Retronomicon 12.16.09: Earthworm Jim

Posted by Lee Price on 12.16.2009

This week the Retronomicon slips into a slinky inter-galactic space suit and takes on the role of a worm gone wild as he attempts to rescue a princess while trying to avoid the attentions of an evil and psychotic crow. Step inside as this week the Retronomicon tosses a cow to bring you Earthworm Jim.

Hello and how do to all the peeps perusing the mighty 411 today. My name is Lee Price and as ever I am your host for the Retronomicon, giving you that precious look back on your childhood before you realize how empty and hate filled your adult life is. Or maybe that's just me. I've had probably the most awesome weekend in a long time though to be fair. A Heavy Metal Bee Gees tribute band, Aston Villa beating Manchester United at Old Trafford, My buddy's birthday and the drunken tomfoolery that accompanied it, plus an awesome chicken dinner to top it all off. It doesn't get much better. As for my gaming, with all the busy, busy crap surrounding Christmas I have been neglecting my consoles a little bit. I'm still plugging away at Final Fantasy VI, as well as the occasional bout of Pro Evolution 2010 to try and prove that it doesn't suck as much as I think it does. It still does though. But that's about it for me, so let's get down to business and start another chapter of the...





Comments

Not many comments for Space Harrier. I am assuming it is because people just never got to ride in that bitching arcade cabinet. Still its less work for me in responding so let's get on with it.

I figure I may as well group the two comments together so here's what a couple of Retronomicon regulars had to say;

AG Awesome - Don't forget you can also play this gem on Shenmue for the DC.

McWaylon - One of the Best Sega games ever!!!!
The best console versions are on both Shenmue games, get that if you want Space Harrier goodness. If you disagree, You smell worse than Greg Bruno.

Both of the guys make the point that the best version of the game on consoles is that found in Shenmue, but I did in fact make that point too I believe. I even linked my two Shenmue columns! The game is still one of the best SEGA games ever made however, and is a big reason that SEGA became the force that it did in gaming.

Well that was short and sweet. Just like my love making. Except substitute the sweet with disappointing and the short with premature. But other than that it fits perfectly. Anyway I think its time we got to some gaming so strap on those rose-tinted specs because this week the Retronomicon takes a look at Earthworm Jim.



The Background

Doug TenNapel had done pretty well for himself by the time 1994 rolled around. As an animator he had worked on both The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes animated series, as well as the immortal Rugrats, which spawned a whole host of spin off shows, movies and even games. Animation wasn't enough for TenNapel however, so he chose to turn his lens over to computer games working on, amongst others, Stimpy's Invention and the Jungle Book game. In doing so he hooked up with one of the most talented developers around in the period.

David Perry had also been doing pretty good. After working on previous Retronomicon entry Aladdin, Perry had gone into business for himself, setting up Shiny Entertainment. They had yet to produce a title before Perry and TenNapel got together to exchange ideas for a certain invertebrate in a galactic suit of awesome though.

So both guys had pretty decent backgrounds, and Perry understood the importance of animation in gaming as shown by the amazing work done on Aladdin, so the two seemed destined to work together. What they came up with is one of the greatest and most surreal Run 'n' Gun platforming games of the 16 Bit era. What they came up with was Earthworm Jim.



The Game

By 1994 it had become increasingly difficult to stand out in the over crowded platformer market. For every Sonic and Mario, there were a million Aero the Acrobats. Most just faded away into obscurity, perhaps hoping to have the dust blown off them 20 years down the line in a retro column hosted on a predominantly wrestling oriented website. Earthworm Jim was no such creature however. Jim grabbed gamers by the eyelids and didn't let go.

The plot of Earthworm Jim gives a hint, if any were needed, as to just how insane this game is. Jim starts life as a simple Earthworm, digging through soil and living a nearly carefree existence that is only interrupted by the odd tussle with a bird looking for breakfast. All of that changes though when a suit falls from space and lands on Jim, inexplicably making him a walking, talking, ass kicking machine.

This isn't just any old suit, this is the 'ultra-high-tech-indestructible-super-space-cyber-suit' that had been created by the genius Professor Monkey For A Head for the evil Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-Filled, Malformed, Slug-For-A-Butt. Has your head exploded from the sheer awesome insanity of the story yet? It turns out the suit was stolen before it could reach the Queen however, and it drops to Earth in the battle between the thief and the other character who would become a bane of Jim's existence, the evil Psy-Crow.

