GAMES Review: The Looney Tunes Show: There Goes The Neighborhood

Now what can you say about the Looney Tunes? There, quite literally, is too much to say on them. But to boil it down they are one of animations superstars. Whenever someone thinks animation one of the first things that pops into their heads is Looney Tunes and why wouldn’t it? Looney Tunes is awesome.  Ever since I was a kid I loved all things Looney Tunes from the shows, movies, hell, even some video games. But don’t misinterpret this, I recognize that not EVERYTHING Looney Tunes is gold. A few examples of some not golden material would be Baby Looney Toons (Too Kidified, making an already Family friendly property  cut it’s target demographic in half), Loonatics Unleashed (The Black Sheep of the Looney Tunes. Focusing More on action rather then comedy making it come off as rather eh… all together) and Space Jam (Michael Jordan can’t act for crap but in fairness the movie is so delightfully cheesy I still love it).

As of May 3rd, 2011, The Looney Tunes have returned to TV with The Looney Tunes Show, and to give my thoughts on the show real quick I would say that uneven would be the best way to describe it. Thanks to now taking a more standard sitcom approach, Looney Tunes has become a lot more grounded which for some of the humour works great as their goofy antics counterbalances the more grounded world but there are a lot of dud jokes in the show as well. Where neither in execution or in concept are the jokes really even chuckle worthy, coupled with the music segments that are REALLY hit and miss and we got a sow that I personally don’t mind watching but I’m not racing to the TV to watch every night if you get my meaning.

Now onto the game, There Goes The Neighborhood. Its contextually story goes thus, Bugs and Daffy are setting up for a movie night when they realize that, in sequential order, their popcorn maker, DVD Player and Flat screen TV have gone missing. Now they must go to their neighbours, Granny, Witch Lezlah’s and Yosemite Sam’s houses and get their stuff back by murdering and avoiding black cats, giant spiders, skunks, rattle snakes and piranha plants and Thwomps straight out of Mario so they can have their movie night.

The controls are simple enough and are split between the two, left and right arrow keys to move left and right, up to jump, and space to do a special attack that kills everything on the current screen you used it on. Now throughout the game you will have to switch between Bugs and Daffy to get past various obstacles. Bugs is able to pick-up crates and throw them by clicking ‘X’ which are able to kill enemies and break down walls but only if you get the power-up to be able to carry the big boxes. Bugs can also dig in the ground in predetermined spots to advance in the level. Overall as a playable character Bugs is more agile and maneuverable but useless with his stupid ARCING crate throw that always hits farther then you want it too and his only other special skill is digging in a hole which is only useful in one boss fight, everywhere else it’s just unneeded.

Daffy on the other hand makes the game a borderline breeze with his punch glove weapon which, even at its shortest range, can kill a great majority of the enemies easily, and with Daffy’s ability to climb up walls (But only the walls the designers want you to climb) it makes traversing levels easy and it makes the game actually a bit more fun as the challenge isn’t coming from the limitations of Bugs’s abilities but from the choices you can make with Daffy’s abilities.

But let’s talk about the biggest useless tool in your arsenal, your special. Whether you’re using Bugs or Daffy it doesn’t matter the special move is rarely used in the game for four reasons.

1. There is rarely more then one to two enemies on the screen at a time so if you use it you’re just wasting it.
2. Players will find that killing enemies using Daffy’s boxing glove gun is a lot more fulfilling and challenging making the special almost fad from memory as it is rarely used.
3. The special is blandly tuned and underplayed making anytime you used it a complete brick wall in the flow of game play.
4. For those who like saving their biggest failsafes to take down a boss well you can just eat crap because even if you are filled up full on energy as soon as you enter a boss room POOF! you’re energy bar is empty.

If using Daffy’s boxing glove or Bug’s stomp is more effective, and flows in gameplay why would you use a special? To make an already easy game even easier?

As previously mentioned this game takes a page from Mario with the Pirahna plants and Thwomps but it also has a Castlevanian level design which isn’t a bad homage but lacks a creative flare except for the cool booby traps. The music is a 4-5 second loop which from level to level all sounds the same but it’s not bad just forgetful. And finally the SPECIAL FEATURES!! Throughout the game you can find these DVDs in secret walls and such which unlock special images of The Looney Tunes Show. What makes theme special? …Nothing. They are all just DVD box ratio pictures of what looks like Looney Tune Show Background images. But for a low budget computer game it’s a cute added touch.

Final wrap up. The game is fun and the contextual storytelling itself through comic style looks cool and the writing sounds like the show. The failings of it is just that it doesn’t know how to balance difficulty and challenge making the game an easy skip through the tulips unless you tie your hand behind your back and use Bugs for as long as possible. I could recommend this game for the sole reason that it is still quit fun despite the flat difficulty curve. That’s All Folks.