Tag: Looney Tunes Month 2

Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time (1999) Review

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Bugs Bunny: Lost in time is a ps1 3d platformer starring Bugs Bunny and other popular Looney Tunes characters. It was developed by Behaviour Interactive and Published by Infrogrames. The game was released for both the Ps1 and Microsoft Windows. I played the ps1 version but from what I understand apart from the controls both games are identical.

In the game Bugs Bunny accidently activates a time machine when he mistakes it for a carrot juice dispenser. Due to this he is sent to an area named nowhere, this is the homeland of Merlin the wizard, Merlin tells Bugs that he has been lost in time and will need to explore five different Time periods (Stone Age, Pirate Years, 1930’s, Medieval Period and Dimension X) looking for golden carrots and clock symbols in order to power the time machine and allow him to return to the present day.

I feel the best way to cover this game fairly is for me to give a small opinion of each time period because they do all stand out in their own ways, doing this will also allow me to cover the different gameplay type.

The Stone Age.

The Stone is the first world that you visit and I only half like it, the reason I say this is because the main platforming levels are not very creative, yes the dinosaurs are cool and sneaking around the terrordactyl’s while annoying is creative but the rest of the stages all the look the same and don’t really have anything that is all too memorable.

The main boss fight against Elmer Fudd is one of my favourites in the game, you have to trick Elmer by jumping into a hole and sneaking behind him for an attack, its not anything to crazy but it is surprisingly satisfying and at times can get a little tricky with Elmer figuring out your patterns.

Another level that is really different in this era is the Wabbit Season, Duck Season stage, here you need to change the Bugs signs to Daffy Signs so that when the timer ends Elmer shoots that despicable duck instead of Bugs Bunny. I think liked this one more for the reference to the classic Looney Tunes gag but it does stand out in the game and is on my favourite parts.

The Pirate Years

This is one of my favourite areas in the the whole game and there is almost nothing wrong with the pirate years section. The main levels are all very unique and well designed, the first stage is based around docks and has you avoiding cannon fire and avoiding sharks to reach the first Sam fight. Other stages are either large areas with a fair amount of puzzles and explorative areas such as water falls and caves, One stage is completely based around puzzle solving and I really like it !.

There is even a section with a mine cart on rails reaction test which I love in most games and here it is just as good, there are many paths to take, lots of secrets and tricky collectables to grab that require perfect timing. There is even another Sam fight here which is again really fun and a boss type I have never seen in another game so far.

Speaking of the Sam fights, all of them are great but my absolute favourite is actually based on a cartoon we mentioned in the Daffy Duck Fantastic Island Review that being Captain Hare Blower. In the game you need to destroy the parts of Sam’s Ship by shooting his cannon balls and TNT boats back at him, if he sinks before you do you have successfully beaten the stage. There is a not a single boss fight that is similar to this in the game so this one really stands out and is generally a really well made boss battle.

1930’s

Probably my second least favourite era in the whole game is the 1930’s. The levels are based around the gangsters Mugsy and Rocky and each stage has Bugs trying to prevent them from pulling off a crime. The area stands out for having a lot of levels which are different from each other, one stage might be a standard 3d platformer and another a puzzle solving action stage. The reason I don’t like this world is because while it is very different the levels all feel very similar, nothing about them is really that memorable, I especially hated the carrot factory level because it was complicated to get around and collecting all of the Golden Carrots and Clocks was not as fun here as it is in other stages due to how far apart they were hidden.

One stage I do really like though is the vehicle level, its really fun and is actually quite funny as Bugs keeps losing different vehicles and landing on others, a common gag in cartoons. The vehicles all feel different and each offers a different challenge with how it can be used to avoid obstacles.

The boss fights in this time period are ok, they are not as fun as the pirate period but I feel there is enough variety between how you can beat all of them to keep them on the same level as the Stone Age.

