Earthworm Jim 3D Review
Our editor seems to be being a bit of a stingy git when it come to distributing the games out lately, so of course I was well please when I found out that I was getting my hands on this game. I guess even he underestimated the power of the worm! Anyhow, good old Jim is back, and this time it's all in glorious 3D!
Anyway first things first, the story line.....
Well as you would expect from ewj, the storyline and indeed the game is full of crazy and down right silly stuff, with more cows that you could shake an udder at. So this is how it goes, as with all of the ewj games, you play earthworm Jim (or in this case earthworm Jim's super ego). Jim starts off the game merrily dancing around when a big fridge falls on his head and then an even bigger cow. This latest worm bashing leaves Jim in a bit of a mess. You must win the battle in Jim's mind, or face losing it forever (Wooo! Scary stuff kids). Anyway, as said before you play Jim's super-ego, which has been released as Jim's head as a last line in defence to stop total anialation of his mind. You first meet Peter the Puppy who is your guide (along with a friendly lump of mucas) in this perilous journey. He tells you about the weird stuff which has gone on in Jim's mind, and that basicaly you have to kill the baddies to win (no major change there then).
The game is split up into four sections whcih correspond with Jim's four brains. In each of these brains conatin three areas, that need to be completed before you will have found enough golden udders to get to the next brain, (see below for the golden udder thing). Also to get into more than just the easiest area, you need to have found some of your marbles. Later sections in the game require you to have collected a certian no, of marbles and consequantaly obtained a higher IQ. In addition to this, to get through the game you must find the golden udders. This helps you by recharging the sacred cow of contemplation. By doing this you will be able to get to the other parts of the brain and eventually complete the game, phew!
The sound and music in ewj is great, it realy adds to the game. It goes a bit dodgy between loading, but apart fromm that you can't fault it. There are so many cool sound bites in this game that it would take me all week to talk about them all.
Gameplay for ewj is nod bad. Although, strangly enough I found that running it on a 300MHz with a onboard Gfx card the speed of the game was at it's best even though the graphics were 800*600 at most, but running the game on a 450MHz with normal Gfx card, even at the highest resolution with the most possible colours, it ran too fast to make it as fun as in the 300Mhz outfit. This isn't realy a major bad point just something I though I would share, I guess I'll get used to it after a while anyway. The next point though is probably the biggest single reason why Earthworm Jim is an 80% game not a 90%.
Camera Angles, damn it! If there was one thing which has annoyed me most in any game I have ever played it is this poor attempt at camera angles. Never before have I been able to jump off of one cliff onto a lower cliff below and still be looking at life from the first cliff. With no rampaging cows or psycho alian watiers after you, it's fine, you can keep your cool and fiddle with the angles until something resembeling normality (in viewing terms that is) comes back into play. But with a group of bovine beserkoids bearing down on me, I run franticaly and aimlessly around trying to get the camera angle to catch up with Jim then end up falling into a something resembeling a river of spicy beans.
Graphics are good, any less than 800*600 looks realy poo though. But if run at between medium to maximum possible resolution the graphics look realy nice. Plus as with the sounds, there are loads of realy cool and down right amusing bits and bobs, which all give the game that little bit extra. There is no such thing as overkill!
I love it! I love it! I love it! This is such a great game, completely jam-packed with the greatest of gags mixed with the cheesiest of cheese. This is, in my view, what some games have realy been lacking ever since the good old days of games such as Simon the Sourcerer. The only thing that realy detracts from the whole greatness of this game are those darn annoying camera angles.