 Since I grew up with the Super Nintendo, there's a ton, and I mean a ton, of Sega Genesis games I've never played, seen, or even heard of before, and here's another one simply titled The Ooze, and this one was made by the Sega Technical Institute team, the same folks that made Comic Zone and Kid Chameleon, and it was released in 1995, so this is a really late title in the Genesis lifespan, so I wouldn't be too surprised if even some Genesis fans hadn't heard of this one. And as you can see, this game is just a wee bit on the weird side. You play as, quite literally, a puddle of ooze that stretches around destroying enemies and stuff from a top-down viewpoint, with a goofy humanoid head sticking out of the middle of your slime, and you're exploring vast areas like a toxic waste dump, a waste plant, and a power plant. Well, what'd you expect? This game is called The Ooze, it's not like you're going to be skipping through lush forests with fountains and flowers and whatever. The story, however, to its credit, is something a little bit different. Dr. Daniel Cain has had a successful career working for quote-unquote the corporation, developing fun stuff like toxic gas, only he hears through the grapevine that his company is using his inventions for nefarious purposes. What, you mean they weren't using toxic gas to cure cancer or save the whales? Dr. Cain is pissed, so he sneaks into his workplace and finds out about Operation Omega, no not that Omega, where the corporation plans on releasing this gas across the world and watching the money roll in since they have the only antidote. The director of this evil corporation catches Cain snooping around and promptly dumps him into some toxic waste, but of course it doesn't kill him, it only turns him into a pile of green slime. The game is structured with two goals in mind, one is to get revenge against the director of course, and the other is to regain your human form, and you do that by exploring these huge areas looking for strands of DNA, and there's 50 in total that you have to collect. So yeah, this is essentially an action adventure title, only instead of swinging a sword, you just kinda blurt your slime in the general direction of an enemy I guess? You have three lives and zero continues to explore five massive areas and you use the A button to punch, so to speak, and the B button to spit slime at enemies, all while managing the size of your own puddle, and that's really the name of the game here. You go around destroying other mutants and stuff, but if you take damage your slime puddle shrinks. In addition, it also shrinks if you use the spitting attack, but some enemies drop more slime you collect that you can add to yourself. You also turn colors when you obtain different statuses, like if you find a speed power up you turn yellow, then orange as it's running out. If you find the industrial strength toxin power up you turn red for a brief period, then black as it's running out. This game isn't just defeating enemies and managing your slime though, there's plenty of puzzles here to solve so you can unlock more parts of each map. There's ten DNA strands on each of the five maps so there's a ton of exploration involved here. That's all well and good, but the biggest problem with the ooze is that it is way way too hard. There are traps and hazards absolutely everywhere that you have to be cognizant of at all times, otherwise you'll fall off a ledge or spill down a drain or get torched by some fire. It just never ends. It's one of the only games I can remember where having too much health and getting too big in size plays against you big time. It is really easy to take a ton of damage and no time flat and before you know it it's game over. It's really frustrating because this is a game where you have to explore and it's just not all that fun if you're having to constantly deal with hazards that are absolutely everywhere. Oh and if you ever take a direct shot to the head from something that's an insta kill, you're dead. The first map isn't so bad but everything after that is just ugh. Another big flaw is that there's no way to save in this game. No battery save and no password system. Die three times and it's game over start from the beginning. The ooze still has plenty of strengths though, like the music. What is that, KMFDM? The graphics here are also well done, the death animations of some of the stuff you kill is really cool, and there's neat effects here too, like when you get hit with a laser it burns a straight line through your slime. So yeah, you don't usually see an action slash exploration slash adventure title with this kind of setting or with this style of character, but the ooze is just that. There's lots of puzzle solving, lots of roaming around looking for DNA strands, and lots and lots of enemies and hazards to contend with, and there's a certain imbalance here that's tough to get past. I mean my health shouldn't be a detriment to getting through this game, but the bigger my character is the harder it is to progress, it's kind of dumb. Still I give the ooze a ton of credit for being something unique, so I still recommend this one even if it's brutally difficult. This game is an unlockable bonus game on the Sega Mega Collection Plus for PS2, Xbox and PC, and hey even if you want to own the cartridge it's only around $15 or so. Anyway you play it, despite the crazy difficulty, the ooze is worth checking out. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.