The Medieval Period

I really enjoyed the medieval era because it had a lot of variety not only in its levels but in its environments, I noticed that there were two main styles that the era used. The first was the castle and forest regions and I really liked these, the forest specifically because it had references to Witch Hazel and of course robin hood played by Daffy Duck, this was referencing one of Daffy’s best cartoons from 1958. Witch Hazel is the main villain of this era and she is a lot of fun too, I really enjoyed her battle while avoiding the dragons and fireballs.

There was even a secret room is the area with the dragons that you can only enter by returning a flag to a locked door, its very cool and is the only thing like this in the game that isn’t as obvious as the other secrets.

The other theming that the era uses is snow and you guys who read my reviews know how much I love snow themed stages in games and this is no exception, very fun levels, the main snow stage has small puzzle rooms and a hidden slide to mess around with and the other is a really fun on rails skiing level that is quite challenging but does control really well which is something I cant say for a section in the next era.

Dimension X

So this is my least favourite era for a very similar reason to the 1930’s I think the idea of having levels based around the Marvin the Martian cartoons is a fantastic premise, but these levels are so boring and due to how they are maze like in design they can get a little confusing since they all look the same.

I really didn’t like that the first stage would push you back to the beginning every time you got caught by the security robots, I did enjoy the puzzle level a lot more but again it was similar even up to the boss.

There was another vehicle section in this level and unfortunately I really struggled to maintain control here, It was mostly when you would spin around the poles and then had to land on the next platform, I’m sure it can be done a lot easier its just I didn’t really enjoy this because it took me a long time to get to grips with it.

The level load screens are really great in this game because they are styled after original Looney Tunes title cards, all of them are very well drawn and add a lot of charm to the game.

The soundtrack is pretty good it wasn’t one I wanted to listen to throughout my entire playthrough but what we got works well enough for a licensed video game, the tracks do fit well into the Looney Tunes universe and are well used for the environments they play in.

Bugs Bunny Lost in Time is a game I have always wanted to sit down and play, I actually wanted to cover this one during the first Looney Tunes month but unfortunately the copy I owned back then didn’t work so it took another year, and was it worth the wait?

Yes I would say it was, definitely the second best game we have covered in a Looney Tunes month so far, this is a pretty solid 3D platformer which is well designed and full of references to classic Looney Tunes shorts. I have very few issues with the game, my only real problems were a few areas I didn’t enjoy as much and the fact that the game didn’t have a collection guide that showed all of the stages at once, it was annoying having to find stages just to see if I had all of the Golden Carrots and Clocks instead of having a much easier system like in Super Mario 64 which came out 3 years earlier.

Apart from that this is a great game, it has tight controls, the visuals are fantastic for the PS1, there is a large range of different gameplay styles and even though I couldn’t control that speeder section in Dimension X, I’ve seen other people do it with ease so I’m going to assume its just me.

and with all that said and done I give Bugs Bunny: Lost in a Time a very generous 7.8/10

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Acme Antics and Dizzy Driving GBA Review

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Unfortunately I cant get a lot of information about this game, what I have learned from playing it though is that it is a bundle of two short games based around Looney Tunes, one game is reaction based game and the other is a top down kart racer.

It was developed by Way Forward who you might know from the latest Donkey Kong Country Games and was released in 2005.

I’m going to review each game as I play them, I started with Acme Antics mainly because it was first one that was highlighted when I booted the game up.

This is a very beautifully animated game where you play the role of Road Runner escaping the claws of that greedy Wile Coyote.

The game looks amazing and feels very close to one of the cartoons in its animation and well chosen colour palette, the GBA always looked really great when developers put effort into the visuals and this is one of the best I’ve seen.

The only real issue with this is that the whole experience is very repetetive, the backgrounds are mostly the same and the music loops, when Wile shows up it gets a little more creative as he will start using ACME products to try and get the bird, he even has boss fights which again shake up the gameplay enough to keep it enjoyable, the whole thing is only about a half hour long but it is fun, they should have added a points system though so you could try and beat your high scores the next time you played.

