It initially seems that the main selling point of this inexpensive (£5.79) auto-shooter is the authentic Game Boy-style visuals. Well, the Game Boy Color-style visuals, to be more precise – moving objects are coloured, and there’s a selection of palettes to flick through. Soon it transpires that it has a lot more to offer beyond that, with this being a fully-fledged adventure with a world map that has branching paths, different mission types, boss battles, and a story to take in. Nothing too beefy, but there’s more meat here than in other games in this price bracket.
The storyline is a daft one, being more of a premise to facilitate a large variety of auto-shooting stages. To wit: Beef Cat’s days spent partying in Beeflandia abruptly end when ‘Some Big Guy’ shows up with his cronies. Now Beef Cat must rally his ragtag bunch – mostly formed from other cute animals, along with a bald chap who owns a chain of hardware stores – and save Beeflandia, a world formed from forests, swamps, beaches, and sand dunes. These are the game’s worlds, and due to the limited colour palette, they do all appear quite samey. Thankfully, they each have their unique enemy rosters, hazards and a few gimmicks to help them stand out – such as boost pads, and screen-filling ominous blobs. Boss battles feature as well, mostly against super-sized pixelated enemies who erupt into a frenzy when on death’s door, along with a few surprise mini-games that we won’t spoil.
Easily Beef Cat Ultra’s best feature is that no two levels are the same. You’re tasked with beating bite-sized challenges set within unique locations, ranging from outrunning the screen while navigating a maze-like stage with keys to find, to having to collect over 100 gems while enemy hordes swell. For auto-shooter purists, there are a dozen or so stages that simply entail surviving for a set amount of time, complete with a few twenty minute survival challenges that help give this package a respectable runtime.
New characters unlock regularly, each with their own starting attack, and the map is peppered with stores that incrementally increase stats. While the map is quite laborious to navigate, with Beef Cat and company walking far too slowly, some (expensive) shortcuts can be purchased later. Locked gates halt progress, requiring set amounts of coins to progress before the next world can be unlocked, and progress is tracked well by showing a breakdown of how many stages in each world have been beaten.
While a little basic in its design, with enemies merely appearing off-screen before homing in on your chosen hero, the auto-shooting mechanics are robust enough. When levelling up there’s a choice of three skills to improve (attack, health, pick-up range, etc) and often choosing a certain option will give bonus coins, extra health, or a slight damage boost. Weapons and armour are instead found within the environment, forcing you to explore stages fully to become powerful enough to deal with stronger enemy waves. In keeping with the theme, weapons are pleasingly daft, including 5G towers, throwable anchovies, bouncing volleyballs, exploding eggs, fishing rods that snag foes, and a “regular gun.” Once the ultra bar is filled a super-sized attack can be performed for a few seconds, killing almost every enemy on screen. It can be a godsend to get you out of trouble and back on track if you’re surrounded.
Beef Cat Ultra packs in a decent amount of variety, a balanced difficulty level – with the final world offering a stiff yet manageable challenge – and a dollop of irrelevant humour for good measure. It isn’t much to look at – even the worst Game Boy Color games were better looking than this – but there is quite a bit to sink your teeth into here, making this a decent budget buy for anyone looking for something cheap and cheerful to spend an evening or two. Think of it as the McDonald’s Happy Meal of the lower priced auto-shooter market.
Beef Cat’s Beef Cat Ultra is out now on consoles. Published and converted from PC by Brainium Games. It first launched on Steam in 2024.