#473 - Pesterminator: The Western Exterminator

The 1920s called, they want their pest control mascot back.

**“Hey! I’m trying to eat lunch here!” – Rat**

PLAYERS: 1

PUBLISHER: Color Dreams

DEVELOPER: Color Dreams

GENRE: Platformer

RELEASE DATE: 1990

If you’ve ever had a spider crawl into your mouth while you sleep, or lines of ants enter your house and eat all your sugar, you value the exterminator profession. But does any gamer really want to play as an exterminator, let alone a hunchback fusspot from the 1920s? Color Dreams gambled yes and Pesterminator was conceived. Eight bug-filled squalorous levels await the Pesterminator’s mallet and sense of moral outrage. Familiar places abound, in your quest to rid the world of bugs: there’s a hotel, a warehouse, a swamp (good luck!), the moon (yes, that moon), among others. Each is chock-filled with bugs and they all need smashin’ before you can move on. If you think you’ve killed every bug and you’re stuck, press Select and a screen will show how many bugs are left. Sometimes bugs will randomly show up in an area you thought you cleared. In fact, Pesterminator is full of Color Dreams’ warped logic: bugs never reappear in an area, unless they do; bugs won’t hurt you, unless they do; kill every bug you see, but some bugs don’t count (beehive, I’m looking in your direction). All told, Pesterminator is a pointless game that I couldn’t stop playing. Skooshing the bugs feels oh-so-satisfying, even if that’s all you do. Still, more substance behind all the bug guts would have been nice. Strange side note: the Western Exterminator is an actual legitimate pest control company that still exists today. One could say that Pesterminator is the most random licensed game of all time.

C-