Up next is Dizzy Drivers, I feel this will be a fairly short review so hopefully this next game has a bit more meat on its bones.

I actually really enjoyed this one Dizzy Drivers is as expected a kart racer and in the game your goal as your selected character is to come first in the races. I of course picked Foghorn Leghorn my favourite Looney Tunes character and considering he is the fastest in the game it was really quite easy to control. The game is not forgiving if you mess up and the other racers get a good lead on you, you haven’t got a chance in catching up so you really to master the controls to fully enjoy the game.

The music changed here too it wasn’t very good tracks but at least there was variety.

There are weapons in the game but they are not very memorable and most of them are hard to get hits with, I mostly just ignored them in the game but what you could expect was the obvious bombs, rockets and oil spills that come with every Kart Racer, a missed opportunity for some really cool themed things like Marvin the Martians shrink ray, Wile’s inventions, Taz wasn’t playable so he could be thrown at players and so on, none of those were used and I came up with those in about 15 seconds so I don’t really think there is much excuse for the lack of variety here.

So thats really all you get with this GBA title, I couldn’t say much because there wasn’t really much here, this is not a game I would say you have to play but if you did go straight Dizzy Driving because personally I think a more fleshed version of that without the Acme Antics game would have been better.

I think the most fair score I can give this is a 5/10 it controls well, it looks great and for a quick pick me up it is a pretty fun game but there isn’t a lot here and I think most people would get bored after a few play throughs. A good effort from way forward but cramming two tiny games into one cartridge when they could have had a much better fleshed out kart racer really takes away from this one.

That leaves just one more game and more movie for this second edition of Looney Tunes month. stay tuned over the next 10 days and hopefully the month will go out with a bang and with the next game I’m reviewing I really think it might make up for the less than impressive game choices this month !

See you then

Padawan

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Daffy Duck’s Fantastic Island Review

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Fantastic Island is a 1983 Looney Tunes anthology movie, it was the first movie to star Daffy Duck pushing Bugs Bunny to a supporting role, the movie was loosely based on Gilligans Island but with a Looney Tunes twist.

In the film Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzala are both trapped on an island surviving on only coconuts, Daffy happens to accidently find a treasure map and follows it to a magic well that grant the wishes of anyone that throws a penny into its water.

Word of the magic well quickly reaches the other Looney Tunes characters who come to visit the island and have their wishes granted.

Daffy sees an opportunity here to make a lot of money very quickly and begins charging $500 for a single penny, a ridiculous deal but of course the thought of having wishes granted seems worth a gamble, unfortunately no one realises that the well is a bit of a scam artist himself until it is too late.

The most memorable part of the film is obviously the shorts they play, in this movie each wish becomes a short and there a few which happen during other areas of the film but I will make it clear where each short takes place.

Captain Hareblower (intro to the movie)

A very small segment of this movie was shown here, skipping over a lot of the context but what they did keep was the best part, the battle at the end of the short between Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam is very funny and well directed slapstick. It is a shame they cut the battle short though but they really couldn’t have left the ending in otherwise it would not have fitted in well with movie and we did get was good enough.

Stupor Duck (Daffy’s Wish)

Stupor Duck is a parody of the popular comic book series Super Man. In this short bumbling idiot Cluck Trent mistakes a TV show for a police crime radio, this triggers him to put on his Stupor Duck costume and find the bad guys. This leads to Stupor Duck causing all sorts of trouble for the general public and himself. A very funny short which is in full so no complaints with this one, its cool to see Super Man get spoofed by Looney Tunes and I hope more shorts like this are shown in these anthology films.

Greedy for Tweety (Granny’s Wish)

Sylvester, Hector and Tweety are all chasing each other in the streets but are unfortunately hit by a car and sent to an animal hospital. Tweety tries to rest but Sylvester is still eager to eat him while Hector has plans to torment Sylvester meaning that even from hospital beds the three of them are still causing trouble for eachother.

