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Earthworm Jim 3D: When Good Series Go 3D
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One Game Feature by Daniel Dujnic, 11/10/07
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Earthworm Jim 3D was a vile disappointment. This is not any old 2D franchise flopping completely in 3D -- it is the primary example, the failure upon which all other failures should be judged. EWJ3D is a metric of misery, demanding special attention because it effectively murdered a great franchise.
The primary sins were the camera and the level design, the exact two things that make a 2D game 3D. The problems with the camera were simple: it either didn't give you quite the right angle, or it made the game impossible to play. The level design was irritating because none of it was aimed toward having fun. If you weren't hiking across expansive fields with sparse enemies, you were tasked with some unforgiving mini-game or railroaded across sequences of very narrow platforming.
The perfect example: The Fart Can Tower. Fart Cans were tins of beans (or whatever) that gave Jim immediate explosive flatulence. The rectal trauma would make Jim wail in agony, but would also propel him 30 feet into the air. Sounds like a lot of fun, no? Well, imagine rocketing up an endless tower of narrow girders half the width of Jim himself. Now imagine losing your footing and plummeting to the bottom of the tower. Now imagine doing it again. A third time. If the drop didn't kill you by now, the frustration has swallowed your soul.
What they should have done was to put the fart cans in the wide-open levels. Also, a wider variety of enemies with different abilities/weaknesses would be nice instead of fighting the same robots. And while we're at it, a better genre for EWJ in 3D would have probably been a sandbox, filled with the humor and moment-to-moment enjoyment of the first two games (sadly, GTAIII had yet to set the precedent in 1999). All of this pining is miles away from reality of the game, though. EWJ3D ended up as a craptastic platformer devoid of anything fun to do, when it should have been a wild wonderland of crazy shit.
Shiny wasn't even involved in this game, and it shows. The designers didn't even have enough ideas to fill out four worlds. Four. And the boss fights? Kill me. [Dan Dujnic does not condone you killing him, and in fact he played through EWJ3D a second time on Hard. Out of spite.]
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'When Good Series Go 3D'
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#&rendershop#
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