None of this matters to Jim though. He has just become the owner of a jazzed up super suit so it is time to party. Or at least it should be. Unfortunately, newly intelligent Jim also has a conscience, so when he overhears Queen Slug-For-A-Butt telling Psy-Crow of her plans for the her sister, Princess What's-Her-Name, Jim decides that the gallant thing to do would be to rescue the fair maiden using his new suit of pure awesome. Of course it also helps that Psy-Crow and the queen also happen to be looking for the very suit that Jim is inhabiting, so Jim is going to run into them eventually anyway.

That pile of pure madness sets the stage for a game that could be considered a masterpiece in surrealist humor. Earthworm Jim is one of the very few games that can call itself genuinely funny. Many games shoot for that prize. The few that attain it, such as the Monkey Island series or Conker's Bad Fur Day, tend to get held up for generations after by people like me as shining examples of how gaming can convey genres other than 'Shooting Stuff in the Face' very well when in the right hands.

Humor, or specifically the twisted idea of funny that emerged from Shiny Entertainment in the form of Earthworm Jim, is probably the biggest reason that the game has the sort of fanbase that it does today. The animation experience and expertise brought to the table by TenNapel and Perry really shines through in many areas, as Jim's suit can use him as a whip to take out enemies, or even as a helicopter rotor to help him land safely after a particularly large jump. Jim himself is as important to survival as the weapons he gets throughout the game, and you can tell the developers had a blast finding ways to use Jim as daftly as possible.

At its heart Earthworm Jim is a Run 'n' Gun game though and, as is always the case in gaming, Jim would be nothing without the gameplay to back it up. Luckily Earthworm Jim has that in spades as well. Shiny were formed under the banner of the guy who had the biggest impact on Aladdin after all, so you know he would have been looking to produce something a little special.

The controls have a perfectly responsive feel, essential when you are trying to judge the jump to a ledge or are using you literally spineless body to swing across a gaping chasm, Indiana Jones style. Controls are the bread and butter of what makes a 2D platformer and without them coming up to snuff it doesn't matter how well your levels are designed or how funny you are because people will get frustrated that things don't happen when they should after you press a button. Happily, Earthworm Jim has no such problems.



The next step for the perfect Run 'n' Gun game is guns. Lots of them. However Jim seems to avoid this route. He starts off the game with a little red gun that looks like the sort of thing you'd buy at the local Toys 'r Us. It looks a bit crappy, until you realize that the thing is essentially a Mini-Uzi and its distinctive red color is probably the stained blood of Jim's many foes. On top of that there are a number of upgrades for the dinky little gun, such as special mega plasma rounds or, if you're really lucky, missiles. It perhaps doesn't have the variety of games like Metal Slug, but it certainly serves its purpose, and there are few occasions that you will need anything bigger than your special space Uzi anyway.

The other big facet to gameplay is the platforming, which is given added focus at the expense of some of the gun slinging action. Now make no mistake, this game isn't as precise as Mario, or even Sonic. There aren't many jumps that need to be perfectly placed, outside of those involving the whole worm swinging mentioned earlier. But still Jim provides a much more substantial platforming challenge than most of his Run 'n' Gun brethren, which in turn adds another layer of depth to the game.

Which brings us to the level design and, by virtue of said level design, right back round to the humor of the game. The levels are brimming with surreal imagery and quite frankly hilarious moments. Principle amongst these is the cow. Lord only knows why cows became such a focus for Earthworm Jim but in the middle of the very first level of the game, Jim launches a cow into the sky using a refrigerator. Then nothing. You expect the cow to land somewhere nearby. It doesn't. You wait eagerly for something to happen. It doesn't. So you continue on with the level, forgetting the incident in your hurry to blast through this first onslaught. But that isn't all you see of the buoyant bovine as it makes appearances in the backgrounds of numerous levels afterward, reminding you that there was a purpose to its launch skywards. You just have no idea what that purpose is. It is not until right at the end of the game that said purpose is revealed, as the cow finally reaps its revenge.

Its touches like this that make the game such a joy to play. The levels move along with a rapid intensity and have a variety that is rarely seen in 16 Bit games. One minute you're escorting your friend Pete the Puppy through a level by whipping his butt to make sure he jumps over gaps, and consequently doesn't fly into the Jim killing rage that he is capable of. The next you will be gunning your way though the hamster equivalent of Bioshock's Rapture. Variety is the name of the game here. That and cows. Lots of cows.

Graphically the game continues the extremely high standard set by Perry's previous work. The animations, as already mentioned, are a joy to behold. The best of them come when you leave Jim stationary for a while. He may flex his pecs until his pants fall down (perhaps a sign of a Perry fetish seeing as de-pantsing a guard was very possible with precise apple throwing in the Genesis version of Aladdin). Or he may use himself as a skipping rope as he sings. Perhaps he might even pull off a little bit of gun trickery. The little touches in animation that were present in Aladdin arer brought back here tenfold. This is the benefit of having not only David Perry but also an experienced animator such as Doug TenNapel.

