Chex Quest (PC, 1997)

Iconic promotional freeware that everyone should play at least once.

Nostalgia Factor: So massive. Nostalgia fueled review incoming.
Difficulty: Easy. The standard difficulty mode will not give you much trouble. Lack of ammo becomes an issue in the harder difficulty modes.

Note: The original DOS version of Chex Quest is definitely the best way to play this game. Unfortunately, the HD remake does not capture the same experience as the original.

My friends over at SuperPod Network have a game-of-the-month club. We nominate and vote on a game that all of us will play together, and this month’s game was CHEX QUEST. I have been dismally busy lately, but I forced myself to make time for Chex Quest, because it’s one of my most cherished childhood games.

I was 8 years old when I first noticed the “FREE CD-ROM GAME INSIDE” graphic on a cereal box when I was following my mom through our local grocery store. She saw my eyes light up. I miss those days when they included some kind of free toy or gimmick in cereal boxes. A free computer game was definitely over the top, but kudos to the Chex marketing team. My mom was a fan of freeware games too, so we bought the cereal and installed Chex Quest as soon as we got home.

I was completely enamored. I hadn’t really played a proper FPS game other than Faceball 2000 for the SNES (if that counts). I had no idea what Doom was or that Chex Quest was actually just a total conversion mod of Doom. Today, I’m convinced that Chex Quest only works because it’s “Doom for kids.” My parents were cautious about which games I was allowed to play when I was young, so most shooters were out of the question. However, Chex Quest was intentionally non-violent. Instead of killing or destroying the alien Flemoid invaders, your Zorch weapons merely teleport the Flemoids back to their own dimension.

The game itself is a solid 5-level Doom mod campaign. It’s very short, compared to Doom’s 27 levels, but that didn’t stop me from playing this game over and over again with my childhood buddy, Peter. Chex Quest also thrived because schools latched on. It’s a free and non-violent game, and Chex was stirring up a bit of marketing hype. “Yeah, that’s right, we put a VIDEO GAME in a cereal box. We’re pretty cool, aren’t we, kids? Now be a good boy and girl and eat lots of Chex cereal.” Chex Quest became a staple in school computer labs. After school, my buddy and I would race to the computer lab to see who could finish a speedrun of all 5 levels of Chex Quest first (our moms both worked at the school, so we had time to kill at the end of the school day). We knew all of the shortcuts and secret areas. We must’ve completed this game at least a few dozen times each.

The common failings of early FPS games are present here – it’s easy to get lost, there’s a lot of repeated sprites and textures, and the aged graphics will be hard for some gamers to stomach if they don’t have nostalgia for that era of gaming. But, Carmack’s Doom engine is pristine. I don’t need much convincing to play a total conversion Doom mod. Chex Quest in particular has the quirky draw of being a game about a collective of cereal people defending themselves from cereal eating slime creatures.

The animated intro included on the CD-ROM version (sorry, it’s not included in the DOS freeware version found online) is laughably primitive, but when you’re 8 years old with limited exposure to video games, it’s the coolest thing you’ve ever seen. I watched it over and over again. The game creates a surprisingly effective atmosphere. The soundtrack is a vibe (make sure you select SoundBlaster in setup.exe), and the sound effects cover a wide range. Typically the Flemoids are cute and strange, making hilarious noises, but there were a few noises that scared me a bit as a kid. The final level has an intensity to it that you won’t find in educational games from that time.

I discovered in college that Digital Cafe also made Chex Quest 2: Flemoids Take Chextropolis. It’s more Chex Quest, and there are some interesting new elements and levels, but you can tell that development was rushed. Some members of Digital Cafe also released Chex Quest 3 as a service to die hard fans, but nothing quite matches the hype of the original.

Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed in the HD remake of Chex Quest. Maybe they’ve made improvements since I first gave the remake a spin, but I encountered far too many issues. The armor HUD takes up an absurd amount of the screen, the new cartoony art style just doesn’t match the charm of the original sprite graphics, many of the animations are clunky and awkward, and the audio mixing is all over the place (some sounds are too loud, some are too quiet). The dark sections of the game are way too dark, especially since there’s no flashlight, and many of the enemies and doors are bugged. It’s clear that Carmack’s Doom engine does the real heavy lifting for the original Chex Quest, and the HD remake lacks this polish.

Do yourself a favor. Boot up DOS Box and a free copy of Chex Quest and experience this unique slice of gaming history. Last night, I took my time and finished all five levels in about 40 minutes. After all these years, the nostalgia still runs deep, and the joy is still there.