Cosmic Spacehead - Dreadful Warnings

Written by Morpheus Kitami

Because of the password system, I have to start from scratch until the game decides I deserve a code. So I pick up everything I can in the starting area, joke book, 1 gold coin and a teleport key. As I go through one of the platformer screens, I realize that Mr. Spacehead looks like the Kool-aid Man's shifty cousin, who can get you stuff if you don't ask too many questions.

This is supposed to be a pun on "lucky day", but I kept mentally thinking it as "luke e day".

Cape Carnival. That there's a slot machine. 99.9% payout, it says. I would suspect that Cosmic is the 0.1%, but it turns out he gets 50 lino dollars from it. I feel as though, in giving me no difficulty whatsoever in getting more money, it has cheated us both. I have done nothing for what I have, and it has no reason to be played. Nearby, there's both an advertisement for bumper cars, and an all expenses paid trip to a car factory. "That's the trip of a lifetime!"

Unfortunately, to get the trip to Detroitica, Cosmic needs a driver's license, because he is probably 5, but the attendant gives him a balloon as a consolation. I try to go to the left, but that's the bumper car race and I can't go in without speaking to him. I accidentally end up talking to him again, and in trying to get out of the dialog, I press escape. This quits the game.

These are some names, aren't they?

After restarting, on my way back I get this nice-looking map, telling me that at least this is a small game, and that there's a third path that I didn't know about from the start. Onward to the passport office, as that seems the wisest choice.

The C3 variation is particularly nasty.

After a path that cost me two lives, but resulted in one gain, this apparently, is the purpose of the items floating around in the side-scrolling sections, which are otherwise completely pointless, I reach the office. I get a password, very easy to remember, because ever since a child I've had "zetewedewialism". Anyway, I can't go past here, I need a passport. Then I realize this isn't the passport office, it's passport control.

One thing I note that's really bad, and maybe I mentioned it the first time, is that movement sticks. It's honestly the only thing that makes these otherwise awful and boring side-scrolling sections tricky, because you never know if Cosmic is going to just jump off to the void. I can't blame him, if I randomly picked this bad boy up, I'd have already quit.

It's not even that scary.

So, the wilderness. There's a creature blocking my path, he looks like he was taken from a completely different game. I can't talk to him, because he's scary. In the land of EGA, the monster with fancy shading is to be feared. I can't use the joke book or the balloon on him. Not that I thought that those were reasonable options, but I suspected that the game was going to have joke solutions. Let's get back to the post office, I need to buy some stuff from the post man for some reason.

I pick up a ready made letter from the post man, which is asking a cousin Linochev (A joke about Russians???) to give him help, which I immediately mail. I put a coin in the vending machine, and get gunpowder. That happened. And the photo booth gives me a photo, since I know I have to make a passport. And it turns out I have everything I needed; I just talk to the post man again and with what I have, I get a passport.

At the border, everything goes smoothly, despite Cosmic being from Earth, an undiscovered planet. Ooookay, moving on...the next platformer section is actually quite difficult, especially if I want to get the live items. So much for being a joke. Hopefully I find another password soon. Unfortunately, there's nothing on the other end, it's an energy barrier and a button I need to find something to weight down.

This is why I hate plain platformers.

I wander around for a while, until I realize that cousin Linochev might have replied. "Go to Cape Carnival", where I find a hole and another side-scrolling stage. Look at this crap. LOOK AT THIS CRAP! There are no enemies at least, so they didn't go completely bonkers, but man, what the actual heck is this crap? Unsurprisingly, I get a game over here.

If you read what I wrote later, this was an act of mercy.

Let's use that password. Whoops, accidentally pressed the wrong letter...and I can't backspace. Even if I quit out of this to the main menu, it still has the "illegal" password up there.

Right, I'm not doing this crap, we're switching to the Amiga version.

If you wait for five seconds, you get to see an annoying picture telling you to hit spacebar with no other information. Only on this screen.

Somehow it's worse. Turns out that turning crappy music into Amiga music doesn't make it better, it just makes it crappy Amiga music. I think the visuals are slightly better, but I'm not checking or anything. The big problem is that I don't know how to turn on the mouse. The function keys all pause the game. The joystick, or rather keyboard joystick, at least moves the cursor. Which isn't great, but it's better than nothing. I do note that the game looks better, guess it was EGA. In 1993 or so. Yeah.

