Ahhh, Earthworm Jim. Why did only last four years? From the three games that I have played, two of them were just plain awesome. Earthworm Jim (and it's HD remake, which is also awesome but I don't count re-makes unless they are drastically different) and Earthworm Jim 2. What was the third I played? That was Earthworm Jim 3d, but let's pretend that never existed. Since this game is currently the game of the week, as of the time of this review. I decided to make a review since I remember this game bringing a smile to my face when I first played it.
Story- The story is weird, like the rest of the game. A bounty hunter known as Psy-Crow, was sent by the "Evil Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-Butt" (or Queen Slug-For-a-Butt for short) to retrieve a "ultra-high-tech-indestructible-super-space-cyber-suit" (or super suit for short) made by Professor Monkey-For-a-Head, so that she can use it to conquer the universe. Psy-Crow makes a bit of a blunder by dropping the suit into Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, we have Earthworm Jim, an average boring worm doing... wormy things. Until, the suit falls on top of him giving him a body, arms, legs, using his normal worm body as a head and an awesome ray gun. After messing around with the suit, Jim overhears Psy-Crow talking to Queen Slug-For-a-Butt, apparently they have kidnapped Princess What's-Her-Name. Jim sets off to rescue the princess while having to protect his own hide from Psy-Crow, who is trying to recover the suit and other villains that want the suit for their own evil purposes, such as the best boss of all time, Bob the Killer Goldfish! Yep it's pretty silly, but too me, that's why its awesome!
Gameplay- The game is a 2d platformer, with a ray gun and a whip! The aim of the game is guide Jim through the levels from a to b (with some exceptions like snot-a-problem) shooting things that get in your way and using your whip to swing off hooks. You have your health as a percentage, and you have your ammo displayed as well, you can't exactly run out though, when your ammo goes below 100, the gun replenishes the ammo at a relatively slow pace, and of course you can pick up health and ammo along the way. The controls are this the d-pad moves Jim (duh), a is to shoot your gun and look like an maniac, you can use the d-pad while shooting to aim your gun, you can shoot in eight directions. b uses your head... as a whip, it can be used to attack enemies both while on the ground and in the air and can be used to swing off hooks, again, using the d-pad can aim your head, lastly c jumps, if you keep tapping c while falling you can use your head as a copter to slow your decent a bit, Jim will also grab onto ledges and pull himself up, also, one new thing I learned today is that you can hold down when Jim is hanging on a ledge to make him stay there hanging and scratch his butt. There are more controls for different levels, but I won't go into all of them, one of the most common though is andy asteroids where you race Psy-Crow while dodging asteroids you move your pocket rocket left and right with the d-pad, hold a to speed up and press b to use a temporary shield you can pick up. The controls, quite frankly, are perfect, some levels will have some slight difference in controls, but they are pretty easy to figure out. As for the gameplay, it's really really fun just blasting your way though enemies and defeating bosses.
Graphics- The levels look pretty good, especially what the heck which is basically hell. As for the animations, well, Jim's animations as well as the other characters are great and defiantly give off that wacky cartoony look. I mean, it's even fun just to leave Jim idle and watch his idle animations, like where he shoots himself in the face. This game may be one of the best looking games on the genesis.
Sound- Ah, yes, the sound. Firstly, the sound effects are great and fit everything that is happening, like the boing sounds when bouncing off tires, the sound of using your gun, and of course Jim himself, with all the ows you'll hear as he gets hit, the yippies you'll hear as he collects items and the OHHHH YEEEEEAHHHS when you reach checkpoints. The music for the levels is just plain awesome and fits the levels well such as what the heck, with is dramatic start, to the rest of it which is just elevator music with screams. THE HORROR! Favorites of mine include new junk city, what the heck, for pete's sake, the continue screen (or when you fight the robot chicken) and buttville.
Depth and Addictiveness- Well the game is a pretty good length, but there's no other game modes other than just the from beginning to end thing... But there are different difficulties so there is replay value to the game, but it's so awesome that you may just want to play it again since it is that great. Speaking of the difficulty...
Difficulty- Earthworm Jim is HARD. Not the hardest game ever, but still hard none the less. The annoying enemies and traps, some hard levels, the bosses make this game pretty unforgiving. An example that most people will use for a hard level is, for pete's sake, and how appropriate named the level is. In this level, you have to guide Jim's friend, Peter Puppy through the level, killing the plant things that get in his way and whipping him to make him jump over pits. If he takes damage from enemies or falls into a pit, don't worry, he won't die, he'll just turn into a monster, bite you and move you back a bit and take about 25% of health, and some points can get quite hard especially with the see-saw platforms. The chicken boss is a boss I can never seem to beat on my first try and the final level is quite hard with all the spikes and the pus, or whatever it is that gets shot at you, oh and the monsters with pincers that kill you in one hit. That's nice. So yeah, don't expect to get through this on your first try.
Overall, Earthworm Jim is a great game, it's fun to play through, the soundtrack is just awesome, but boy is it hard. But don't let that keep you from trying it, I would also recommend the HD remake, though I would say that the original is better since the voice for Jim seems better, the soundtrack sounds better and andy asteroids is made really really annoying in the remake with all the flashing colors making it hard to see and concentrate on anything. |
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| ID: 691127 | 43 Words
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