Chex Quest HD is looking crunchy and nutritious in new footage
Cereal killer sorts wheat from chaff
'90s kids - American mostly, though the net has made it part of our shared consciousness - remember Chex Quest fondly. Arguably the best thing ever to be packed into a cereal box, it was effectively a re-skinned, kid-safe Doom, right down to the behaviour of the guns. Original Chex Quest artist Chuck Jacobi has been carrying a torch for the FPS anomaly ever since, and has spent the past couple years working on Chex Quest HD, a modern 3D remake. See some footage below, featuring the intro and some in-game action. Plus, the original (and expanded) game free.
Aside from the inexcusable oversight of the Chex Trooper's helmet not sliding shut during the intro below, I'm impressed. The game looks exactly like a goofy 90s computer animation - like a mock game that you'd see in a lower-mid budget movie, with the cutscene and combat footage looking almost indistinguishable from each other. Jacobi plans to release the HD remake for free, and it'll cover the original five-level campaign. Apparently he's even got General Mills's blessing on this release, and is using the name, logo and all that jazz with permission. It's free advertising, I guess, but it's also a bizarre and entertaining part of gaming's history.
This isn't Chuck's first major Chex Quest project, either. Folks with sharp memories will recall that Chex Quest was meant to be a trilogy - three episodes, split across three discs. Unfortunately, only the first two got made. Ten years late, but Jacobi went and released his own, unofficial third episode, and combined it with the original two as a standalone free game for modern WIndows systems. Grab it here, and if you want it to look and run a little nicer, update it to the latest ZDoom or GZDoom build. The third episode is the strongest of the three, in my opinion - the result of years of Chex research.
Fun fact: Both Brutal Doom and multi-character mod Samsara (both on Mod DB) are compatible with Chex Quest, too. Ever wanted to play as Duke Nukem on a brunch rampage? Now you can. You can also read more about Chex Quest HD on its official Facebook page here. It'll be done when it's done, but hopefully before it turns soggy.