I don't understand it at all.

So, outside of the whole being able to use a mouse thing, the DOS version is objectively worse. Nice. Seriously, the controls in the side-scrolling section don't suck, and now that I can actually see where I'm going, this isn't much a problem at all. I'd have switched anyway, since this level is such garbage you would have to memorize it to win.

Linograd. Vaguely Russian music plays. There's not much here. Just a launch pad, where I will no doubt launch a missile, and a bomb shelter, where I will no doubt hide. Moving left, we get another side-scrolling stage, forgive me if I don't care anymore.
 

There are these faces. I'd make a joke about it being my face, but that implies there's an expression on mine.

And it's a cave system with another password? How short *is* this game? The painting tells of how Linomen in the olden times explored the universe, and that thing that looks like a giant drumstick is actually a giant match. Probably for the missile. I wonder what people who hate adventure games for being too cryptic would think of this game, assuming they even acknowledge its existence.

At this point, I run out of things to do, so clearly I'm missing something. Despite three paths out of Linograd, I can't go east for...reasons the game doesn't explain, and the third is non-existent. (This isn't counting the secret tunnel) I have gunpowder and I have a match, which might just be all I need to get past that monster. "Don't be absurd." What about at the launch pad? "That won't work." I realize I didn't get the balloon again, which isn't any help. It turns out, I missed an area transition back at the passport office.

 

"Let's put all this effort into the rocks, but just make the trees blobs of green."

With each new area comes another...interesting background and more audio torture. If you're making a music track that's 30 seconds long, unless it's some ambient stuff, just don't bother, silence is better. There's icing sugar here, which I guess in American lingo would be powdered sugar. I'm not looking up squat for this game, it isn't worth it. There's also a bathtub, which I can't use, because Linus says it's too dangerous. I get stuck again.

Which version of the wilderness is better? Neither of them are exactly great...

Eventually, I get it, give the balloon to the scary monster. It's a 50-50 shot that commands like give are actually going to be useful, since every time I've given someone something it's happened in dialog, using or giving it did nothing. In general, games actually using all the commands (past the standard four) they give you is kind of rare. But, finally, progress.

This brings me to a nearly freezing pool. Can you guess how I get over this one? It's not that hard. I use the ICING sugar and the river ices over. I can hear the audible chortle of someone who isn't very funny who thinks himself quite clever for that joke. It reminds me of the worst of internet commentators, which is making me hate an already quite bad game more.
 

I wasn't fast enough to get the lightning flash, sorry.

The side-scrolling stage I get afterwards...wow. You have to wait for flashes of lightning to see black vines, otherwise you can't get past it. I'll say this about The Kristal, it might not have made any sense, but someone, at some point believed in it, which is why the author made up all those batcrap crazy stories about it. This is just terrible.

Dodgey City, actually not that impressive despite the impression they wanted to impart upon you. All you do here is pick up a telekey to get a bathtub stopper. Yeah. They put in some moody music and all you do is go here, leave, then teleport in, get item, teleport out. I then teleport to Formica, and suddenly there are two Linus Spaceheads around. Huh. Guess I can solve another puzzle now. No need to worry about finding a bag of flour or something to get past the laser...thing.

The side-scrolling section there takes me to the coast. It just ends at the coast, where I can't do anything. The only thing of note is that there's some sea shanty playing in the background. Sorry, a version of a sea shanty that sounds like it was made by someone who didn't know music or was under the impression the original was still in copyright.

Back at the bathtub, the plug solves it, taking me across the bank to a surfboard. I guess that's the answer to the coast, then? Another flashing light platform section. Lovely.

This takes me back to Dodgey City, above the teleport, next to a shady guy. This guy thinks Linus is mad...because he thinks Earth is a real place when it's a legend, but he'll help him anyway, because he's Shady Lionel. He'll sell me a driver's license for 50 linobucks. Right, back to the coast, where the surfboard works.

