Ever since the copyright expired on Steamboat Willie, the movie that transformed Disney’s fortunes back in 1928, the floodgates have opened on all manner of parodies, pastiches, and creepy pasta. From horror movies to music videos, it’s open season on the mischievous mouse. The latest and likely most original take on the classic cartoon is Bad Cheese, a first person horror game that devilishly parodies the tone and style of Mickey’s famous boat ride with its own freaky sensibilities.

The story of Bad Cheese is the element that falls furthest from the material it’s inspired by. A mouse won’t be playfully dancing on the deck of a ship as they tap out music on a cow’s teeth here. There’s plenty of nods to Steamboat Willy – enough that this game would have certainly generated a lawsuit 2 years ago – but the narrative is very different. Instead, you play an overweight cartoon mouse that’s spending time in his father’s house. Guided by notes left by his mother, this mouse has to accommodate the whims of his dangerous and ‘troubled’ dad and his friends. This starts off quite simply, tasking the mouse to clean some shoes with a sci-fi contraption and pick up some dirty dishes. These tasks get darker and more twisted as the game goes on. Without spoiling too much, one objective is to find medication to help ol’ pops’ hangover while he shouts abuse at you.

Both the narrative and structure of Bad Cheese are overtly task orientated. At times, to its detriment, the game can feel like it’s more like House Flipper than creeping around a haunted house. Clean this. Vacuum that up. Mop up this mess. While it stops short of being just a bunch of fetch quests, the game does get dangerously close a few times. Being so regimented in telling you where to go and what to do staunches the feeling of exploration I hoped we’d feel when wandering through the black and white halls of this game.

Thankfully, considerable effort is made to build an unsettling atmosphere elsewhere. The art style, which squeezes every ounce of character out of the grainy black and white aesthetic, flips between 1930s classic Disney and grotesque Ren & Stimpy or MeatCanyon-inspired monstrosities to great effect. For every bold and clean character design you see, you’ll encounter a veiny, fleshy counterpart that aims to unsettle the player.

While it’s not consistently high quality, there are some inspired audio choices here too; one of the few enemies you’ll be battling in this game triggers a circular saw soundbite every time it opens its mouth. It’s grating, it’s unnerving, and it’s effective in creating tension. Bad Cheese also blends 3D environments with 2D characters really well, which both lends itself to the Steamboat Willy inspiration and gives the game a Boomer Shooter feel when it needs to.

90’s first person shooting is the only gameplay inspiration here. There are the obvious nods to horror titles, new and old, of course, but Bad Cheese also puts a scary spin on some other genres. An example: one section has you play a twisted version of Pong in your bedroom, all the while having to listen out for the inhabitants of the house, rushing to bed to pretend to be asleep when they approach. If you want to collect everything that the game has to offer, you’ll have to perform some platforming too, as you wrestle with the momentum-based physics of the protagonist once you’re in the air. To give Bad Cheese the credit, it regularly introduces new mechanics and gameplay ideas throughout its runtime to make sure it feels fresher than a farm-to-table Emmental for the duration.

This is a double-edged sword, however, because Bad Cheese is a brief experience. If you’re not fussy about picking up all the collectables, the game will clock in between 2 to 3 hours long. This isn’t necessarily a criticism – I personally like games you can start and complete in an evening – but it often feels like this game drops ideas too quickly before fully exploring them. Mechanics disappear as quickly as they’re introduced; one section adds a cannon that shoots out laundry. This is fun, but it is used for only a few minutes before never being seen again. Almost every gameplay element of Bad Cheese feels like a Mini-Cheddar rather than a chunky cheese wheel – fine for a light snack, but won’t be truly fulfilling.

Bad Cheese falls short in terms of the scares too. There’s the occasional jump scare (you’ve been warned), but this title only ever toes the line of ‘scary’. Unsettling? Yes. Perplexing? Definitely. But scary? Not quite. While the grainy filter and dimly lit environments work particularly well in setting a tone, the game is too lenient with its punishments for failure and falls just short when building up anticipation. I won’t spoil it here, but Bad Cheese is most scary in what it insinuates without ever explicitly saying, leaving a little up to the imagination.

Despite its shortcomings, however, Bad Cheese can be considered a perfectly palatable evening of entertainment for teen players who might enjoy the likes of Garten of Banban or FNAF. It’s a one-and-done title that lacks the depth required to make it anything more. Coming up to Halloween, if you’re looking for something to entertain your 13-year-old without the risk of a sleepless night full of nightmares, this would certainly fit the bill.

Bad Cheese is available now on PlayStation 5 (review platform), Xbox Series S|X and PC via Steam.

Developer: Simon Lukasik
Publisher: Feardemic

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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