A very fun short but not as funny as the two previous ones, I liked this but I wish they picked a different short for granny.

Banty Raids (Foghorn’s Wish)

I feel a little biased with this one as Foghorn Leghorn is my favourite Looney Tunes character but I absolutely love this cartoon, a charming young rooster has got his eyes set on a set of hens and tries to make his way into their pen, he cant walk in however as Foghorn Leghorn is in charge of security. The young rooster pretends to be a baby to get in and then has to play a mrs doubtfire role of playing an infant and making love to the ladies in this classic Looney Tunes short.

Louvre come back to me (Pepe’s Wish)

Pepe Le Pew is in Paris and looking for Romance, his bad smell is causing him trouble however and the poor fella doesn’t have much luck. A young female cat who accidently gets a white stripe of paint on her back becomes his next target when he mistakes her for another Skunk.

A lot of the same jokes in this and while they do work and is ultimately still a funny short I am not a massive fan of the character, he does only have one short here though and while it is one of the weaker ones its good enough that I would watch it again.

Tree for Two (Chester and Spikes wish)

My second favourite short in the film is Tree for Two its a very funny short about a tough dog named Spike smacking about his chirpy comrade Chester, they both spot Sylvester the cat and Spike decides to teach Chester how to beat up a cat not realising that an escaped panther begins to beat him up instead. The role reversal of the two dogs in the end was very funny as well. Great short.

Curtain Razor (Porky’s Wish)

Porky Pig is a big Hollywood producer looking for fresh talent, lots of great comedy moments especially with all of the crazy auditions but the best part of the original short was the fox character, he keeps pushing in line promising the best act of all time, after many attempts Porky gives him his shot and he accidently kills himself, great Looney tunes humour but the issue here is that the fox and another good chunk was cut from this short in the movie so one of the weaker ones because of this.

A mouse divided (Sylvester’s girlfriends wish)

Another Sylvester Cartoon (he seems popular in this movie !) and a great short at that. A young female cat is desperate for a baby and when a stork accidently delivers a baby mouse to them, she is ready to be a mother but Sylvester doesn’t quite feel the same way and goes out of his way to try and eat the baby. A really fun short and another good pick for the movie.

Of Rice and Hen and Lovelorn Leghorn (Chickens wish)

This one is a combination of scenes from two cartoons but to be honest both are much better as their whole selves.

I will briefly discuss both now

Of Rice and Hen

After preventing a lonely young hen from an attempted suicide, she falls head over heels for Leghorn Foghorn, unfortunately he doesn’t quite feel the same way but she does not give up.

A fun one but lacks in laughs I would say one of the weaker Leghorn cartoons.

Lovelorn Leghorn

This is a great short and is very funny, the same young hen from the last cartoon is looking for a husband, Leghorn convinces her that the dog is a rooster and she tries to capture him but he soon sets her straight and helps her set an elaborate plan to once again get hitched to Leghorn.

Great short and very memorable I don’t know why they didn’t just put this one in the movie instead of combining two, I feel this would have been a better choice and it would have fitted into the film just as well.

From Hare to Heir

Best short in the entire film by far. From Hare to Heir is about Yosemite Sam being left One million dollars by a deceased relative. However the catch is every time he shows signs of anger some of that money is taken away and he is put to the test by none other than Bugs Bunny who cruelly goes out of his way to make Sam furious. Its an hilarious short and one of the best Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam shorts.

I think I like Daffy Duck’s: Fantastic Island more than the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner movie. I think this one stands out because it has a ongoing narrative around the shorts, not many of them were cut down and the ones that were are done in a way that almost benefits the film, the only issue was the combination of those last two Leghorn films and even that wasn’t so bad.

I really enjoyed this movie and I genuinely could recommend it as a film to any one. not just for Looney Tunes fans but generally I think this can be enjoyed as a stand alone film and I can happily say its my favourite so far. I just hope that the next movie Quack Busters surpasses my expectations.

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