ChuChu Rocket! (チューチューロケット!, ChūChū Roketto!?) is a puzzle video game for Dreamcast developed by Sonic Team. The game was the first popular game with online mode support for any major video game console. The game was later given away free with every Dreamcast as a demonstration of its online abilities, and also given away free to European console owners, who could order a copy by connecting to the Dreamarena online service with the Dreamcast browser.
The object of the game is to guide one or more mice ("ChuChus") around a board into one or more goals while avoiding cats ("KapuKapus") roaming the board. The mice and cats all move in predictable paths by always turning right when hitting a wall head on, by following corners or by turning around when in a dead end.
Periodically, special colored mice would appear. A gold mouse would add 50 mice to the player's rocket, while a pink mouse would trigger a random event. These events could benefit the player who collected it (for example, by routing all the mice on screen to their rocket, or dropping cats directly into all the opponents' rockets), benefit all players (such as removing all the cats for a short time and flooding the board with mice) or even change the dynamic of the game by swapping the rockets around to different players.
A less-featured Stage Challenge mode challenges players to get mice into rockets, guide a cat to eat all the mice, put cats into a computer-guarded rocket, and other tasks, all within a specified time limit. One or two players can work together to solve the 25 available levels.
The Game Boy Advance release of ChuChu Rocket! featured the same gameplay as the original Dreamcast release, complete with single-cartridge multiplayer gameplay across multiple GBAs. The original 100 puzzle levels were included, as well as 2,500 user-submitted levels from the online service. This version's level editor is capable of creating levels for 4Player Battle, Team Battle, Stage Challenge and Puzzle mode. Numerous new features and effects were added to the GBA version as well, some taking advantage of each player having their own screen.
The unofficial Atari ST release of ChuChu Rocket!, released as freeware by Reservoir Gods in 2001, featured the same single-player gameplay as the original Dreamcast release and up to 4 players on the same machine in 4Player Battle & 2 vs. 2 modes. All the original Dreamcast music was remade by MSG using SID Sound Designer. Two versions exist - one for STe/Atari TT030/Atari Falcon requiring 2Mb or more of memory & a 'ChuChuLite' version for 1Mb Atari ST computers. This game received MyAtari Magazine Game of the Year award 2002.
The Dreamcast version has an aggregate score of 86% on GameRankings. One of the most common complaints about the game was the lag time on the online play. the online interface was also criticized as well for being very basic and immature, though reviewers noted that it was Sega's first online game. IGN complained that the lobby system was poorly conceived. GameSpot said that the network mode "could have been the crowning moment" of the game. Gamespy reported problems with getting the settings to connect to the Internet correctly.
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