The age old game of cat and mouse was always popular. Cat chases mouse, mouse gets away…usually. Sega’s Sonic Team has come up with a very exciting concept for Chu Chu Rocket. The idea is simple, mice will run around the maze and it’s your job to place arrows to direct them into YOUR rocket. Of course, cats are running around and eating up your mice, you also don’t want a cat in your rocket either.

The beauty of this game is that it’s really easy to pick up, all you have to remember is steer mice and not cats into your rocket, steering the odd cat into your opponent’s rocket is a good idea also. The puzzle mode is very fun and frustrating at the same time, you have a preset number of arrows to get ALL the mice on screen into your rocket, while avoid black holes and cats. I enjoyed figuring out the puzzles and solving them…but I’d rather play ONLINE

Online play rocks, you can not go wrong battling up to 3 other players online on Sega’s network. Bonuses appear when a "special" mouse gets into your rocket, this will either be a good thing or a bad thing. Bonuses vary between "SPEED UP" where everything moves at double speed, including cats. My personal favorite bonus is "MOUSE MANIA" where mice come flying out and this is a great chance to get loads of mice into your rocket quick. Things to avoid are "CAT MANIA" where only Cats are on the playing field and "CAT ATTACK" where cats randomly attack 3 rockets on screen. You do need an ISP setup on your Dreamcast (use the Browser disc to set that up), make sure you have an e-mail address (no need for e-mail server, just an address) or the game will crash when connecting. There are many lobbies to choose from, and a keyboard is a must if you wish to chat. If you don’t have a keyboard the options screen has preset "comments" that you can type in with your controller, such as GG is "good game".

This is the first online console game made for the Sega Dreamcast, and it’s quite fun. Battling it out to get the most mice and directing cats into your online buddies. The lag is not so noticeable except when your playing against someone with a crappy ISP, but it’s still playable.

Graphics are very simple, and remind me of the good old SNES days of Bomberman, but the graphics are sharper than the old SNES. Rent it, and try it out…if you love the online play or perhaps having 4 people battle it out at your home on 4 controllers, this one is a winner!

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