Each Way Back Wednesday I like to take a look at a game from the past and play a little bit of it. The general rule is that I play until I die and I don’t press continue, this generally shows the quality of the game. If the game is confusing or the controls are weird, then I die pretty early and sometimes if the game is just unbearable I’ll quit early. In the cast of Eek! The Cat I quit early, because it was a complete bait and switch.
Just a quick backstory on the cartoon this game is based on and myself. Eek! The Cat has always been one of my favorite cartoons along with Freakazoid, Batman: The Animated Series, Toonsylvania, Hysteria! and Animaniacs. I would come home from school and watch cartoons at my grandparents house until I was picked up and then later on when I aquired the internet I was able to “brorrow” the episodes from Kazaa. I’m not condoning the downloading of media, but at the time I had no income and there was no other way to watch these episodes. Each year I go to different conventions and look for the bootleg DVD’s and even VHS’ to see if someone has recorded Eek! The Cat because I can’t find it anywhere online. I also try to find any type of merchandise, because it was a great show that had a lot of comedy that most children wouldn’t understand. With all that being said, my birthday was this past Sunday and I’m still riding the “my choice” train, so I decided to play a game based on the cartoon I loved as a kid.
Now that history has been explained, let me explain why I turned off the game during the second level. The game intro was reminiscent of the cartoon intro and the animation wasn’t to off. The audio was different because either the Super Nintendo couldn’t handle it, or they didn’t get the rights. After the intro you’re taken to a start screen and then directly to the screen introducing the first level where pressing start triggers the sound bite “it never hurts to help”. As viewers know that was Eek’s main message, but the game creators didn’t seem to also feel that way. There was no story and I assume it’s because they put everything in the instruction booklet. Being how that I don’t have that booklet, I had to figure things out for myself. I started with character of Granny behind me and I decided to run through the level like I’ve been programmed to. I noticed that there was a huge grey bar at the top that would periodically go down and when I reached the exit of the stage nothing happened. I went through and tried to collect all the floating cheeseburgers, but it didn’t help. It was then when I realized that maybe Granny had a part to play in the game progression. I located her and found that she just walked and walked and you had to push her in whatever direction you wanted and you had the ability to make her jump. After realizing that you had to actually help Granny get to the exit, this became an escort mission of seeing eye dog proportions. Every time Granny got hit the health bat went down and you would have to time it right to make her jump when she was right near you. The main issue was that she constantly walked and sometimes she would jump on to small ledges when she would bump the wall, turn around and fall down back to where you were. The collectibles meant nothing, there was no reason for her to be there and the game was extremely frustrating. I made it to the second level, but decided to cut the game after I came to a part with a small ledge and a very short window to jump and meet Granny.
What happened to the mom, the kids, The Squishy Bears, mittens or even Annabelle? I wanted to see them in the game and maybe have some 16 bit laughs at their expense. There was no Brave Elmo or his brother Timmy going through his Madonna phase. This game was nothing but a big let down, and I’m really happy that I never received it was a child.