As a true connoisseur of all games that are weird, I’ll admit that even at first glance Bad Cheese had my attention. There’s no doubt that its aesthetic will grab you, especially if you happen to be a fan of early Mickey Mouse cartoons and their pretty signature animation style. Bad Cheese is an experience that lives in the sort of world those cartoons inspired, but off in the bad part of town where more respectable people don’t go. While the experience is absolutely rough around the edges, I’ll certainly give it credit for being oddly unique.

The premise involving you playing as a young mouse who is staying at home with his angry father, trying desperately to keep him happy, is absolutely odd and a bit dark. Thankfully your mother, who is away, has left you a number of notes around the house with reminders of what you should do in order to succeed. For the most part this will involve cleaning up the house in a variety of ways, though you may find that can include some combat at times as you’ve got some nasty pests (including some who are bosses) lurking about and who need to be dealt with. 

I’ll give the game credit, it consistently surprised me, and made me laugh a few times at the completely bizarre ride it took me on, but it was also absolutely a bumpy one. One issue I had in places, though I’ve had far worse problems from other titles, is that it can get quite dark visually at times. Not so much that you see nothing at all, but making out details can sometimes be helpful. Another issue is that the controls tend to be all over the place, and this is in connection with your ever-changing tasks. Whether it comes down to your range, some inconsistencies in how your tools can work overall, or sometimes understanding precisely what your objective is within a given environment, the game keeps changing things up and sometimes it’s hard to keep pace, at least initially.

Despite these issues, and perhaps the overall gameplay feeling a bit thin since you’re almost always narrowly-focused on single tasks outside of hunting for hidden action figures, in general the experience works. It absolutely helps if you enjoy things being a little more on the dark and weird side in general, as some of the bosses you’ll face in particular tend to have very distinctive and creepy looks, but that’s all part of the fun. In the context of this just being an odd ride, with you simply strapping yourself in and bracing for the unknown, it can be a good time, just keep in mind that it is by no means a perfect one.