Guhhhhroooovy!

For this week's gaming selection, we travel once again into the 1990s, this time to discuss Earthworm Jim for the Sega Game Gear. For those not in the know, Game Gear was Sega's competition for the Game Boy, featuring better graphics and colors. As the Game Boy still exists (as the Game Boy Advance), I think you can guess which handheld won the war. Probably because the Game Gear ate up batteries by crazy. But that's why you buy the wall plug-in. And the car plug-in! Come on people, get with the program here!

So yeah, Earthworm Jim. Story of an earthworm that has an experimental super-suit fall from space and land on him, mutating him into a giant, somewhat more intelligent earthworm. The suit comes with a rocket for travel, a nifty blaster, and Jim can use himself as a whip to either attack or swing around, just like Indiana Jones. With only these skills, and his courage, he embarks on a quest to rescue Princess What's-Her-Name from her evil sister, *deep breath* Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-Butt. Wow, I'm not going to say that anymore.

The game takes you through junkyards, lawyer-infested Heck, undersea labs, and don't forget the bungee-jumping battles against Major Mucus! Man I loved those battles, I just hated trying to get to them. The undersea level right before it required you to navigate a submersible through a bunch of narrow reefs. You only had a limited air supply, so you couldn't dawdle, but if you bumped the pod against the reefs too many times it broke and you died anyway, so it was a real pain, leading to several occasions of me banging my head against the screen (which is probably why my first Game Gear broke, though I prefer to blame NBA Jam Tournament Edition. That game cheated so hard!).

I have to admit, I never beat the game. Never really got close, in fact. I could never get past Peter's Puppy World, where you have to guide this cute little puppy past all these dangers, while staying alive yourself. The problem comes in the fact that if Peter gets hurt, he transforms into a giant purple beast and attacks you, causing injury and dragging you back to wherever it happened. So frustrating.

Despite my failures, and the pain the game caused, it was a pretty cool concept, and the levels and bosses were so odd that I couldn't help but to like it, at least whenever it wasn't driving me insane.