OMGJeremy

Humpday Gaming: The Sorta Earthworm Jim Compendium

Attention, OMGJeremy readers. Any of you with an XBox 360 should immediately go download the new HD remake of Earthworm Jim. If you like, you can wait until you finish reading this, but otherwise you should run and download this immediately. While it’s downloading, I highly recommend you grab yourself a drink, lock your doors to prevent yourself from being bothered, and possibly put on your finest adult diaper– not just because we all like the way you look in that diaper, but also because you are in for a night of classic gaming at its finest, and this will allow you to maximize your time. Trust me, it also works on road trips, job interviews, and while you are waiting in line for Lady Gaga tickets. I knew this game was coming out soon, but I had no idea it would be out this week until I saw it mentioned in passing on Kotaku. It made my entire month. I literally have had an erection since I saw it was due today– although to be fair that might just be an awkward coincidence, but I wanted to share that with you. We’re close like that.

For those of you still reading, either you don’t know why you should care about Earthworm Jim or you don’t have an XBox 360. To the latter group : do not cry out in anguish, PS3 and Wii owners, your day is coming as well! Both of these systems are also slated to receive this game within the next month. For now you can read the rest of this article over and over again until that day, knowing that every time you read it you are a couple minutes closer to playing it (this will also help my page views, putting me one step closer to taking over OMGJ and turning it into a Tony Danza fansite). For the first group, that group that doesn’t know why I am so jazzed about “yet another remake of an old 2d property,” then allow me to educate you on why this should matter to anyone who games.

In the early 90s, the Sega Genesis and SNES were the current systems of choice. People drove around in “automobiles” and lived in houses, much like the houses we live in today except without high speed internet. This was the “dark ages,” although I might argue that it was one of console gamings golden eras. There were loads of 2d mascot-driven platform action games at the time, some already accepted as gaming icons like Mario and Sonic, while many of them were swept under the doormat of time like Bubsy and Boogerman, victims of sloppy game design or a poorly-planned excursion into 3D. A victim of that time period was also one of the greatest games of all time — Earthworm Jim.

Yep, that refrigerator is going to launch that cow into space. It makes perfect sense when it happens.

Earthworm Jim (EWJ from here on out) came out for the Genesis in 1994 (it later was released for the SNES), but I didn’t have it on Genesis. I had it for the ill-fated Sega CD system, because even then I was a fool when it came to picking non-failing platforms. It was the same exact game with a slightly better soundtrack and one extra level, which almost made up for the ridiculous load times the Sega CD offered. Either way, even with the terrible load times, EWJ was hands down one of the few Sega CD games that I wish I would have kept. At some point in the late-90s I really needed money for beer or a pizza or to get a tranny to hit on my friend Larry, so I sold my Sega CD and like 10 games for $50. I don’t get “seller’s remorse” often, but I still wake up crying a few times a year about that decision. This has nothing to do with the actual gameplay of EWJ, so I’ll dry my tears and carry-on.

EWJ was a 2d side scroller shooting game, but with a strong helping of the absurd. You play as an earthworm named Jim that gets his hands (?) on a magical supersuit that gives you superpowers, like, well like being a worm with a human body and a laser gun. Each level is pure 16-bit platforming greatness, with a enough inventive twists thrown in to keep things interesting. After the first level (and most levels) you run a race against one of your arch-nemeses, a crow in a similar supersuit named Psy-crow to get to the next area. It’s a “behind your character” race (like any other car racer) instead of the side-scrolling levels, and while it is possible to actually win the race, you will probably lose a few times meaning you will have to instead fight a giant space crow to get to the next level. Because it was the early 90s and it was mandatory game-design law, there’s also a good mix of end-of-level and mini-bosses, with names like “Queen slug-for-a-butt” (who has a slug for a butt) and Professor Monkey for a head (who has a monkey… for a head… do you get the idea yet?), and included the most mindblowing boss fight in history against a goldfish.

Here Jim is drifting around underwater caves on his hunt for Bob the goldfish megaboss. It looks like he's having A BALL. LOLOLOLOLOLOL.

