Every so often, a game appears on the Steam store that makes you wonder why it was ever published. Why anyone thought it was a good idea, and why anyone thought that it should be made. And WHY, OH WHY ANYONE WOULD PAY MONEY FOR IT? I am proud to say, Bad Rats is not one of them. You see, there is a lesson for all of us in Bad Rats, which lies deep within its folds of marijuana, Iranians and the Cuban Mice-ile Crisis.

On the surface, Bad Rats: the Rats Revenge is a game about killing cats. You take on the role of God, with the omnipotent power of transporting both sentient creatures and inanimate objects from one portion of the screen to another. On his death bed, Steve Jobs also ordered his Chinese slaves to design you an elegant yet efficient machine capable of reversing time and spray-painting walls. Once time begins rolling, cats begin dying in horrific ways, from exploding to death in a microwave to getting mauled, chainsawed and crushed.

At its heart, Bad Rats is a physics game. You are presented with a generous supply of your average physics-game objects, such as trampolines, wooden boxes and platforms. Objects are placed on a 2D plane. This is as normal as the game gets.

The object of the game is to maneuver a small blue ball to activate the cat slaughtering machine. All machines can only be activated by this tiny blue ball. This poses an interesting quandry: no matter how many rocket mice you launch at a giant red button on the side of a microwave, it never budges. However, the slightest tap by the rolling ball will fling the button closed. These blatant violations of Newton’s laws serve to be a defining characteristic of Bad Rats. Speaking of rocket mice, there are plenty more types of rats at your arsenal: Middle Eastern terrorists that detonate bombs, cigarette addicts who can’t help but wheeze to push the ball forward, Los Angeles Dodgers junkies, and bulldozers that CAN’T DRIVE UP A SIMPLE RAMP HJKDAGGKS

The most innovative and eye-opening feature of Bad Rats, however, is no doubt the concept of 3D gameplay in a 2D game. Though you may only place objects on a 2D plane, your ball is free to move in all three dimensions, including towards the camera and outside of the gameplay region. This occurs by complete luck, and is God’s infuriating way of reminding you that life is full of unexpected surprises, and that you must always keep faith to achieve your goals.

Many now believe that the developers of Bad Rats were working through the influence of the Holy Spirit, and that they ascended to heaven soon after the game was released. This would explain why they were never seen or heard from again.

10/10, I’ve played better.