PUZZLE #603
QUADRUPLE CROSS 7
To begin solving this puzzle, view each numbered square in the grid as being in the center of a plus-shaped cross where two five-letter clue answers intersect. There are two clues corresponding to each number, and each numbered pair of crossing answers has the same middle letter. Here's the tricky part: which one of each pair's two answers goes across and which one goes down is for you to figure out, so make sure all of the answers overlap each other properly!
Once the grid has been filled in, read the sixteen outermost letters in a clockwise fashion to get the FINAL ANSWER: the name of a video game for the original PlayStation
CLUES
1) Charlie Chaplin losing a Charlie Chaplin-lookalike contest, for example
Magnifier attached to a sniper rifle
2) "Kick it up a _____" (catchphrase of Emeril Lagasse)
Plucked piece of a peony
3) Car rental company surprisingly not based in Texas, despite its name
Irritate, like a too-tight spandex suit
4) Big, Big Hero 6, or Big Trouble in Little China, e.g.
Crow cousin
5) Bespectacled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character and others with the same name (anagram of RAMIS)
Naiad or dryad, for one
6) _____ con carne
Stage actor's line spoken directly to the audience
7) Barrier that may be topped with barbed wire
Dame Judy who played M in eight James Bond films
8) Group of at least three musical notes
Really tall mushroom with a really tiny cap
9) _____ Food (Ben & Jerry's flavor named after a jam band)
Gooey gunk that the panelists on Nickelodeon's Figure It Out often get covered with
10) Genius group whose name comes from the Latin word for "table"
Tablecloth material
11) Westernmost capital city in America's 48 contiguous states (HINT: It's in Oregon)
Yo-Yo Ma's stringed instrument
12) Small stall in a mall
✅, 🚫, or 🤷
13) Act as a sheep's barber, so to speak
Like the best possible possibility
14) Excuse such as "I was at the arcade at the time"
Huge computer built in the mid-1940s
15) _____ certificate (paper for a new baby)
Singer of "Yellow Flicker Beat", "Green Light", and "Royals"
16) Head held by Hamlet (or what's left of that head, at least)
Hitchhiker's digit
Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!
