The Adventures of Cookie & Cream (2001, PS2)

Next time you’re in a Best Buy or GameStop, try this exercise:

Go to either the XBOX 360 or PS3 game section. Survey a row of games. Look at their covers. Really look at them for a good thirty seconds. Ignore the man asking you if you’ve preordered the next installment of the Assassin’s Creed series. A pattern should emerge, one not evident when beholding games individually, but striking when apprehending a group of them. On how many of these covers do you see a white man of about twenty-nine years, usually with noncommittal facial hair, holding at least one gun, walking or looking out of a nondescript background straight at you, Consumer?

Variety is the spice of life.

Today, it is difficult to envision a time when no pattern at all could be discerned from such an exercise and harder to envision GameStop shelves as an explosion of color and a bouquet of characters. 2001 was one such time, pink was one such color, and a maraca-playing cartoon rabbit named "Cream" with an umbrella hat sprouting from her head was one such character. It was unremarkable to see a game like Cookie & Cream on Hand-to-God Actual Store Shelves, which in itself is remarkable.

While Cookie & Cream’s cover was not unique at the time of its release in 2001, its concept was. The player controls two rabbits to which the PlayStation 2’s analogue sticks were assigned simultaneously through short obstacle courses. The simultaneity made what would have otherwise been a prosaic platformer dizzying and difficult. The feeling of moving two entities at once is difficult to describe or draw comparison to. A hypothetical version of Pac Man where the player controls two Pac Men via two separate sticks or pads is the closest analogy that comes to mind. It’s a shame I have to resort to hypotheticals for comparison, but Cookie & Cream’s simultaneity concept has not, to my knowledge, since been pursued. Also, the Pac Man analogy does this game a disservice: it undercuts the interaction between the two characters necessary to succeed. One must press switches and pull levers that affect the other’s side of the screen. One might turn a crank to rotate a platform or pull a rope affixed to an enemy on the other’s screen, clearing his path. You're not competing against yourself; you're cooperating with yourself. Cookie & Cream requires two players: one half of your brain and the other.

Concept alone does not a good game make, however, and it’s Cookie & Cream’s pacing and difficulty that will hold the modern gamer’s attention long after the novelty of controlling two characters at once has worn off. The levels are short enough not to frustrate when failed and long enough to gratify when completed. The cute name and Dora the Explorer color palette belie one of the most difficult games ever, though anyone who notes the developer, From Software, will not be surprised by this.

While it never begat a proper sequel and its initial sales were quiet, Cookie & Cream and its developers weren’t entirely forgotten. The game developed enough of a cult following to be released for PS3 on SEN last November, most likely due to the reinvigorated interest in From Software following their first real commercial success, the Dark Souls series. Much of the Souls philosophy is found here: untraditional co-op, extreme difficulty, and dense level design.

Cookie & Cream is not always great—its hit detection is fastidious and perspective makes jumps difficult to gauge. But it is always interesting. More importantly though, it’s always trying, which is more than I can say for most of the games in the Front-Facing Stubble Gun genre, and it's the kind of risk a publisher today is simply not willing to take.

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