Chex Quest

Chex Quest is a series of first-person shooters developed by Digital Café and published by General Mills. Targeted for children aged 6 to 9 years old and up, the game itself is a total conversion of The Ultimate Doom, a more enhanced version of the original Doom. The games are notable for being both a non-violent first-person shooter and being the first video games included in cereal boxes as a prize, as part of an advertising campaign put out by General Mills to increase sales of their Chex cereal.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The game was somewhat historically significant for it being the first video game distributed through cereal boxes as a prize, and this led to many others to follow suite, such as with the often parodied edutainment cereal box games that would distribute after this game's release, making Chex Quest's marketing strategy largely innovative.
 * 2) Probably the most interesting and well known aspect of the game is that it is a non-violent first-person shooter, which was originally seen as something that could not be done within the genre. Rather than the player killing enemies, instead they use weapons that fire Zorch energy at the Flemoids, which teleports them back to their own dimension rather than killing them outright. This actually creates a nice balance between audiences, as the first-person shooter genre is generally geared towards the older crowd and they will get an enjoyment out of having more Doom-style levels and secret areas, while it can also act as a great introduction to the genre while staying appropriate for younger players.
 * 3) Good use of advertising that doesn't come off as forced. While the game was made to advertise Chex cereal, it isn't done in your face but instead puts the gameplay first and the advertising second, something that cannot be said for other advergames like Pepsiman and (to an extent) America's Army, which force what they are advertising in a more blatant way, especially in the former's case with Pepsi logos everywhere. While Chex Quest in an advergame, at most you'll see the occasional Chex logo on items or walls and the story itself is focused on the Chex characters, but the game wants you to focus on the gameplay on-screen rather than what it is advertising. Because of this passive advertising method, the game in turn makes the player want to buy Chex cereal, rather than staying away from it had it been more blatant.
 * 4) Since the game uses the Doom engine for its gameplay, it plays excellently and has aged better than other first-person shooters of the age. Despite that you can't look up or down or jump, it controls just as well as you expect. You can sprint forward, backpedal, strafe left and right, and rotate your character so you remain pretty mobile throughout despite lacking more modern features. And for shooting and combat, there are lots of enemies to battle, especially on the higher difficulties so you'll always have to stay on your toes, and combine that with the end level goal of searching or keys to open doors to reach the exit, and the many secret areas to look out for to aid your progress, you're never going to be bored easily when playing.
 * 5) Nice cartoonish pixelated style (in terms of both art and in general) that's colorful and isn't grating on the eyes. This is apparent from the moment you start the game, with a title screen showing Chex Man doing battle against the Flemoids. In the game there are a lot of exaggerated parts such as Chex Man's reactive expressions based on gameplay, such as giving a thumbs up when the player collects a special item or being covered in goo as the player takes more and more damage. The Flemoids themselves are also very expressive, making weird and humorous sounds as the player encounters and battles them, and even when you can only hear them. The environments may also look a bit bland at times, but have some nice features like goo covered walls. Even some of the weapons help add to the cartoonish tone, like using a spork as a weapon.
 * 6) While there are only five levels per game which can make it feel too short, this also means that the designers took their time to make sure every level is unique from one another in look and feeling to keep the game from getting stale too quickly.
 * 7) Decent amount of enemy variety and are nice reskins of the Doom demons and aren't always easily recognizable to veterans of that game, which is nice.
 * 8) *Flemoidus Commonus are like the Zombieman enemies from Doom, as they are very slow and weak, but are the most common and have a ranged attack.
 * 9) *Flemoidus Bipedicus are like the Shotgun Zombies, as they have more health and are faster, and are just as common as the Commonus variety of Flemoids, and have a more powerful ranged attack.
 * 10) *Armored Flemoidus Bipedicus are a stronger version of the Bipedicus variety that wears grey armor and are like the Imps. It has both a short and a long range attack, and have more health, but is a lot more uncommon. Both Bipedicus species are the only Flemoids that walk on two legs.
 * 11) *Flemoidus Cycloptis are like the Bull Demon, and float in the air and try to get as close as possible to the player to attack.
 * 12) *The Flembrane is the boss enemy and appears only on the final level. It is a bit like the Baron of Hell and remains stationary while it fires continuous waves of extremely large slimeballs.
 * 13) The weapon variety mirrors that of Doom in terms of how they are used, and are still well balanced and designed.
 * 14) *Mini Zorcher: Acts as the pistol, and zorches enemies at a slow fire rate and is the weakest ranged weapon but has good range.
 * 15) *Large Zorcher: Works like the shotgun and fires zorch slowly while also hitting harder and having more spread at the cost of shorter range.
 * 16) *Rapid Zorcher: Similar to the chaingun, and zorches at a rapid rate, great for clearing out groups.
 * 17) *Zorch Propulsor: Is like the rocket launcher, and fires a projectile that deals lots of damage at the expense of damaging yourself if you are close enough to the blast and has a medium fire rate.
 * 18) *Phasing Zorcher: Acts as the game's plasma rifle, firing more powerful rapid fire shots with a refire delay after stopping.
 * 19) *Large Area Zorching Device (LAZ): The BFG-9000 of Chex Quest, only found in a secret area, and has a large blast radius that doesn't damage the player, but uses lots of energy and has the slowest fire rate.
 * 20) *Bootspoon: The fist weapon, deals close range damage that may be weak but uses no energy.
 * 21) *Super Bootspork: The chainsaw weapon, is also close range but chips away at health quickly and also uses no energy.
 * 22) Awesome soundtrack throughout, with many of the songs being very catchy, especially the theme for the first level.
 * 23) The Chex Quest HD remaster is a great version of the game, and includes a couple of great features including:
 * 24) *New playable characters are introduced that are based off of the components found in Chex Mix cereal, such as Shane "The Dread" McBread (a mini breadstick), Wheatney Chexworth (Whole-wheat Chex), and NaCl 96 (A circular pretzel).
 * 25) *The graphics are now fully 3D rather than 3D with 2D sprites, and are greatly enhanced for modern standards, while also still maintaining a cartoonish art style.
 * 26) *There is also 4-player split-screen multiplayer mode similar to that of Goldeneye 64.
 * 27) Best of all, the games are incredibly cheap and easy to find. All of the games' files can easily be found online and is easily compatible with modern PCs when playing with the GZDoom software, which is also free to download. The remaster is entirely free on PC as well, while the Switch version costs $4.99 but includes all of the playable characters with it.

