Putty Squad (Amiga)

Happy New Years, welcome to 2014! I'm still Ray Hardgrit, this is still Super Adventures, and I'm still playing games for an hour or so to figure out what they even are and show off some screenshots while I'm at it.

Today I'm taking a look at one of the last games released for the Amiga 1200 computer: Putty Squad, which came out... oh, about a week ago.

Fun fact: this is the only image in this article you can click to make bigger.

The Amiga version of Putty Squad was originally intended to hit shelves around September 1994 and game magazines had apparently received the finished game a month earlier, handing out demos on floppy disk and scores in the 84-94% range. People were hyped and then... the game just didn't turn up.

You know, this cover has been bothering me for years. It's obviously supposed to be a 3D version of the title screen, so why is the stretched out Putty model balancing on the cat's finger instead of being... well, stretched out? Surely someone must have noticed how entirely wrong it looks.

Anyway the game was announced for the A1200, Mega Drive/Genesis, SNES, and PC but out of all of them only Super Nintendo owners ever got to play it.

SNES

But 20 years later, System 3 has decided it's time to give their blue blob another chance, releasing Putty Squad for the PS3, PS4, Vita, Xbox 360, 3DS, Wii U, Windows... and the bloody A1200 at last!

The game is a sequel to Putty, which was a 1992 platformer about a blob from space rescuing robots. This time though it's war, and Putty has been tasked with saving Putty M.I.A's from conflict zones around the world, beginning with the Tomb of King Phut.

Though the Amiga version doesn't actually have this animated intro showing Putty getting dropped into enemy territory, so just pretend you didn't see it.

LEVEL 1: TOMB OF KING PHUT.

Oh damn look at those gold stars, I wish I had stars so shiny. Maybe I'll go down there and snatch them. They definitely look more portable than this giant golden statue of a dude taking a crap.

First though I'm going to figure out these controls. This is an Amiga platformer so it uses a one button joystick, meaning I'll be pressing 'up' to jump and 'fire' for basically everything else. Like this...

Putty PUNCH!

Well that didn't have the outcome I was hoping for. It seems that these frogs are pretty much just part of the background, completely harmless and immune to my punches. Unless they stick their tongue out that is. Touching their tongue is an instant kill: all 15 hit points gone in a flash.

Alright let's try this again.

Sometimes while I'm lying in the form of a puddle inside the entrance of a ancient stone pyramid waiting for a fork to retract, I wonder things. Things like 'is that sausage part of the temple's original defences or was it installed by the army of dogs?' and 'why do I lose hit points if an enemy touches me, but not if they stomp all over my puddle with their giant army boots?'

The pyramid is actually pretty tiny, though I did find a crate full of food on my way up to the stars; the good kind that gives me back hit points when I duck into a puddle and absorb it, not the kind that conspires with forks to stab me.

Though I'm not actually sure what the the thing on the left is. It looks like bird's face poking out of a tent, but I doubt that's really what they were going for.

Oh hang on, maybe it's a bag of chicken! Either way I'm grabbing it. Plus I'll be grabbing that spring as well, because I'll need to place something at the bottom of the shaft near the entrance to jump on or else I won't be able to get enough height to bounce back out of this place.

Oh crap, they've using mortars against me? That seems a little harsh for level one, especially as each collision makes me drop one of my precious stars. There's another one of those M.I.A. putties I was sent here to rescue though. You know, he doesn't much look he's being held prisoner to me, seeing as he's free to bounce around on the spot all he pleases.

Like the frogs, this dog is hiding in background where I can't punch him, so there's not a thing I can do to stop him shooting those bloody shells at me. Though on the plus side it means I can just walk right in front of him to absorb the putty and he can't even touch me. In the first Putty you have to carry everyone you rescue over to a flying saucer one at a time, but thankfully they scrapped that for this one.

