Guimo

Guimo is a highly underrated, innovative 2D side-scrolling platformer, probably the first game from a Brazilian studio that was released outside the country (Europe, in this case).

Similar to Alien Carnage, there is a lot of action in this game, although the plot is much more wacky: "In the Paithon system, a pacific group of beings forming a pacific civilization lives in an universe parallel to our, the Beta-Universe. Many of these beta-inhabitants are known by all the terrestrials as the good and wicked characters from the electronic games. That's the only way humans can have contact with these brother-beings. However, something terrible has occurred in Bitland, parallel world of Earth. The beta-beings seem to be deemed to extinction, bringing chaos and blowing off the harmony between both worlds. According to the last information supplied by the sentinels, an entity violated the elementary laws passing through the dimensional threshold between both universes, bringing a great risk of a existential paradox with unknown consequences on Earth and its brother-planet BitLand. This entity, known as Necterion, after conquering BitLand with his army, declared that intends the destruction of the human universe, acquiring, so, enough energy to dominate every mind. But fortunately still exists a hero who can face Necterion and restore the peace... ...GUIMO! The most fearless and prepared sentinel trained to fight the disorder. But the danger that is around us continues yet, to win the evil Necterion the forces of both brother-worlds are necessary, thus... Join Guimo!"

Along the way to battle Nectarion, you will have to blast various monsters with your trusty gun, and negotiate various obstacles including fireballs, moving platforms, and other devious traps. There are many kinds of power-ups in the game, and level designs are full of interesting motifs and details background graphics. There are also optional routes you can take through the game, much like SEGA's Sonic series, as well as a decent share of secret paths. There are 10 weapons to find and use in the game, and hunting the enemies in the dense jungle is one of the game's highlights.

Although Guimo looks and plays like many other platformers, it deserves our Top Dog award for introducing many cool features. First, there is actually artificial intelligence in this game. Enemies you are not attacking will run away to get reinforcements, and they are also very good at tracking your movements. The game also offers a "Kid" difficulty level. In this level, you can activate an "auto-pilot" mode that helps you move around the game. When auto-pilot is on, you can use the direction keys to tell Guimo the general direction you want him to go, and he will deal with obstacles in the way for you. Last but not least, the game has "Eggy Robots" - semi-intelligent sidekicks that you can issue simple orders to.

Despite its similarities to Pitfall and fluid gameplay, Guimo offers enough variety and innovations to stand on its on. Too bad I never finished it - level 5 and above are far too difficult for my (nonexistent) joystick skills. But that didn't prevent me from having fun with this diamond in the rough that deserves to be much more successful (it was a best-seller in Brazil for many months). Two thumbs up!

Review By HOTUD