by Edmond Meinfelder

I like platform games. You know the genre. A cute protagonist scampers about a 2 dimensional scrolling area, jumping over obstacles, dodging menaces and achieving neigh-impossible goals. Donkey Kong was my first, followed by Lode Runner, Jumpman, Commander Keen and more recently Abuse and Earthworm Jim. Since I played "the classics," I winced when I saw my task was to review Cold Shadow. I thought, "Disney is making a platform game for the PC?" Yes, Disney is making PC games and with surprising quality, too.

In Cold Shadow, Maui Mallard must hop, climb, shoot, fight and teleport his way through a crazy luau. Along the way, Maui collects ying-yang coins enabling him to become the legendary Cold Shadow. Cold Shadow, a fierce ninja warrior, often has abilities Maui lacks to complete a level. The game's concept may sound silly to you, but don't worry, it's frivolous by design.

I was struck with just how different Cold Shadow is from Abuse. Abuse is a technical marvel. In Abuse players can create new levels using the LISP programming language. Abuse has light sourcing, multiplayer game play and a ton of other features. Abuse also features a hard-edged grim science fiction setting. Cold Shadow, though not a technical marvel, is fun. Maui has genuine personality as does the entire game. The animations are nothing less than you expect from Disney: fluid, quirky and entirely entertaining. Cold Shadow stands apart from Abuse with superior game design and entertaining personality.

Cold Shadow is definitely not original, though. Still, the creators took many good ideas from Earthworm Jim and incorporated them into an entertaining title. Thus, what the game lacks in originality, it makes up in style and execution.

All the game’s graphics have the “Disney look” of hand drawn art. The graphical look is refreshing in this day of plastic and sterile pre-rendered art from packages like 3D Studio. The music completes the mood, with a funky, upbeat and eerie tune. As the music is straight from the CD, the quality is perfect. The effects, simple 8-bit sounds, entertain effectively.

The game itself is a Microsoft Windows application. You can run this game under Windows 3.1 as well as Windows ‘95. I like this: no sound card headaches, no video headaches. Just pop the CD ROM in and play the game.

There is not a lot to say about a platform game any 8 year old child could not tell you better. However, in a year suffering a tidalwave of bad PC game titles, Cold Shadow is a quality game. Cold Shadow’s native windows support removes the usual hardware headaches. With great art, catchy music and fun levels to explore, Cold Shadow is a surprise hit.