EWJ was an instant classic, receiving excellent reception from both game reviewers and the actual game playing populous. It’s blend of solid gameplay and (at the time) edgy preteen humor appealed to gamers who had grown up playing Mario, but didn’t want to just play another kiddy Super Mario game… we wanted something that took the basic concepts of those platformers and then went nuts with it. EWJ definitely did that, but without sacrificing in gameplay. It wasn’t overly Battletoads-level difficulty, but it was also not a cakewalk. There was a good variety to the levels themselves, the bosses were more than just “shoot this boss more than he shoots you” or “jump on his head a couple times” bosses, and more importantly Jim himself managed to fit that “extreme” character model that most other game companies strive to create, but managed to do it and still actually appeal to the market they were aiming for, unlike Extreme Dark Werewolf Sonic or that spaceman from Blasto.

Because the first game was a smash, a sequel came out a year later and built on the first game and was arguably even better than the original. With that additional success, Earthworm Jim was poised to become a new mainstream video game phenomenon, including launching a fairly good cartoon series that ran for 2 seasons and a line of toys based on the show and game. So what happened to Jim to stop this surefire digital success story?

Meth.

Actually, it’s somehow worse. By the mid-90s, the 16-bit era was brought to a close with the introduction of the Sony Playstation and N64. Before you scream at me “BUT JEREMY P, YOU FORGOT ABOUT THE SATURN!!!”, I didn’t — the whole world forgot about the Saturn, and actually if Sega had any idea how to market a system it might have stopped or at least delayed what the Playstation regrettably did– the Playstation effectively killed 2d platform gaming. I’m not saying that all 3d gaming is bad; on the contrary I think by this point it is understandably the standard, and games like Ratchet and Clank and Super Mario Galaxy are some of the best platformers ever made. However, when the Playstation came out, pretty much everything needed to be made out of Polygons, and the worlds 3d. Games like Crash Bandicoot and Super Mario 64 were the new hot game style, and people weren’t buying old-school 2 dimensional games for the most part. This led to game companies taking their old 2d properties and making them 3d, leading to some of the worst gameplay and camera problems in the history of gaming. Hell, Sega has been trying to make a good 3d Sonic for what, 15 years now, and the first Sonic game people are super excited about is the throwback 2d Sonic 4 coming out later this year.

So, in 1999, Interplay (who owned the rights to the EWJ game series) decided it was time to send Jim into this brave new world, I mean, with a proven property like EWJ, how can you fail? Oh, I see how. You don’t get the original developers (Shiny) who made this a hit, and you instead make a game that looks like this.

MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING! Yay for 10 year old internet memes.

To be fair, for the time these graphics weren’t horrendous by my recollection, but they sure as hell are now. I do remember that there were a whole lot of awkward flickery polygon animations, and the camera might as well have just been jammed up Jim’s ass, since of the little bit of time that I tried to make myself like it, I think I spent 90% of it just trying to get a halfway usable camera angle out of this game. It just didn’t feel fluid and solid like the first two, but almost like it was held together with the tears of the playtesters and scotch tape. This game rightfully bombed, and bombed hard. Based on a report that I made up just now, only 14 copies of this game were ever sold and the rest of them were melted and turned into novelty buttplugs. After the failure of EWJ3D and a lackluster GBA release, the EWJ series has been mentioned in lists of possible upcoming titles a few times, but nothing has actually come to fruition– until today.

Today marks the release of Earthworm Jim HD on the XBox 360. Much like the highly regarded remake of NES classic Bionic Commando, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, this is a complete remake of the original Earthworm Jim game but with a few notable differences. All new (but faithful) graphics, some new levels that have the feel of the original, and some added co-operative multiplayer options that actually could be fun, but are not mandatory. Anyone who has read any of my gaming articles for OMGJeremy is pretty aware that I am a giant sucker for the retro-gaming releases on the current consoles, and this looks to be pretty much the perfect situation: a classic, remade for today’s consoles– but not reimagined. I know I’ll have this downloaded by the time this is posted to the site, and if my interest isn’t enough to get you interested, then check out the official trailer.

No, this isn’t a paid advertisement (although I would not complain about getting some sort of compensation HINT HINT), just my attempt to put more of an emphasis on the re-release of a true 16-bit era classic. Maybe it will re-launch the franchise or maybe this is Jim’s last well-deserved hoorah. If nothing else, it will give me something to waste my week on while I wait around for E3 game leaks.