The game looked a treat too. Coming on a special 24 Meg cartridge for the Genesis version, Earthworm Jim was one of the most graphically sumptuous games of the generation. Outside of Jim himself, the levels were gorgeous, as were the supporting cast of characters. The important sprites were all bulky and well detailed, and everything zipped along at a very satisfying pace. When you have a game with such talent behind it, it would be a crime for it to be anything less than visually superior and Earthworm Jim manages it.

The soundtrack was pretty damned good too. There were chunky sound effects for the guns and various explosions, plus Jim had his own set of digitized vocal lines, such as the immortal "Groovy". The music was of a high quality too. The team at Shiny brought in Tommy Tallarico, a guy who had been in the game's business for a while making music. His notable accomplishments before and after Earthworm Jim include composing the music for Another World and Robocop vs Terminator, as well as being the cousin of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler. The music was solid throughout, and if you still happen to have the PC version, specifically the Windows 95 version, of the game then you can put that bad boy in your CD player to listen to those tunes.

So Earthworm Jim was something different in a genre that had begun to stagnate a little thanks to the multitude of cookie cutter clones of the platforming icons of the day. Jim was surreal, ballsy and just straight up daft and, when mixed with a very good game thanks to the talented folk at Shiny, it all combined to make Earthworm Jim one of the best and most fondly remembered games of the 16-Bit era.



The Aftermath

Earthworm Jim went on to reap the rewards for its twisted take on platforming. It won numerous accolades, amongst them being the first game to pick up Gamesmaster's coveted 100% mark, back when that actually meant something. It regularly made "Best Game" lists of the era and was generally extremely well received.

This was mirrored in fan reception, with the game being so popular that TenNapel was able to convert the idea into a regular TV series, that actually managed to run for a couple of years and not completely suck. The game also saw a sequel in 1995. Earthworm Jim 2 was another very good game, though some of the shock value of the original game's humor had worn off by this point, there were still plenty of moments worth remembering in the game which made it a worthwhile play.

The same can't be said for Jim's disastrous transition into 3D. Earthworm Jim 3D saw a release on PC and N64 and bombed completely. Perhaps it was because fans of Jim had moved on by this point, or perhaps more likely was that the game was awful in comparison to the other 3D platformers of the time. This was a stark contrast the the breath of fresh air that the original provided, as Jim became almost derivative and offered very little of value in his 3D offering.

All is not lost however, as a company called Gameloft have acquired the license and are currently remaking the game in HD, apparently for a fourth quarter release this year, though that looks a little unlikely now. Still, if it is up to the standard of recent HD remakes, it can only be a good thing.

As for TenNapel and Perry, well TenNapel went on to work on both The Neverhood and Skullmonkeys before transitioning into a career in films, where he hasn't really done a lot of note. As for David Perry, he and Shiny went on to create MDK and Wild 9, before he moved over to Atari to work on the Matrix branded games Enter the Matrix and The Matrix: Path of Neo. So it is probably fair to say that, at least in gaming terms, Earthworm Jim was the peak of both men's creativity, Which really says something for the game.

The Final Word

Earthworm Jim is a shining gem in the sea of mediocrity known as the platforming genre on the SNES and Genesis. The game is one of the few examples of doing something different to Sonic and Mario and as such it deserves a huge amount of praise for not only trying, but also pulling off a game that most weren't brave enough to even think about developing.

The Price is Right

Jim has seen a few releases, though not quite as many as Space Harrier last week, so let's get right down to them. As usual top prices for top quality.

UK

Megadrive - Approx £5.
SNES - £10 – 15.
Mega-CD - £40 – 50.
Game Boy - Approx £5.
Game Gear (US Import) - Approx £15
PC - Approx £5
Master System - You would need to import from the US I fear. I can't find a price.
GBA (US Import) - £5 – 10.
iPhone OS - £2.99.
Virtual Console - 800 Points.

US

Genesis - Approx $10.
SNES - $10 – 15.
SEGA-CD - $80 – 100.
Game Boy - $5 – 10.
Game Gear - $15 – 25.
PC - Approx $5.
Master System - I said before that UK gamers would need to import. If it were possible to find a copy that is. Again I'm drawing a blank here. Any readers care to find a copy?
GBA - $5 – 10.
iPhone OS - $4.99.
Virtual Console - 800 Points.

The Guy Who Can do it Better Than You

Just a video of the ending I talked about earlier in the article. And remember kids, cow launching always comes back to bite you in the arse.



Ta ta and see you next week.