Earthworm Jim falls slap bang in the middle of the 16-bit era, an era seemingly inundated with platformers starring mascots. It was the time before first-person shooters – can modern gamers even imagine this? In fact, Jim came out the same year as Doom II, System Shock and Heretic, the beginning of what has become the biggest genre in gaming. And so the colourful, idiosyncratic platformers starring diverse characters like Earthworm Jim, Donkey Kong and Sonic gave way to serious-business first person shooters starring unnamed bald space marines. Even id was once making colourful platformers starring Commander Keen before Wolf 3D, and Epic Games made Jazz Jackrabbit before Unreal and Gears of War. While that meant we got to experience multiplayer deathmatch in all its intensity, some of the character and variety of the mascot-driven 2D platformer was lost.

Fortunately it’s a genre in the middle of a revival right now with Super Mario Bros Wii having sold a ridiculous number of copies, some great indie platformers having done well (Braid, for example), and some big-budget games on the way, such as Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Donkey Kong Country Returns. It’s fitting then, that Earthworm Jim is revived for a modern generation of gamers in HD. It wasn’t ever the best of the 16-bit platformers – that would be a tall ask indeed - but it did have a great, twisted sense of humour along with great animation, so it is deserving of the HD treatment, and the treatment is lovingly given.

The worm with a suit of power

Jim is a lowly earthworm, but with the aid of a space-suit that happens to fall into his lap one day (if earthworms have laps), he becomes a really powerful earthworm, able to take on the oddest of enemies. Jim has a blaster gun (part of the suit, I guess) that shoots enemies, but he can also use himself as a whip to beat up those trying to stop him. It’s never clear just what he’s trying to do, or just who is trying to stop him and why, but I guess that’s all irrelevant. In fact, generally, things that happen are really bizarre in Earthworm Jim (in case that wasn’t obvious from the fact that the main character of the game is an earthworm). For instance, you start by launching a cow. Later, one of the enemies is a salesman carrying a briefcase.

The basic mechanics of Earthworm Jim are typical 2D platformer stuff: run, jump. This is mixed up with some whipping and shooting, and with some other moves like swinging off tiny shiny hooks, sliding down foofie slides (aka zip slides) and hanging from the ceiling. The game is quite short, but the variety is big. The only often repeated mechanic is the space race in between each level where Jim races Psy-crow (for no apparent reason) through a wormhole and you have to dodge the asteroids. The levels are all really different, and don’t look like typical platformer levels. In fact, sometimes it’s difficult to tell just what you can stand on because things look like they’re part of the background when they’re not. One level takes place inside a stomach and the platforms are intestines. Another one is on some lava planet. It’s a strange game at times.

Charming, but a little frustrating at times

Earthworm Jim doesn’t quite match up to the giants of the platforming genre, despite its quirky charm, beautiful backgrounds and funny animations. The gameplay can be frustrating because a lot of it relies on pure trial and error to figure out, and can be brutal and cheap. Fortunately this remake has easier difficulties than the original – you can play on easy, normal, hard, or original. This goes to show just how much less patient gamers have become. I remember playing the original in the 90’s and not bothering to try to complete it, mainly because it was made to be punishingly tough to enhance the length of the game. As it turns out, once you know what you’re doing you can finish the game in an hour. I highly recommend first playing the game on easy so that you’re not always getting to that tough spot, dying and having to restart the level because you don’t know what you need to do to defeat that particular enemy. At least on easy you have a bit longer to figure out what needs to be done, and then you can always go back and play on hard or (heaven forbid) original again.

The controls are also a source of some frustration for me. The whip move where you hook on to a little hook floating in the air, for example, has some lead time and requires you to engage it at just the right time, and when you’re falling through the air this can be extremely tough to judge. You also often can’t reach ledges but have to grab on to them from underneath, which requires you to place yourself right and press in the direction of the ledge rather than simply jumping up onto them. Then when you do climb up there is a short time when you’re vulnerable to whatever is on or near the ledge. This is mitigated by a health bar – each hit takes off a certain percentage and there are shiny things scattered around the levels that you can collect to heal, but it means it’s also unavoidable that you’ll get hit and have to shoot things that are right on top of you, which just feels odd. Frustration also comes in some really obscure game elements, such as the jewel which you have to run on like a treadmill to make it rise like a lift. It’s clear that the jewel is meant to do something, but it’s not at all obvious how to operate it. The same goes for some switches in the game – they look so much a part of the background that you can’t even tell they’re there.

Earthworm Jim is, overall, a good example of just what some personality and eccentricity can do for a game. The mechanics are far from perfect, but the quality and character of the animations and the crazy bosses and enemies make up for this to create a memorable game with a lot of atmosphere. I should note that the music and sound effects are still fantastic and keep things upbeat. The three bonus levels added to this HD remake are also fun (although clearly a little less varied) and give old-time Jim fans even more of a reason to purchase than the high resolution graphics. I’m a platforming genre fan, and I’m glad Jim (and others) is getting a fair shake after so many years. Groovy!

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