Menace to the Franchise

Earthworm Jim 3D

However good the intentions for something start out sometimes a spanner is thrown into the works.

Without the skills of the original team and creator Earthworm Jim (although fondly remembered) had lost the character and charm of its first outing in 1994.

Attempts had been made from 2002 to 2006 to revive the franchise again. With creative control by the creator of the character lost, the original team elsewhere and the rights to Earthworm Jim split across several different companies, it became increasingly difficult to pull off.

Menace 2 the Galaxy
Earthworm Jim Cameos

Earthworm Jim 3D was set to be the third Earthworm Jim game in the series. It was planned to take Jim into the three dimensional era of games.
This was a silly time to make another Earthworm Jim video game as the original development team who had made the first two, and who understood the Earthworm Jim-verse well enough to even attempt another sequel, had moved on in their lives since the first two games. As well as that, it was made by a completely different development studio. Around 1998 instead of Shiny Entertainment, Vis-plc (Vis Entertainment) developed Earthworm Jim 3D which was published by Interplay.

Different parts of the Earthworm Jim licence and rights had been sold to several different investors. The character rights which should have belonged to Doug TenNapel, were sold off to different companies. So creative control was lost by the creator. This proved to be a terrible turn for Earthworm Jim because no one understood the characters, world or what made it "work" enough to produce a quality product based on it.

At the very early stages in its development TenNapel and Perry had some involvement in the project as advisors, however they ceased to work with the project very early on.

Awkward Development

It was worked on for longer than it should have been. At one point, most of the development work seemed to have been thrown out completely, which caused more confusion when it finally came to be released.

The box art was produced very poorly. In complete contrast to the previous beautifully illustrated covers and polished packaging, lifeless and ugly renderings of Earthworm Jim plastered the box art, coupled with lurid day-glow colours.

Images and box art that was used for Earthworm Jim 3D.

Screenshots of levels that had been cut out of the finished game were circulated around the internet and media. Some were published on the final game packaging.

Jim and some drone cats Jim in a carnival themed level
These two levels did not appear in the final game.

Loosing Ones Marbles

Earthworm Jim 3D was about how Earthworm Jim had effectively gone insane and been incarcerated to a hospital ward after being hit on the head by a cow.

The aim of the game was to retrieve all of Jim's marbles from the different parts of his damaged psyche, in order to free him from his own mind. There were four different areas to complete named after different parts of his mind - Memory, Fear, Fantasy and Happiness. Four zones set to Barnyard, Horror, Western and Food themes.

By the standards set by the originals, Earthworm Jim 3D didn't measure up. The animation wasn't anywhere near Earthworm Jim one or two standards. Things just bounced up and down and wobbled like jelly. It had many glitches and bugs and a camera that would force itself into a position stopping the player from seeing where they were going. The game was frustrating.

The game felt uninspired. It was loosely based on the 1995 TV Show versions of the characters. Although Dan Castellaneta voiced Jim as he had done in the TV show, his vocal talent was not used to full effect. Earthworm Jim said some very un-Jim-like things such as "Great Googley Woogly", and various random screams of anguish, surprise or shock.

There were a couple of other characters in there. Peter Puppy could be seen peering into Jim's eyes looking concerned at the beginning of the game...he made no other appearance. Snott was used as a type of help guide, but didn't really do anything useful. Evil The Cat was reduced to an image on a vinyl music player somewhere in the "Fear" level, and didn't make an actual appearance. The only two bad guys from the TV Show (they were based very loosly upon the 1995 TV Show versions of their characters - nothing else in the game was actually anything like the TV Show) were Professor Monkey for-a-Head and Psy-Crow.

Several new characters had been created for the different sections of the game. They were pretty trite. Cows, a giant hamburger, Elvis, a giant gherkin, giant food in general, disco dancing zombies, horrible flying baby things, homicidal grannies, war mongering bulls, giant chicks...that kind of thing.

All of the boss fights were based on the same premise; that of the bad guy riding around on the back of a pig and bumping into you. That would make you drop all the green marbles you had spent hours collecting....if they stole enough marbles you would die.

The last boss you would play (aside from being exactly the same as all the other boss battles in the game) was essentially Earthworm Jim wearing a pink dress, high heels, lipstick, fake eyelashes and a blond wig.
If you bothered to bang your head against a brick wall of agony to beat "Earthworm Kim" you would be rewarded with a short movie of Jim getting crushed to death by a fridge. Not a terribly optimistic end to such a taxing game.

It had a string of bad reviews, and proved to be disappointing to fans of the first two games.

Menace 2 the Galaxy

In 1999/2000 a Game boy Color game was made by Crave Entertainment called Menace 2 the Galaxy. Yet another last-ditch attempt to cash in on what was a dying licence.

Based on the TV show it featured Jim at odds with "Evil Jim" a doppelganger character from the cartoon show. The strangest thing about it was that you had to go around collecting coins...something that was more akin to platform games such as the Mario series. It was a poorly made game, again stale and uninspired. It had nothing to do with what Earthworm Jim used to be. Of course it was all a bit too late by then.

In 2001 Earthworm Jim one and two were unimaginatively re-released for the Game boy Advance.

Earthworm Jim 1 was published by Majesco and developed by Game Titan. The game was in fact a direct port of the original Snes game.

The following year, they then released Earthworm Jim 2. Another Snes conversion, it was "developed" by an unknown developer called Super Empire.

The conversions were not made well. They had collision detection problems and many other glitches. It was shoddy and badly made. A last ditch attempt to squeeze money out of the remaining Earthworm Jim fan base and unsuspecting people who had missed out on the originals.

Earthworm Jim cameos in Battle Arena Toshinden and Clayfighter 63 1/3.

These appearances of Earthworm Jim happened because Interplay had the rights to use the licence in other games, even if it didn't fit with the character. They were not approved by Doug TenNapel.