The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

The Game

The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends is yet another licensed platformer, they really did hand out these licenses like candy in the 80s and 90s. Video games today may have a wider reach and a bigger audience in terms of numbers, but the explosion of gaming from home computer games to console games in the late 80s and 90s was like nothing else. Companies saw dollar signs using their IPs and gaming really was considered the next big thing. It's funny that now it is such a huge commodity, the licensed games have dropped off dramatically. There are still licensed games released of course, but every new film used to have a video game counterpart, every big TV series or cartoon, it was such an interesting time.

It was released in 1993 for the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive. There was also a version released for the NES and Game Boy in 1992.

The game was developed by Absolute Entertainment, starting in the early 80s they developed various games for the Atari 2600 before getting involved in the very licensed games boom that I just mentioned, Simpsons, Star Trek, even Home Improvement and that Robin Williams film Toys (see what I mean about every movie getting a game).

They also published the Mega Drive version, but for the SNES publishing rights were handed over to THQ, and what can I say about THQ? They were one of the biggest developers and publishers before they went bankrupt. They started publishing ports of games for the Game Boy, before also getting into the licensed game craze for console games, publishing games like Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Ren & Stimpy, The Lawnmower Man, then eventually breaking into what turned into a huge market of console WWF and WCW games. They sadly went bankrupt in 2012, however the name was sold to Nordic Games in 2014 who would begin releasing games under the name THQ Nordic.

Gameplay

This is the problem with this challenge of mine, the SNES was a fantastic console, my favourite console even, but it is full of a lot of shit games. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends is one of them, but it's not awful, not like the last two games on my list. It's playable, I actually completed it (with a little bit of Game Genie help, full disclosure) and it had some interesting ideas.

Instantly the game gives you a cut scene to start, telling you the plot of the game, what is expected of you, and off you go, so straight away it's got one up on the previous two games that didn't give you anything whatsoever, and you start the game as Bullwinkle the moose, and you move from left to right, standard. You have a jump, a head butt, and when you collect fruit, a ranged attack. Starting the level you have to climb a mountain, and it sees Bullwinkle grab on and shimmy his way up, as rocks fall toward you you can press right and Bullwinkle will lean over and avoid them, it's a nice looking animation and something a bit different, problem is the climb takes forever, every now and again you jump off the mountain side onto some platforms to collect some flags that will eventually give you extra lives, and once you get to a flat surface at the top you fight your way through some enemies, and then have to do it again. It takes a long time to get to the top and the game is unforgiving! It's really hard, too hard really. Trying to navigate climbing, jumping, and flying enemies all at once is very challenging.

You do eventually make it to the top and move on to a mine cart level (a year before Donkey Kong Country I might add) which again, is very difficult, but it does break the game up with a nice amount of variation, having to duck and jump, and move from cart to cart. Again the level is a bit long, and without save states would definitely have worn out its welcome. I don't see how a child in 1993 could have ever finished the game.

Then you have a level on a boat where floating barrels stop you progressing, you have to stand on the barrels so they sink below the boat then jump back to the boat before you sink with it and move on. There's a ghost ship, then some levels where you play as Rocky, Bullwinkle's squirrel friend, and go through a town and the final level which is a weird house with floating skulls. It's all very basic, and far too hard, but the variety was refreshing after the pain of Mighty Max.

Weirdly, when you finish a set of levels you get sent back to the main menu, which made me think at first that the game was really short, but when you select "main game" it just takes you to the next level. The game offers two mini games alongside the main game, and I think this was maybe a way to break things up and let you play a mini game before moving on. One mini game stars Sherman & Peabody who were characters in the animated show, and also got their own animated movie in 2014 for some reason! I never really understood this game, Mr Peabody rides a dragon that you, as Sherman, have to avoid the fireballs from, all while chewing gum and letting the bubbles fly upward. The second mini game stars Dudley Do-Right, another character from the show, riding his horse away from a train, jumping obstacles to keep your distance and stop the train catching you and running you over.

There is a lot of variety here, and the game is playable, but really only if you either have some Game Genie codes, or you have months and months of time to play, and ultimately it doesn't do a lot particularly well, just serviceable, which means a lot after the last 2 games.

Also the final boss is bizarre. Playing as Rocky, Bullwinkle has been captured somehow despite the fact you've just been playing as him and it didn't show it, he's suspended in a cage above some hot liquid, and slowly lowered while an executioner chases you round the screen. You can only stun the executioner, and you have to keep firing at a pin holding the cage on a chain, the pin comes loose and if it falls out Bullwinkle falls into the vat of hot stuff. Once it lowers to a certain point you need to jump to the other side and fire at the padlock keeping him in. None of this was signposted in any way, so it was frustrating, but mechanically it was kind of interesting.