Damn, so close but not quite close enough. Putty has kept his stretching ability from the last game, though he seems to have gotten a lot faster at it. To stretch I press fire as I'm moving in a direction, which seems sensible enough, except that punching is a whole lot more useful than stretching and while I'm stuck doing my stretching I ain't doing my punching. Basically I can't walk and attack at the same time.

Though I can just walk off the right hand edge, drop down, and go get that enticing jar of N on foot.

I found that cat from the title screen down here, but a single punch sorted him out. Dweezil I think he's called.

Annoyingly he seems immune to death, though once he's knocked out I can jump on his gut to get some extra height. Seems like I could probably punch him somewhere and use him as a makeshift spring. But first I am finding that green cheese over there impossibly enticing, I simply must absorb it and steal its mouldy powers.

SNES

Whoa, it's warp cheese, and it's taken me right over to the Super Nintendo port! Or at least I'm showing off the SNES version here so you can see the difference between the games: there pretty much isn't any. Not visually anyway, besides a few minor tweaks here and there.

The SNES game does have a few big differences though. Aside from the cartoon level intros and the fact that it was actually released back in the 90s, the main thing worth mentioning is that it uses all of those buttons on the controller, so no more using 'up' to jump, and no more accidentally stretching when I want to be punching. In fact it even has separate buttons for punch left and punch right, which makes more sense when you know that there's no way to tell which way Putty's facing.

Overall though it's apparently pretty much the same game.

Right, I've found the fifth and final M.I.A. Putty at the top left of the level (still not getting sick of that "M.I.A. OK!" voice clip), but now it seems that I have to get to the exit as well. Or exits plural according to that message, and I guess each arrow points me to one of them.

But before I leave... I gotta know what that P does.

Awesome, it gives me a ZID pod! I can hover around the level collecting the last of these stars now.

Oh SHIT it's using my hit points as fuel. Uh, how the fuck do I get out of this thing? Crap crap crap.

Well I threw away a life on that bloody pod for absolutely no good reason (along with all my collected stars), but hey the level's over with now. We can all move on.

I even got a level passcode for my trouble, which is the next best thing to a level select I guess. Somehow though I get the feeling that it's not going to be storing my score, stars and lives (mostly because it says QWERTY backwards.)


LEVEL 2: HALLS OF SILENCE.

Level two looks a whole lot like level one so far, but hey I found a mysterious door that only appeared when I walked next to it. How can I resist?


SECRET LEVEL: THE LOST LAVATORIES OF PHUT.

I've found a secret level full of stars (and surrendering dog soldiers). Absorbing a soldier gets me even more stars, so I'm going to have to make extra effort not to get my dumb ass killed again after this and lose all my loot. Not that I even know what the stars do.

Aw hell yeah, 27 stars has gotten me a dart attack power! I'm still not quite strong enough to kill a Terminator carrot, though I could totally knock him off a ledge right now if I could find one.


LEVEL 2 (AGAIN).

The secret door spat me out right back into level two when I was done, but now I'm a little stuck seeing as I can't jump high enough to reach that ledge. Maybe there's a spring around here I missed... oh right, I remember Dweezil was here! If I could get him over here and knock him on his ass, his gut would do just as well.

Here kitty kitty, come have a look what I just dropped. It's got a picture of a cat on it so it's either cat food or the ashes of one of your former feline cousins.

That'll do mate, that'll do just fine.

I can carry multiple springs, nitro, cat food etc. all at the same time by the way, so there's no need to juggle items like in a Dizzy game. I just have to remember to pick the tin back up again when I'm done with it.

With 41 stars in the bank I'm not throwing darts anymore, I'm launching grey putty bombs that run off and destroy anything in my path. Even frogs! They don't help me find these bloody M.I.A's any faster though.

A map, that's what this game needs. I know I say that about everything, but it's not getting any less true.


LEVEL 3: BAZAAR AL KEBAB.
 