What do you call this, besides crap? Good thing I have save states now, because this would be misery otherwise. Avoid the flying fish, pick up more bucks or whatever the live item are, try not to die of boredom.

Oh, good, rope with which I can use to hang Linus. Oh, it's fuse wire, can't use that then, that'd be dangerous. I'll just go left here, for another stunning side-scroller stage and...I can't enter Linograd without a visa. You know, if this is supposed to be a bureaucracy joke, it isn't funny, because there is no joke. Get more money on the slot machine and get my driver's license. Huh, it is Larry Flynt. Why that reference of all things? Who is this game even for, beyond blind, deaf and unfunny people who enjoy suffering?

The bumper car contest, it's been so long ago that I think we've all forgotten about it on the brain damaging hell that this game has been. It's crap, even by standards of top-down racers like this. If you know the type, you know how crap this is. If you don't, you lucky dog. The enemy racers suffer from two flaws, your rules are not their rules, they will ignore those holes in the road. Oh, and two of the racers just completely forgot what the hell they were doing and just did basically nothing. I won after several attempts because I fell into the stupid holes. It doesn't end the race, but you start at the start line again.

This earns me a bus ticket. Now what? I dunno, maybe Larry Flynt is the kind of person who owns a missile targeting system. Make up your own answer to that, wrong answers only. The answer is no, but the lost property guy gives me it because I have everything I need to make a bomb. Thank god this guy wasn't investigating the Unabomber.

It doesn't even connect.

I put on the targeting system, the gunpowder and the fusewire. None of these show up except the fusewire. Then I light it. Linus just sort of stands around, slowly walking towards the thing on the right that kept me from moving...and apparently that's what we just blew up. Okay. I'm glad we spent an hour doing that. That was necessary.

No man's causeway. Another waterway, which I can't walk across, I can't use anything on, and all I get is a Linograd teleport key. This one feels arbitrary, but at least the seed has been planted. I teleport into the Linograd teleportor, which gives Linus the strength to jump across. After this, I reach an area that has a teleport card for Linoville and nothing else. That is, one side-scrolling stage to get to the causeway, another between these areas, and then another to reach Linoville. Think we have enough? Speaking of time, the last time I saw a password was an hour ago.

Welcome to Linoville everybody. I'm used to seeing this level of just giving up in amateur-level productions, but this was sold on multiple systems. I'm not hiding anything, they just gave up. I mean, granted it wasn't like they ever put in any effort, but this is just sad. Right, you know how this puzzle works at this point, teleport out, then in, use the fancy effect to get up there.

In the future, they don't have price tags.

And it's a camera shop, where I have to spend more money. Glad I found this out before the puzzle. Play the slot machine again until I win, return, buy the stinking camera, get that and some film. Why I'll need this is...uh...beyond me. Another platforming stage.

Here's the bus. It's an animated sequence of it landing, Linus getting in, then the bus taking off. It then asks for disk 2. Wait, I've had disk 2 in the entire time. Which means that it both has more game to it, and doesn't register that there's a second floppy drive. I feel like this is just the cherry on the sundae. At this point, the game refuses to continue, it just won't register the second disk no matter what. Fine, let's look up the rest of the game...

HOW THE HELL IS THIS ONLY A THIRD OF THE WAY THROUGH. Damn it, I guess I am going to play this some more. I'm looking up the password to the start of the next section, since by all accounts I should be there already. Because it isn't on the website I usually check, I look up a longplay, turns out there's a cutscene where the bus driver explains that nobody's been going to Detriotica because there's a robot revolution there. Hang on, he doesn't find a password. I didn't check Lemon Amiga...There are really only three passwords? I thought I already saw three passwords? Well, the third one starts something on the second disk, so I can try other rips. (To clarify, passwords in the Amiga version are actually enterable, and there's a delete button, so it's just the absurd length of the game that's a problem)

It still doesn't work, so I'm assuming there's something funny going on. Normally, I'd give up at this point, but we have more versions to go through. See you next time for the Genesis and one of the 8-bit versions, because would I really be playing a game on this blog if it wasn't torturing me at some point? Assuming I don't just cut back to Valhalla for a spell.

This Session: 3 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 3 hours 50 minutes