Graphics

The graphics are super basic, it's not far off NES level really, just a bit brighter colours. There's nothing offensive, just the most middle of the road graphics. The opening and closing cut scenes are nice enough, and give you the feel of the show with all the characters, but after games like The Adventures of Batman & Robin, or Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, it's definitely lacking.

The levels have good visual variety, every one looks very different, and the enemies, while basic looking, are also fairly varied, although it is mostly a case of "ah so that's what this level's flying enemy looks like" and the bosses are nothing to write home about either.

Sound and Music

The music is fine, it fits the feel of the game, and I imagine, the show (I've never seen it, I think it was mostly a US thing) very jaunty bouncy music, and it's fairly well put together. It does have that longer track that ends up sounding a bit looped feeling, but each level has its own music that's different to the last. It's just not something I could ever sit and listen to, it's a bit of a cacophony of noise, which I feel like is exactly the sort of thing you'd hear on the show, but it doesn't work outside of the realms of the game.

The sound is pretty non existent, a few sound effects when you jump and fire, and when enemies get hit, some explosions, but very much nothing to write home about.

The People

Jim Wallace was the audio engineer, and this was the first game he ever worked on, he worked on audio on various games until the 00s when he went into production, he was producer on a few PS2 games before working senior management on God of War II, and stayed senior manager on games like GT 5: Prologue, Twisted Metal: Head On, LittleBigPlanet, Resistance 2, Uncharted 2, he had a lot of big games on his resume.

The music itself was done by Mark Van Hecke, who also had a big resume, but it ended a lot earlier. He worked on various licensed games, converting the real themes to video game music between 1990 and 1996. He did a load of Simpsons games, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, Casper, and then just fell off the radar.

Glen Schofield was one of the 7 people credited for the graphics, he had previously worked on Barbie: Game Girl and Ren & Stimpy: Space Cadet Adventures for the Game Boy, and eventually did graphics for Gex 3 and Disney's Magical Racing Tour, he eventually became Director of Design for various games including Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen 2, then moved into production and became executive producer for a little game called Dead Space, and he was one of the original developers that moved on to make Callisto Protocol where he was the game director.

That's about where the interesting credits end for this one.

Box art

The problem with all these licensed games is the front of the box is often just an image from the show, or the film, or whatever it's based on, and this is no exception. This one does seem particularly lazy though, a random selection of characters on a dull yellow background with a blue frame. It's not great.

Looking at the back and we have our classic four screenshots, one of the pictures is one of the mini games and not the main game, which might be a bit misleading considering the pictures don't have any text descriptions. Now normally I break down the bullet points with my thoughts, but I need to drop in slightly before the bullet points on this one, just after the story description we have the following text:

• Bullwinkle locks horns with danger as he head butts falling boulders and enraged rams. Rocky dodges enemies by soaring sky-high in daring flying squirrel style - The first part of this is true, but the second is rubbish! It makes you think Rocky will at the very least be more agile, jump higher, maybe even fly right? But no, the jump is identical in height, and there is no flying at all.

• Bonus games feature cartoon cameos by Mr Peabody and Sherman, The Moon Men, Dudley Do-Right and many more! - From what I could see there were only two mini games. It might not help that I don't know these characters, but I didn't see Moon Men, or "many more"

• Super graphics bring new life to classic characters! - Now admittedly this was a 50s/60s/70s cartoon, so in some respects it does breathe new life into characters from that era, but I still can't stand by and agree with "super graphics"

• Designed with the irreverent humour and wit of the TV series! - The writing was actually alright, there were a couple off moments where I exhaled some air out of my nose in a small amount of mirth, which is a fairly big deal for a SNES game. The whale being called Maybe Dick was probably my favourite.

Overall I give this box my rating of - Misleading. While there are a couple of things it gets right, there are some very blatant things that could give you the impression the game has more or does more than it actually does.

The Press

Electronic Games:

All the games are thoroughly challenging. It takes many tries to succeed, even in the mini-games, and, be assured, it will be a long time before the player will succeed in getting Bullwinkle to the top of the first mountain, much less both heroes past their many game locales.

80/100

Game Players:

Moose and Squirrel's first 16-bit cart isn't much in the graphics department, but it has some very hard - sometimes frustrating - gameplay.

42/100

GamePro:

If you're a huge fan of the famous duo, you might run to the nearest rental outlet. However, if you don't need to know the answer to "Is it Moose on the Loose"...or "Boris and Natasha Have the Goods," watch the Moose and Squirrel on TV.

2/5

Electronic Gaming Monthly:

The variety of games is nice, but the whole thing looks rushed.

4/10