on a retro vibe. It’s a game that looks like it wants to have fun, even if I felt that it was trying a little too hard to be odd at times. There isn’t really much of a story here though, just the tale of a cat being sucked into some kind of hell dimension by a bunch of cult cats. As I said, odd.

PUSS! is by no means a bad game, I just found myself playing it, getting frustrated quickly and then closing it down and coming back to it later. For those that enjoy this kind of challenge, one that we rarely ever see in video games, PUSS! will certainly provide hours of fun. Just know what you are getting yourself into.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.