MS-DOS

The DOS version of the game would've had these CG cutscenes between areas, but alas it was never released and it seems like the upcoming Windows port will have all-new graphics. Fortunately the old DOS game has a demo so we get to see a glimpse of what could have been. A glimpse that loops forever.

That's pretty awesome, how this level starts with me getting showered in grenades before I've even figured out where I am on screen. I was thinking of taking a break here anyway so I'm going to turn it off for five minutes.

Oh crap, it doesn't save the stars in the password does it? Well... fuck, there goes my grey putty bombs. Back to punching then.

So, uh, I guess I just wait here for another platform to turn up then? Or do I just jump off into the void and hope that it's not bottomless? I'll give it five more minutes.


LEVEL 4: THE WAILING TOWER.

Hey, Uncle Ted's back from the first game. Same toupee, new beats, and once I've triggered his power up everyone on screen (but me) is caught helplessly in the hypnotic waves of his hip-hop.

I wish I could slink over and punch that robot summoning wizard while he's being rendered harmless, but sadly he's immune to my wimpy punches so I'm just going to have to leave him dancing. Stars are harder to come by these days so it doesn't seem like I'll be getting a weapon upgrade any time soon.


LEVEL 5: PALACE OF BAGHDAD.

Alright, now I'm up to level 5: the 'Palace of Baghdad', aka. the 'Palace of Bagfad' on the SNES version. Maybe they didn't want to have their cartoon hero invading Iraq in a kid's game, I dunno.

All I know is that I am getting sick of being harassed by enemies I can't kill. I don't care if this ends up hurting me and I don't care that it'll probably just respawn the second I bounce off screen, I'm punching these bloody teeth off this ledge. Knowing this game there's a bottomless pit down there and I hope he enjoys every minute of his infinite fall.

There's another M.I.A. putty up there, but he's trapped behind barbed wire so I can't get to him without taking damage. I've got no temporary invulnerability after taking damage, so if I try to rescue him now the spiky wire will sap away my life in seconds. But I'm just tired enough to go and try it anyway...

Okay I was probably asking for that.

HEY that's the same character art as on the title screen! I wonder what I'm supposed to think about the game over board being wrapped in the US Stars and Stripes. Is Putty working for the American government? Are the army dogs I'm fighting? Does it explain all this in the manual?

The answers to these questions is actually 1. Yes. 2. Yes and 3. Yes. Kind of.

Originally Commander Napalm the Cat was the one tasked by the United Nations with rescuing the M.I.A. putties after their long war with the Wizard Scatterflash and his army of Self Motivated Vegetables led to the Putty faction's defeat and withdrawl from the Capital city of Klud. Napalm went in with a team of GI Pups and proceeded to go absolutely Colonel Kurtz nuts, setting himself up as a god to the native population of frogs.

So the C.I.A. decided to go with their own plan: send in Putty and Dweezil to fight everyone, rescue the M.I.A's and kill Napalm.

Damn man, I've gotta read these game manuals more often.

Oh c'mon, have these developers honestly never met a person with more than six letters in their name?

In retrospect it should've occurred to me way earlier to try using the nitro jar I'd collected to make a Putty bomb to blow up the sandbags. Though in my defence I've been picking these things up all game, but never found a use for them until now. I have infinite uses by the way, which is handy.

At this point in the game it's been taking me my full allowance of lives to make it through each stage, trying to survive just long enough to make it through exit door and get that beautiful level code for the next stage. Annoyingly the game doesn't have a continue screen, so when I'm out of lives I have to type in the password in to begin the stage again.


LEVEL 6: KEBABS 'R' US.

Okay I guess I'm supposed to remember where this M.I.A. putty is for later, because I haven't found any nitro yet to break him out. This is the bottom right corner of the level, but far from the end as I haven't seen a way to get up to the higher ledges until now. Still plenty of time left to find this nitro and come back to rescue this guy.

Oh that's something I should mention: unlike in the first Putty, there's no time limit in Putty Squad! Somehow I'll try to find a way to cope without it.


