The Weekly WTF: Clinton’s Cat Beats up Nixon and George W. in ‘Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill’

Yes indeed. Feast your eyes, ears and balls on that headline.

If you aren't proficient in useless presidential pet knowledge, here's the deal. Socks was the name of Clinton's cat, which the family owned from before his presidency until he left office (at which point it lived with his former secretary, because the Clintons' dog was being an ass to it). But why are we giving any effs about our ol' buddy Bill's feline friend?

Because it once averted an imaginary nuclear disaster, that's why.

Socks the Cat, for some crazy-ass reason, once starred in his own platform game. The premise of which, as neatorama reports, makes perfect sense:
"Socks... must get to the Oval Office to warn the president about a stolen nuclear bomb. To do that, he must defeat villains including Russian spies, the press corps, and former presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush."

So, Metal Gear Solid with a freakin' cat. So far, so awesome. We're on board.

This weirdness was scheduled to hit the Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES in Fall 1993, but was cancelled just before its US release. This wasn't due to its political satire, but because developer and publisher Kaneko died on its ass at the critical moment. And so most of us were denied Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill. And what lucky bastards we are.

From the shady ROMtastic footage that exists (below, for instance), we're really not missing anything here. In theory, the plot sounds like the sort of thing that would have Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone shooting shit right up in your local movie theater. Y'know, cat aside. But then you play --or you don't, because you can't-- and it's a fairly pedestrian toony platformer. What a kick in the ‘nads.

Still, credit where it's due: you don't see surprise put-these-dudes-in-order-of-when-they-became-president quizzes much in video games. Or cats being so proactive in times of nuclear crisis. Most are content to sit and lick their own balls, with no effs given to whatever disaster is rolling towards them. So there's that.