It is possible to die in Bad Mojo, and you'll undoubtedly get stuck in paint, singed by hot pipes, or sucked up by a vacuum along the way. You'll also encounter a few nasty surprises from spiders, rats, and a stealthy cat paw (but it's a perverse laugh watching the kitty munching its catch). Fortunately, our roach has five lives which return us to the moment of truth for another chance. While the extra lives are appreciated, when all five are gone, it's game over. As you can save anywhere, it's easy to avoid losing any lives at all, so the arbitrary limit is rather pointless besides serving as an emergency backup. For those already feeling their blood pressure rising at the prospect of death-defying action sequences, rest assured—these obstacles are intended to catch you sleeping once, then test your wits to overcome, not your reflexes.

Graphically, the game is a marvel, though it dates itself by running in a window and using only 256 colours. The environments are intricately detailed, and beautifully rendered. And by "beautiful," of course I mean "hideous". This is no scenic landscape, but the filthy underbelly of a seedy dive to begin with. But what stunning dirt it is! You can practically feel the rust flaking off the furnace, or smell the stench of the old, stale cigarette butts in the ashtray. The vivid backgrounds are displayed in pre-rendered 2D, with some effective animation worked in to give the game world some life. Our roach character is fully 3D, and can climb over, under, and around anything the design allows. The model isn't nearly as detailed, but our little antennae wave back and forth, and our six legs scurry us about convincingly.

It should be noted that the game holds absolutely nothing back in the gross-out department visually. Mind you, if you're prepared to give a cockroach game a whirl, you'll probably have the constitution to handle squirming maggots, larvae, fish guts, rat carcasses, and blood trails. Nevertheless, notice served. It's not overdone, but it's there.

The FMV videos sprinkled throughout the game are far and away the weakest part of the entire presentation. They are extremely pixelated, horribly (over)acted, badly scripted, and worst of all, technically unstable (I won’t cheapen us all by calling it “buggy”). The pixelation can be excused by its age, while the acting and dialogue can still be appreciated from a B-movie perspective. The glitches, however, were a truly bothersome hindrance. Many times the game froze for loooooong durations before or after video clips. Sometimes it'd correct itself, occasionally I could coax it, but still other times no combination of key pounding, threats, and creative cursing would cause the next scene to trigger without quitting the game entirely and coming back. This was most notable while playing it on Windows XP, but I did test it on my Windows 95 computer also, and still didn't get smooth performance. As the game uses QuickTime, which is notoriously finicky on its own, I would recommend uninstalling any version of QuickTime you have, and using the game version for best possible performance.

Sound is a mixed bag that leaves no overwhelming impression. The music is comprised of several tracks of eerie techno-creep that is well suited to the gameplay, providing a kind of sinister atmosphere and urgency. The downside is that there are far too few of them, and each recording is extremely short. As they loop repeatedly, it won't be long until you find yourself wishing for something new. You can turn the music off, but the game's sound effects are too sparse to offset the silence. The occasional noises like sploshing in impassable liquids or slip-sliding on porcelain are nicely done, however.

Bad Mojo should provide somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5-7 hours of gaming before offering several possible endings, each depending on how much you accomplish in the climactic timed sequence. I know that's another dreaded adventure element for some, but once again, the developers have allowed ample time, and success is based on decisions, not finger-twitching.

I'd love to recommend Bad Mojo unequivocally, but of course I do have to suggest caution for those on the fence about the subject matter. Although the game offers so much more than shock value, it does contain some inherently disturbing images that cannot be overlooked by the squeamish. You know who you are. If watching A Bug’s Life was your idea of courageous, move right along; there’s nothing to see here. On the other hand, if you're still reading this, you're either a masochist or feel you might have what it takes to brave a wild ride through the insect world. Either way, if you think you can handle it, you can.

You’d be hard pressed to find a less likely source for an adventure, but the radical premise, innovative approach, and graphical richness really help to make Bad Mojo such a creative, compelling title. Forget what Sierra, LucasArts, and Cyan taught you about adventures. Check your preconceived notions at the door, and play the game on its own terms, and you’ll be rewarded with one of the few truly unique gameplay experiences the genre has to offer. Granted, the game length and relative ease may leave some people wanting, and the biggest challenge may be finding the game these days. There are also some scripting and technical issues that prevent the game from being a true masterpiece, but when all is said and done, Bad Mojo is an unlikely but overwhelming success that easily makes my “must play” list. It'll creep into your mind, and crawl into your imagination, and establish itself as a truly memorable adventure.