LATER.

Oh c'mon not another bloody mortar nest! Wait, I'm not being showed by bombs from off screen for once, so I guess he's just here to remote control the death robots. Man those mortars are as annoying as they are indestructible. 

Well now I'm at up the top right corner of the level after snaking all the way around and I still have no nitro. I'm getting the distinct impression that I'm overlooking something here. Back down again then I suppose. I hope I don't run into too many enemies, I've only got two hit points left.


ONE INEVITABLE DEATH LATER.

Losing a life dumps me back at the start of the level and wipes my stars, but it doesn't wipe the putties I've saved. It also let me keep the cat food I'd stashed in my inventory, which means I can bring Dweezil over on his hoverboard.

Usually I'd beat him up and use him as a trampoline, but he's not just good as an emergency spring. If I let him beat me up instead, he'll drop a time bomb to finish the job which I can grab for myself. So he's also a renewable source of emergency one-use explosives!

Man these levels are getting hectic lately. I'll be lucky to survive long enough to see this bomb explode. Though I suppose I could just duck into a puddle and wait until I've got an opening to escape.

Oh by the way, ten seconds after rescuing this guy and feeling smug about my ingenuity I ran right into a crate of nitro, sitting just next to the level entrance. The game wasn't actually being harsh all this time, I'd just totally overlooked it.


LEVEL 8: FORTRESS OF KLUD.

Here's something new: while I was a puddle I accidentally absorbed one of those firework firing creatures with the spiky crash helmets and found I could take his shape. This doesn't seem to work with any other kinds of enemies, but who even needs other shapes when I've found a form that can destroy sandbags with a single shot. Can't rocket those bloody mortars though.

Sadly a single shot is all I get before changing back into Putty, so rapid fire it ain't.


LEVEL 13: DR SUSHI'S LABORATORY OF TERROR.

MS-DOS

I made it all the way up to level 11 on the Amiga in the end before I finally gave up on my hopes of ever seeing a change of scenery. Fortunately the DOS demo jumps ahead to level 13 so now I can officially confirm that Putty Squad does have one of those levels where you're really small for no good reason, jumping all over stuff on a table. Plus everyone else has been shrunk as well, what a coincidence! Or maybe Doc Sushi is just 300 feet tall.

The DOS demo has a couple more colours on screen than the Amiga version and is a bit wider but otherwise this seems like the exact same game, even down to using up to jump and only having one button.


LEVEL 29: THE WIZARD'S FROZEN GARDEN.

MS-DOS

Here's one last shot to prove that the game really does have a bit of variety in its scenery, it just takes a while getting there. By the way, that astronaut up there isn't an enemy, it's a 1 up. The game sure does try a little too hard to make no sense at times.


Somehow I'd suspected from the beginning that Putty Squad and I would be never be friends, even before I realised that it was a collect 'em up. Sure finding a handful of pink blobs on each stage is a whole lot less awkward than hunting down 50 Virgin logos or McDonalds' arches or whatever, but a game based around scouring each level corner to corner just isn't much fun for me without a map to show me where the items are, or at least where I've already been.

But I have to admit that I actually ended up liking the game. It's easy to overlook little frustrations like unkillable enemies, bottomless pits, and those bloody mortar nests shelling you from off screen when the game is a joy to control. The platforming has been overhauled to be far far slicker than Putty was, with controls you could describe as being responsive while keeping a straight face. Sure you get a bit close to the edge of the screen when you move around, but I didn't find it to be a problem. Plus it even has decent in-game music this time.

Given the choice between the Amiga 1200 version and the SNES port I'd have to go with... the Amiga game. Sure the SNES version is probably a little faster, has better controls, and looks 2% prettier, but it's only been giving out level passwords every fourth level! I'll take the game I can complete one level at a time, thanks.

The Amiga version of Putty Squad is now entirely free from System 3's website, in a form that works on emulators and the actual hardware. You can download it right here.

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