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Fresh Games. I’ve mentioned this Eidos imprint before, in the context of SHMUP legend R-Type
Final and classical music simulator Mad Maestro. The remaining three games published in that
odd yellow packaging include the suggestively-named Swingerz Golf for the GameCube, Legaia 2:
Duel Saga for the PS2, and... this thing.
Yep. That is exactly what it looks like. You’re a mosquito, and you fly around, tormenting
the hapless Yamada family. Upon locking onto a suitably tender piece of epidermal real
estate, you can land, jam your proboscis through the skin, and begin to feed by rotating the
right analog stick. The speed of rotation must be kept in sync with the gauge on the
left of the screen, feed too quickly or slowly and you’ll be noticed and... well, humans
are much bigger than you. Once you’ve collected your quota of blood for a particular stage,
your top speed is recorded and you can proceed onto the next skirmish in your campaign of
bloodsucking. The gameplay’s very easy to grasp, and the first couple stages are mostly
about learning how to fly and interact with your environment (dodging airborne insecticide
and generally poltergeisting it up to make your meal get up and move), though later stages
require advanced timing and several steps in order to feed effectively. There are also
collectibles scattered throughout the stages, such as heart rings that increase your max
HP and EX tanks that, when all 16 are collected and filled, allow you to survive the winter
and do it all again next summer. That said... no one said a mosquito’s life was easy.
If you’re caught flying around, you’ll have to evade your attacker’s offensive
while connecting with certain pressure points to chill them the hell out.
Yeah. I know, it’s weird. And the strange woman who reads the pre-stage descriptions
isn’t much better. And the actual voice acting for the Yamada family is laughably
bad. And the sounds you hear when you penetrate your target can feel... well, like you need
to be watching out for Chris Hansen and his ever-present sweet tea. This is, without a
doubt, one of the weirdest games on the PS2, and keep in mind that’s the machine that
taught us what the hell a “Katamari” is. But as weird as it may be, there’s a hell
of a lot of detail in this game, from the environmental interactions down to how your
mosquito flies heavier depending on how much blood you’ve consumed so far. If you dig
flying sims and prefer them with a side of oddness (read: Pilotwings fans), Mister Mosquito
will scratch that itch. And I kinda want to punch myself for writing that sentence.