Earthworm Jim Crawls Again

ElysiumGX

This year's E3 brought news that Atari has obtained the online and handheld rights to the franchise and will be releasing more EWJ games in the next 5 years, with Shiny developing once again.

http://psp.ign.com/articles/707/707465p1.html

So far early screen shots have been released for the PSP version. In my opinion, this can't be good. Most sites announce that Jim will sport a new, flashy, enhanced look. I guess today these words mean poorly colored, badly deformed, low poly 3D from the mid 90's. It's a complete 3D sidescrolling remake of the 2D original.

Is it just me or were the original EWJ games known for their unique cartoon style and detailed animations? I'm sure the humor and gameplay will remain, but why throw away it's shiny, gooey visual eye candy after over a decade? Why not re-release the original two?

KDR_11k

Why not re-release the original two?

Because SCEA would appreciate it if all PSP titles used polygons to appear like they couldn't be done on the DS or GBA?

vahl

and earthworm jim is available on gba already...

nitzmoff

The screen shots look simply awful. Shiny hasn't released anything good since Sacrafice.

What a shame.

Joao Sapiro

horrible looking game indeed, i hope it is fun thou , but i remember the earthworm jim 2d series to be much more colourfull and frenetic.

Sinistar

I'd buy this if it is going to be as good as Mega Man Powered up.

hawken

Think I'm gonna coin this new technique the "Bandicoot effect"

flaagan

I was gonna rip on GX for his general bashing of the PSP that he usually puts forth... but damn.. that game does look like ass. Pretty disappointing since the PSP can put forth so much better.

Mister Sentient

I don't understand why this needs to be 3D. I mean Castlevania is still mostly 2D. That is still a popular series.

KDR_11k

Because PSP owners want 3d because 2d is "for the kids that play DS"?

flaagan

KDR.. shut up... really... that was a totally useless post...
One of the first big games for the PSP (lumines) was 2d... and don't you remember posting a whiny "what a bunch of crock" comment JUST YESTERDAY in my thread about 2d games?

As for the 3d EJ game... if it was done properly and looked nice, I'd say "why the heck not?". The Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X game for psp looks great.

Spoon_of_death

I also think 2d sprites for the characters and 3d levels would have been cooler, theres just so much more you could do animation-wise!

flaagan

Spoon... granted the game itself suffers from loading times and "must level up to continue" syndrome, Ys: The Ark of Napishtim for the psp did just that. The main character, enemies, and npc's were all sprites, the bosses and environments were all 3d... blended together beautifully.

ElysiumGX

Nah, not ripping the PSP with this. I'm sure the PSP could easily handle games just as awesome as the ones you can find on the PSone, if the developers would create them.

This is just a case of an IP getting bad facial surgery for the sake of being "cool", "hip", and "with it". I wonder what the DS version will look like, and if they plan any console releases? I could imagine controlling Jim's head whip with the stylus.

The3DGuy

they was already a 'True 3D' earthworm jim that sucked balls. And making something 3d instead of 2d can somtimes be easier since getting a 3d artist can often be faster than finding someone who can make more pixel art. Not many studios have enough people to make a whole game with. A studio wins a bid or watever to make a game's art so studios use what they got.

blankslatejoe

[ QUOTE ]
I don't understand why this needs to be 3D. I mean Castlevania is still mostly 2D. That is still a popular series.

[/ QUOTE ]

id argue that those new castlevania games are the most refined, perfect examples metroid-style-exploration-based -sidescrollers in existence... the franchise hasn't changed much since the PS1 castlevania ...but it has become so damn refined.


That said, I'm not too bugged by the bad 3d graphics... if the game is nice and fluid in motion, it still might be fun. I personally hated the original EJ's because they were too unforgiving. 1 pixel off in a jump and you die. It was a 1993 game, graphically, but it felt SOoooooo 1987..

rooster

My gripe with this isn't the 3d, I think it's natural since not many studios will have the talent on hand to do all the required animations, cleanup, pixel work etc.Everyone has 3d artists and animators handy.

What really dissapoints me is that in the olden days Shiny would never have gone out their way to make sure that the new game looks so extremely close to the old game.. It looks like they've lost the magic touch of imagination that made EWJ 1 and 2 so great. Those screens look basically like the art direction is 'different level layout with exact same design as the first level of EWJ'

Steve Schulze

The thing that strikes me as most odd is that Jim is so far off property.

He's missing all his muscles and the general nice cartoony design that made him such a good character to begin with. Its not like PSP is incapable of rendering an adequate number of polys to show Jim in full 3d glory, particularly given there looks to be a lot of 2d mixed in with the 3d. What are they thinking?