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Cheetahmen II – The Lost Levels: Recoded, Repackaged, Repulsive

Written by Raven Poplar

That’s right, the wildly successful cult phenomenon known as The Cheetahmen are back and they’re being rereleased on… NES? Wait, who are these clowns?

If you don’t know who they are, here’s a little brief. The Cheetahmen are a group of genetically mutated “sub-humans” named Aries, Apollo, and Hercules. They are misunderstood by many and also fighters of injustice wherever they see it. That probably sounds a lot like most cartoons from the late 80’s to early 90’s to you, and for good reason: These misshapen blobs of wasted money-making potential were hot on the heels of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and trying to cash in on their success. They even had a couple video games on the Nintendo Entertainment System to help get them off the ground.

It never got off the ground.

The first video game they got the privilege of starring in was on the woefully bad Action 52 cart. Programmed by people who didn’t know what they were doing over the course of just a few days, nearly every game on this cart was boring, frustrating, and often broken pieces of crap. The Cheetahmen were no exception, though they had a little more thought put into them due to that game being the flagship title of the whole operation. Compared to the rest of the games on that cart, this one was a pinnacle of gaming goodness. Let me tell you, that’s not saying much… And you could buy all that for the low, low cost of $199. I owned one of these suckers, I can’t tell you the disappointment I felt at stuffing that little nugget into my Nintendo for the first time.

After that… Game, came their follow up title, Cheetahmen II. This game saw a very limited run due to poor everything and there was only about 1,500 cartridges made. It never saw official release and the entire inventory was eventually sold off in the aftermarket after sitting in a warehouse for years on end. This extremely bad game has become notorious for being both a very sought after cartridge due to it’s limited printing and it’s shitty, shitty… Shititude. Tell me, would you pay $39,000 USD for this game? Seriously, let me know in the comments.

Also, the game is broken. You can’t finish one of the levels due to a game-breaking bug.

So? Who cares? Why are you bringing this up 20 years after the fact? If this game is as bad as all that, shouldn’t it be left in the past?

I’m Greg Pabich, bitch!

Well, the creator of this brilliant set of heroes, Greg Pabich, has figured that anyone emotionally tied to The Cheetahmen should probably be punished a bit further. Therefor, he is rereleasing CheetahMen II with a fix that rights the game-breaking bug and allows the game to play past the previously broken level. He’s calling it Cheetahmen II – The Lost Levels. The game will only be released on the nearly 30 year-old Nintendo Entertainment System hardware at the AAA, premium price of $60.

Unbelievable! I call shenanigans!

Check out Greg Pabich’s kickstarter here if you like. You can get some pretty strange rewards if you choose to fund this project. At the very least, you can check out the history and some of the reviews floating around the internet for this piece of… History.

About the author

Raven Poplar

Early Childhood Educator and video game journalist. First console game: California Games for Atari 2600. First PC game: Commander Keen on my IBM 286. I suppose I'm old!

1 Comment

  • I heard about this game from that video game reality show on YouTube. It’s like storage wars but with video games. This is rediculous though. Old dude gone and lost his mind.

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