Publisher: PETA
Developer: PETA
System requirements: A browser and a keyboard
Genre: Poorly-crafted satire?
Release date: Available now

In a world where seemingly nothing is sacred, PETA has created and launched a new browser-based game called Super Tanooki Skin 2D. In the game, everyone’s favorite plumber is depicted as a bloody, fur-wearing murderer floating away from a freshly-skinned tanuki. Players control the tiny, hairless animal as he chases Mario down to get his fur back.

Super Tanooki Skin 2D is brought to you by PETA’s latest campaign, “Mario Kills Tanooki.” PETA suggests that the fancy suits Mario wears to save the princess are made from animal furs, and therefore he supports killing animals. I always thought the suits were just that… Suits created that look like the animals they emulate. You can’t tell me he is skinning person-sized frogs so he can swim underwater. And where are all the massive turtles? But I digress. This is a review and I shall review the game.

Super Tanooki Skin 2D is a side-scrolling platformer with a very basic control scheme. Pressing the space bar causes the skinned tanuki to jump over obstacles as he chases down Mario. That’s it. The game’s visuals and some of the sound effects will take you back to the SNES days of Mario, but the game’s main theme is forgettable. After a minute or so of jumping, the tanuki catches up with Mario, curses at him, and then takes his skin back. I found the jump controls to be a little unresponsive, though it could be the cheeseburger grease dripping onto my keyboard as I played it. The game also appears to lag whenever you jump, which is unfortunate, because jumping is all you can do.

In conclusion, the game is a miss. There is no depth, no replayability, and it isn’t any fun. I get what PETA is trying to do here, but I think the execution was lazy. It did, however, manage to get me to talk about the game, so mission accomplished, I guess.

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