Bart Simpson's Escape From Camp Deadly: Having a Cow, Man!

The Simpsons is one of the most important cartoons of all time, regardless of your opinion on its quality over its 30+ years of life. It saved adult animation, while still being a product that kids could enjoy. And a product that could hock any old crap. And that seems like an apt way to start an essay on the Game Boy debut, Bart Simpson's Escape From Camp Deadly.

Year of Release: 1991
Developer: Imagineering Inc.
Publisher: Acclaim

By the time Bart Simpson's Escape From Camp Deadly arrived on Game Boy, The Simpsons was in the middle of its third season. And despite two seasons under its belt, there is a definite feel of just throwing whatever you can into a game and hope it works that comes from this game. This is another Simpsons game given to Imagineering, who worked on the less than stellar Bart Vs. The Space Mutants and Bart Vs. The World, among other licensed games in the tail end of the NES life cycle. But did this outing at least feel like some lessons were learned over their past endeavors?

Mortal Kombat: Flawed Failure

Mortal Kombat has been around for almost thirty years, which is a factoid that already makes my bones creak just typing it out. September 13th, 1993 can't be understated for how big a day that was. One of the first major important dates for a video game's home console release. Midway and publisher Acclaim went all out, porting the game to practically every available console. This included the obvious places, the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, but also taking advantage of the handheld systems at the time, the Game Gear and the version we're covering, the Game Boy. Did the GB port end up a hit? You see the blog title, right? Let's cover Mortal Kombat

Year of release: 1993

Developer: Midway & Probe Software
Publisher: Acclaim

I'll get the good out of the way early before we get into the major issues with this game. Graphically, it looks decent. They did their best in trying to emulate the look of the digitized sprites from the original title. And the audio sounds fine, Probe taking much of the soundtrack from the Genesis port. Oh, and if you can actually beat the game, you get the ability to play as Goro, the secondary boss in the game. That's something that neither of the major ports had without cheat codes, so that's a neat incentive. And that's kind of really it, because this game is bad. Like, actually bad. 

Tiny Toon Adventures: Wacky Sports: Hare Ball

It's time for yet another trip to Acme Acres with another Tiny Toons video game. Can this one break from the middling mold of Babs' Big Break, or is it destined to strike out? Let's hit the court with Tiny Toon Adventures: Wacky Sports.

Year of Release: 1994

Publisher: Konami

Platform: Game Boy

So I recently had the chance to pick the game of the month for Yokoi Kids, and for my choice I wanted to go with more obscure over the more well known. And as I was on a Tiny Toon Adventures kick for the latter end of 2020, I figured I'd blend the two together. And my choice was Tiny Toon Adventures: Wacky Sports. Is it a home run or does it strike out? Let's delve a bit deeper. 

By 1994, Tiny Toon Adventures as a series was wrapped up with most of the crew moving to Animaniacs. There were a couple specials that followed, but the show itself was basically done. Oddly, Tiny Toons as a video game franchise lived on, though by 1994, Konami was about wrapped up with the show too, developing three more games for three consoles. Sega's ACME All-Stars, SNES' Wacky Sports Challenge, and in between those releases, Wacky Sports for Game Boy. All three sharing a similar theme of sports mini games. 

Animaniacs: Animaney! Totally Insaney! Game Boy Gamey!

Because the world of pop culture hasn't really evolved since the mid-90s, Animaniacs is back. The series received a reboot/series revival of sorts in November of 2020 on Hulu, and despite some issues, it feels like a solid revival of one of the biggest cartoons of the 90s. So, what better time while the series is coasting on its old fans and new audience by covering Konami's take on the series for the Game Boy? Let's look at Animaniacs.

Year of Release: 1995
Publisher: Konami

In 1993, Animaniacs premiered on Fox as part of the Fox Kids block. The series was the follow up to the successful Tiny Toon Adventures, but proved to gain even stronger acclaim due to being more free in its comedy, both as parody of 90s popular culture at the time along with a lot of really dirty humor you won't get until you're older (Finger Prince?). 

