Earthworm Jim Menace 2 the Galaxy (Gameboy Color)
So what’s the deal with the last 2D Earthworm Jim game?
Most people are familiar with Earthworm Jim 3D. After the original Earthworm Jim games, Jim’s next big adventure was going to be in 3D but years of development and staff turnaround left us with a game that failed to capture the gorgeous hand-drawn graphics, imaginative levels and humour of the original.
In a lot of ways, Menace 2 the Galaxy suffers in the exact same way but what caught my attention is that this is officially the last original Earthworm Jim game and it’s a 2D side-scroller. So what’s the deal with Menace 2 the Galaxy? Does it aim to recapture at least some of the original charm? Is it even worth checking out? What would I need to know about this game to appear fluent in an Earthworm Jim trivia challenge?
I try and remain pretty positive about the games reviewed on the Leftover Culture Review and even though Menace 2 the Galaxy isn’t going to be highly recommended, there’s still some positives here. This is the only original Earthworm Jim game for a handheld whereas all the others are just ports from the console version, so this is actually the only Earthworm Jim I felt I had to own for the Game Boy. It’s not the best portable Earthworm Jim game, but it’s the only unique one.
Shortly after Earthworm Jim 2, Shiny entertainment were bought by Interplay along with their IP’s. As mentioned in the video, a lot of the original crew involved in bringing Earthworm Jim to the 16-bit era moved onto different projects by the late 90’s (The Neverhood, Wild 9, MDK). Earthworm Jim 3D started production shortly after Earthworm Jim 2, but was handled by developers VIS Entertainment whereas Menace 2 the Galaxy was handled by David A. Palmer productions, both games were developed to tie-in with the characters in the cartoon series (more so than previous Earthworm Jim games), but neither managed to give fans a solid finale to an amazing series.
Where Earthworm Jim 3D seemed to totally bomb, Menace 2 the Galaxy feels like it was just forgotten… Even when I did research for my previously Earthworm Jim 1 and 2 episodes, I found plenty of information on the Game Boy, Game Gear and Game Boy Advance ports but managed to somehow miss this game. Most surprising of all was the lack of YouTube comments calling me out for it.
So to clarify now, this is the one original Earthworm Jim game for any handheld device. This isn’t a port or a re-release and since it began and started on a Game Boy, some changes have been introduced here, like the simple controls (no head whip) and things have been significantly scaled back for the small screen. Looking at the original Earthworm Jim port for the Game Boy, a lot of the personality is lacking but we have a much cleaner looking game with bigger sprites and simple game play.
This also marks my second Nintendo review ever (and a first on the Game Boy). I have pulled the Game Boy out on the show before, just to make a point. As far as Nintendo goes, it’s the only Nintendo system I owned in my childhood and I wanted to show a little appreciation for it (maybe I could have done better than Menace 2 the Galaxy?). As far as production goes, it was all emulated. I believe emulation just gives the cleanest video signal possible, even though emulation isn’t always viable (Splatterhouse, Alien Resurrection, Skyhammer and Alien vs Predator are examples of footage I’ve had to capture), when it comes to the Nintendo Game Boy, the resolution is already so small that I would have been worried about degrading the image too much using my (extremely cheap) capture device with something like the Super Game Boy for the SNES.
One of the things in this review I’m most pleased about is the way some of the effects turned out. I’d love to go into detail one day about working with and filming action figures because it is a lot of fun, but I thought I’d pick out my shot of the Game Boy with Menace 2 the Galaxy playing on it and discuss how I composed it in Adobe AfterEffects. If you’d like to see more of these ‘behind-the-scenes’ peeks or even some videos going over some of the effects I’ve used, let me know in the comments!
The Game Boy effect (seen above and in the video), is a digital composition I produced to spice up the episode visually. I used something similar for the Chao Adventure mini-game in my Sonic Adventure review, but a Game Boy Color with more pixels and a larger, colour screen introduced a few challenges to the production.
With the VMU, it was as simple as using the corner pin tool in Adobe AfterEffects to align the VMU graphics (recorded through an emulator) with my footage of a VMU than apply a Multiply blending effect. Similar concept here, I had to have footage of the Game Boy Color and the Earthworm Jim game play separate. I masked out the screen and placed the game play footage underneath using the corner pin tool. I create a solid in AfterEffects and used a generate grid effect so I could align it with the game play footage to create a faux ‘pixel look’.
To make the footage look less clean and match the Game Boy shot a little better, I created an adjustment layer between the Game Boy and the game play and added a lens blur, which I masked and feathered to match the lens blur on the Game Boy. Final steps included adding a texture with some transparency on top of the composition and masking it to fit over the glass on the Game Boy display as well as adding some highlights on the top left of the shot and creating some shadows to tie it all together.
I finished off this review by just flat-out recommending Earthworm Jim 2. I couldn’t bring myself to finish without a quick plug for my favourite Earthworm Jim game. Number 2 might not have the solid platforming like the first, and the gimmicks can be overwhelming, but I can’t help but feel that by the last stage, there’s no stone unturned. Plenty of whacky stages with lots of different challenges and game play styles. After all that, do you really need more Earthworm Jim? Hopefully not. If you do… Menace 2 the Galaxy and 3D are pretty much your only options. Sorry.
