In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life, and this week we have: Supercow

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s…a cow? Okay, there have been some strange superheroes throughout the years, but a superhero cow is probably the most unlikely one yet. The funny thing is, much like the game itself, there isn’t anything about this superhero that’s very super.

The story of Supercow involves an evil scientist who has escaped from prison, heading on over to a local farm to conquer and destroy, and probably do a little animal mutating in the process. As Supercow, one of the last remaining animals on the farm not captured – and a bonafied superhero to boot – you take it upon yourself to head out on an adventure to restore the farm, save the animals, and stop the evil scientist. It’s nice for the game to include a story, but truth be told there isn’t much of one here. You’ll play a few levels, save an animal, and then get a static cutscene with Supercow talking to the animal she saved to see what’s going on in the story. The cutscenes are fully voiced, but the voice acting is pretty low quality, and are more annoying than anything else. If you enjoy animals that talk with exaggerated English and Scottish accents, however, maybe you’ll enjoy the cutscenes.

Supercow plays like the old side-scrolling Mario games, where you’ll move from left to right on flat levels, jumping over gaps and landing on the heads of animals such as snails, moles, and dogs to combat them, and you’ll jump on springs to catapult you into the air and ride elevators up and down. The gameplay here is really basic, as you can control the game completely with your mouse (works okay) or the directional keys and the spacebar to jump (the more preferred method we found). The platforming is generally pretty fast and works well, it’s just not that fun or very challenging. It’s conceivable that younger kids may find challenge with the game, but anyone who considers themselves an avid gamer will find this a walk in the park to complete.

Most levels simply have Supercow needing to find her way to the level’s exit and stepping through the doorway, which you can usually complete in the span of a few minutes. The game will change things up ever so slightly here and there, such as making you kill all the enemies in a level before the exit will open itself for you to move on. The enemies are basically animals, and since jumping is Supercow’s ammo of choice, you’ll combat every creature by jumping on their body, though the larger animals will require two or even maybe three jumps to destroy them.

The biggest problem with the game is that the gameplay is just too basic as all you do is move left to right and jump; the only other thing you could consider a move is the fact that Supercow can look down to the bottom of the screen. The game also suffers from other problems, keeping the game from being nothing more than a subpar platformer, such as having the environments you run around in repeat and look the same from one level to the next. Other problems include enemies that get hidden behind environmental obstructions like bushes and high grass; a coin and enemy collection system that offers little incentive other than for completists to have something to do; computer graphics (though animated well) that don’t blend well with the otherwise hand drawn worlds and characters; and repetitive gameplay that just isn’t fun for the more seasoned gamers out there.

On the audio side of things the music is dull, the effects are below average and too muted, and the character dialog is horrendous and cheesy. The game fairs better on the visual front, because though the hand drawn animals you save aren’t done that great, at least the world is beautiful in terms of environmental detail, as the plant life is so bold and striking it really feels like playing a cartoon…sadly that feeling goes away when you see Supercow and the enemies she fights, because though technically they aren’t bad looking, there is a bad contrast when comparing the computer graphics to the hand done ones.

Most people probably won’t enjoy Supercow, but younger kids might enjoy the adventure, as it’s really easy to complete most levels, and thanks to objective markers and hands pointing the way to the next destination, kids should easily grasp the gameplay. If Supercow can be a game that introduces new players to the world of videogames and platformers, great, but for those looking for the next big platformer or just a good game, you’ll have to look elsewhere, because super this cow is not.

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