Earthworm Jim 3D Review

Rayman, Prince of Persia, Indiana Jones... Montezuma hmmm, I am merely listing favorite heroes of 2D (usually arcade) games that have recently reappeared having one additional dimension. I cannot escape the feeling that I left someone out but, never mind, now, there is one more face around again: Earthworm Jim. This lovable worm joins the rapidly growing list with some delay. Jim has always been sticking to trends, and if you remember, several years ago he was the one to show how arcade games can "perfectly" work under the still new "Windows 95" operating system.

The worm has (re) Turned.

The situation has changed a bit. If we do start from the beginning, the first essential change is the new developer. Shiny Entertainment is nowhere to be seen, and all the glory/criticism now goes to Interplay and Virgin Interactive. The plot is rather weird, which is not that strange baring in mind that it takes place in Earthworm Jim's brain. Considering what that looks like it is not hard to anticipate that that particular part of his inside is a very dangerous place. Now imagine what it is like to explore the whole of it, all four hidden areas, one by one: memory, happiness, fear, fantasy. All because a cow fell on his head thus inducing utter chaos by mixing all his worst fears and anxieties that are threatening to destroy him once and for all.

How to achieve a normal worm's life? Every area consists of a couple of levels, and what Mr. Worm has to do is to find several (3-7) hidden golden udders and 100 lost marbles. In the meantime he also has to do good deeds like liberating agreeable characters like a big pickle, or Elvis, the "King" himself thus gaining another golden udder, marble or a compliment that he became somewhat smarter.

Gathering these things, Jim gains access to new levels and brain areas. At first one might think that the freedom to choose new levels renders the game less linear, but as the number of things to reach a certain level is very carefully calculated the sequence of levels is still pretty much unchangeable.

A bit more specific...

The surprising thing was the difficulty of the game. The arcade-action side of the game is rather emphasized, more than the puzzles, so I was pretty much stunned after the last game of this kind I struggled with, "Rayman 2: The Great Escape" which is but a baby compared to this. There is a lot of fighting, jumping, and shooting... Jim kept some of his ™ moves like: helicopter head, head whip, hand-over-head, as well as getting some new moves: pig sliding, jump'n'shoot and tuck'n'roll.

The enemies are far from being a lark, even the completely silly ones: mad cows, cooks, robots, ghosts, chicken, rabbits, bats... They are not too smart, but they are very persistent, so you will have to deal with them using force in the form of about 10 types of weapons. Jim's standard blaster can be replaced with boomerang hatchets, a pee or egg pistol, rockets, exploding bananas...

Oh, the camera...

Jumping about the platforms can really make the game sickening, especially if there is lava, toxic waste or quick sand running underneath. Here you can blame it on the people from VIS instead of your own incompetence. I am quite aware of the fact that positioning cameras so one can see all one wants in a 3D game is not the easiest thing in the world, but this game is one step behind it's opponents, in spite of all the camera control commands.

The existence of four views on Jim and a button that positions the camera behind his back is indeed praiseworthy. There are also more or less standard commands for camera rotation and a first person view. Still, all that is far from solving the problem. Even if the situation is viewed from as far as possible the visibility and oversight are poor. That is not to mention what it is like when the camera gets stuck on a platform after Jim falls of it, or when Jim is running towards the camera and it blocks his way.

If we now add a poor sense of space, very hard levels for which 100% of energy seems insufficient, and the worst of all, a limited number of lives, to all that, the perils of potential players are pretty obvious. Certain levels, p.e. a rocket 1 on 1 death match with a goal of collecting all 100 marbles before your adversary can be really frustrating. Come to think of it, the very collecting of marbles is a very ungrateful job because after losing a life all the marbles get restored. Let us see what the official announcement says: "From over-the-top slapstick antics to subtle humorous touches, Earthworm Jim 3D will leave everyone in fits of hysteria!". What did they have in mind?

If you ever played Super Mario 64 on a Nintendo, the situation will appear to be perfectly clear... You did not? Hmmmmm, let us just say then that I would recommend you a glass of cold water and some sugar, just in case... Oh, yes, bare in mind that your keyboard and the rest of the computer equipment is probably not strike-resistant

Visuals, sounds...

Earthworm Jim 3D brings us no novelties concerning visual appearance. Plainly put, the models, lighting effects, smoke effects and textures are on a standard level we already used to during the last year or so, and there is neither anything extraordinary good nor bad about them. Character animation is nice, that is, not as nice as "cartoonish". If you are not one of the I -want -everything -in1600x1200x32 -with -environmental -bump -mapping -and -curved-textures people I doubt it that you will have any complaints.

The audio effects and music are very good, that is, substantially different from standard music background typical for this type of a game. The list of songs is versatile; there is some dynamic guitar music, classical music and jazz. The developers were obviously driven by the good criticism for sound in the first two games. You may recall that there were all sorts of music too, amongst them Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata. There is also a lot of sampled sound, explosions, punches, shots, screams, and background ambience noise. Just try to imagine a pack of unobtrusive spooky sounds on the graveyard or some other "Fear" location in Jim's brain.

Finally... the game is interesting it does have an air of recognizable humor and funny situations, but if you do give $30 be prepared to give it sufficient quantities of time and nerves as well. Obligatory for hard-core fans.