The show was a series of different animated shorts starring fresh new characters like Slappy Squirrel, the Goodfeathers, Rita and Runt, Chicken Boo among others, but the main two cartoons that really made Animaniacs a success were the Warners and Pinky and the Brain. The Warner brothers (and the Warner sister) consisted of Yakko, Wakko and Dot. Three cartoon characters from the 1930s deemed so insane and out of control that they were locked in the studio water tower until they escaped in the 90s, where they continue to cause chaos. 

Donkey Kong Land: Eight Bit Apes

 
It can't be understated just how important Donkey Kong Country was. Not just as an example of the advancement of computer technology, but by proving that the aging Super Nintendo could still hold its own as a 16-bit console going deep into an already heated 32-bit war as the development of the Nintendo 64 would take a lot longer than expected. It also turned developer Rare into a household name, proving they could deliver quality whenever the situation demanded. But Rare wasn't just content with proving their mettle on the SNES, they sought to bring their vision of the great ape of gaming to the smallest screen, thus giving us Donkey Kong Land. 

Year of Release: 1995

Publisher: Nintendo

Released in June of 1995, Donkey Kong Land is a pseudo remake of Donkey Kong Country. Pseudo in that while developed with the same ACM technology that brought more dimension to the 16-bit big bro, the game varies differently in gameplay and story. And there is a story in this game, though the actual gameplay itself doesn't represent it well. Following the events of DKC, Cranky Kong isn't as impressed by the success of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong, feeling that the advanced graphics and sound can't compare to the good old days. Cranky challenges the two Kongs to play through another adventure, only this time in 8-bit and on a portable system. The Kongs accept the challenge and we're off on another four worlds of monkey madness.

Adventure Island: Me, Myself and Island

Year of Release: 1992

Publisher: Hudson Soft

It's time for my monthly review for Yokoi Kids, in which I review the Game Boy game chosen as game of the month. And for the month of December, that pick went to Adventure Island. A handheld continuation of the platforming series made famous on the NES. That can usually bode either good or bad, so how does this half-pint Higgins handle on Game Boy? 

Adventure Island itself has an interesting history behind it. The series started off with Wonder Boy for the arcades and Sega's Master System before the rights to the name became Sega exclusive. Thus the planned port for Nintendo's Famicom and NES had to change the title as well as its title character. Outside of Japan, the game series became Adventure Island and its protagonist became Master Higgins. Despite the changes, the game was successful enough to spawn multiple sequels, three on the Famicom alone, and an eventual Game Boy port, which we're covering this month.

Tiny Toon Adventures: Babs' Big Break: Splitting Hares

Year of Release: 1992
Publisher: Konami

The 90s are still alive and kicking in terms of media and reboots. As of this writing, Animaniacs was revived by Hulu and has offered a decent continuation of the classic series. One month prior to Animaniacs' relaunch, it was announced that the predecessor to Animaniacs, Tiny Toon Adventures, was also being revived for a new animated series airing on Cartoon Network and HBOMax. So with the revival of the Spielberg cartoon era underway, I've been rewatching Tiny Toon Adventures as well as collecting many of the games based on the series. It's kind of a surprising list of games stretching into the mid-2000s, over a decade after Tiny Toon ended. But the best run for the franchise came during the show's heyday with their partnership with Konami. 

For the uninitiated, Tiny Toon Adventures was an animated series from 1990-1994 and had Steven Spielberg as its executive producer. The series followed a new generation of Looney Tunes characters known as the Tiny Toons as they deal with the wacky world of the 1990s. The cast of characters included Buster and Babs Bunny (no relation), Plucky Duck, Hamton J. Pig, Elmyra Duff, Montana Max, Furrball, Dizzy Devil and many more. The show proved a huge success and would kick of a strong decade for Warner Bros. animation with its follow up Animaniacs being an even bigger success.