Bad Cheese Review (Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 & PC)

In an attempt to replicate MeatCanyon’s grotesque approach to morphing beloved childhood characters into abysmal poster children for abnormal horrors, Bad Cheese steps up to the plate to infuse its own lick of paint with a disturbingly hand-drawn incarnation that’s highly reminiscent of a warped composition befitting of a 1920’s satirical cartoon.

Bad Cheese composes a charred homage of several slices of a rich and, quite frankly, daringly delicious pie—a piece of Cuphead, a slither of Bendy and the Ink Machine, and just a pinch of Steamboat Willie—to formulate an eerie first-person psychological thriller in which players take to the role of an adolescent in a highly dysfunctional family. As the child in this rather peculiar black-and-white love letter to heyday cartoon characters, you—the mouse with a leniency for being the apple of their Daddy’s eye—have the monumental task of maintaining order and keeping the nest intact. Much easier said than done, mind you. But we’ll tap into those concerns in a bit.

I suppose Bad Cheese is an experimental horror, if anything at all. True to the nature of unorthodox art and morally dubious messages, the game waxes a lot of controversial themes, with domestic abuse and psychological trauma being the primary sources of its bleeding effect. Thanks to its pulpy cartoon aesthetics, though, you wouldn’t slot it into the same category as a full-fledged horror. Yet, there’s more to it than that, and it doesn’t take long before you realize that, iconic Mickey Mouse gloves aside, Bad Cheese is much, much darker than your average cereal-and-orange Sunday morning episodic classic.

Eat Your Heart Out, Willie

The good news here is that, contrary to what the game envelopes in its opening passage, it doesn’t delve too deeply into its chosen themes of psychological trauma and abuse. That said, behind the veil of a somewhat palpable cartoon style is a subject matter that touches base on some real-world issues that, quite frankly, I have to give the developer credit for emulating in a comprehensible manner. With that out of the way, we can begin feasting on the rotten wedge that is Bad Cheese and its thematically overcharged slice of dysfunctional horrors.

“KEEP DADDY HAPPY” is the mantra that you follow in Bad Cheese. That’s about the brunt of the situation, anyway. It’s about learning how to keep a broken home from tumbling into an abysmal state, and doing all in your power to prevent all hell from breaking loose or, more specifically, Daddy from losing his temper. With that, you have your first batch of goals: sweeping the floors, cooking the food, killing the pests that roam the house, and of course, supplying ol’ papa with a frequent dose of pills. With each job that you complete, another door presents itself to you, thus giving you the opportunity to explore the crags and crevices of the home and, should time be in your favor, locate figures and other childhood collectibles to help segregate the good memories from the bad.

A Model Mouse Among Rats

“Being a good kid” is essentially the only thing that you can do in Bad Cheese to prevent the wrath of a plethora of bad happenings from taking place. It’s a bit like your chore core sim, only, the consequences of failing to accomplish your goals is a little more, shall we say, drastic. But that’s where Bad Cheese finds its niche: in the small pockets of chaos and abnormal occurrences that frequent the plot and keep you on your toes. With copious amounts of twisted creatures, opaque quarters, and an entire sketchbook-like world of charcoal grays and nonsensical shapes, Bad Cheese truly does manage to capture a surprisingly ominous image that’s both visually appealing and scarily nostalgic for all the wrong reasons.

The world may be small, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to a futile husk of a world where flocks don’t frequent the boroughs. As it turns out, there are a lot of intricate details and characters in Bad Cheese, as well as a solid variety of gameplay elements and jobs to explore, collectibles to unearth, and an underlying theme that is, while somewhat depressing by contrast to other animated iterations and adaptations, strikes a good balance between being thought-provoking and entertaining. And I think that’s a fantastic banquet of ingredients to have, truly.

Bad Cheese gives you a lot of bang for your buck, with a somewhat short but immersive story, a thrilling twist on dysfunctional culture and homely comforts, and a trove of genuinely strong moments of intense moral clarity. With all of that, you’ve got yourself quite the pot of gold, and not to mention a perfect storm for those who share an undying love of macabre comedy and 1920s satirical drama. The question is, are all of these ingredients worth the money? In short, yes.

Verdict

Bad Cheese sheds light on some real-world issues in a way that makes the act of folding to the peer pressure of an emotionally dysfunctional society surprisingly memorable. With its unique twist on a dainty 1920s cartoon world and a disturbingly tailored roster of characters, it quickly becomes less of a tribute to heyday horrors and underlying themes, and more of a powerhouse IP that acts on its own accord without thinking twice about the consequences. And as for the rest of the game—the glimmers of hope that tuck themselves into small but meaningful victories—the composition and the general way that it portrays itself speaks volumes. Not a whisper, nor an echo — but a scream.

With all of the above said, Bad Cheese is an incredibly entertaining game that makes a genuine effort to wax your appetite for unorthodox storytelling and eerily primordial gameplay. If those are the sorts to pieces of a puzzle that curb your interest, then it’s highly likely that you’ll get a kick out of gnawing at the outer edges of Bad Cheese and its aesthetically apt 1920s style.

When all’s said and done, it doesn’t matter if you’re hell-bent on sinking your teeth into a good old-fashioned psychological horror or a macabre nightmare of charcoal and gnatty goodness. Truth is, if you are hunkering down for something with a little more substance than your bog-standard cartoon, then you honestly needn’t worry about changing the channel so long as Bad Cheese steals the spotlight.