Overall

 * 1) The games themselves are rather short, only consisting of five levels and it would take a little over an hour to finish them all, and if you go straight for your objectives rather than looking for secrets than it can take even less time.
 * 2) There aren't any secret levels, which had been a staple of boomer shooters.
 * 3) Wheatney's plan to go after the Flemoids on their own homeworld sounds valiant until you realize that the Zorchers don't kill anything and it teleports them to their homeworld...which is where she foolishly chose to dive into.

Chex Quest

 * 1) The opening cutscene has not aged well at all and can get into the uncanny valley at times. The character models look very jagged and have an unpolished feel to them, and most consist of solid colors placed on them, and the pre-rendered way it was made looks pretty grainy and hard to look at nowadays. Thankfully the remaster has a different cutscene that has more of a comic book style to it.

Chex Quest HD

 * 1) The graphics look very cheap with an artstyle that seems unchanged from the default Ureal Engine 4 artstyle instead of matching that of the original games.

Reception
Upon release and even today, audiences have been very positive of Chex Quest, even those far beyond the game's targeted younger audience, and many requests for sequels were made. It would eventually win the Golden Reggie Award for promotional achievement in 1998, as well as the Golden EFFIE Award for Advertising Effectiveness in 1996. As a result of the game's inclusion in Chex cereal, the incremental volume over base increased by 295%, while the volume share increasing 48% for the cereal, making the promotion largely successful for the company. The cereal promotion lasted only 6 weeks, but the game continued to be played by audiences well beyond that time period. Despite some negative attention coming from video game critics at the time, the game is now regarded as being a highly innovative product, and has a dedicated cult following even to this day that makes fan art, fan-made sequels, and modifications for the game, which may have contributed to the release of the remaster. James Rolfe, best known as The Angry Video Game Nerd, even released a video in his series dedicated to Chex Quest, and is one of the few episodes of the series where he praises a game rather than being highly critical of it.

Videos
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