Pictured: a smug fuck.
Also pictured: JPEG artifacts in a GBA game.
That’s right, bitches & kitchens: I’ve officially dedicated April to the… um… less pristine classics o’ the Game Boy Advance as a tail-end to my GBA tribute that’s lasted o’er a year1. ¿Why April? ’Cause like my main gangster T. S. Eliot told me on the streets o’ Peach Creek, “April, man — that shit’s the cruelest, yo”.
& we’re starting with a grand 1. ¿Remember how I praised Ed, Edd ’n Eddy: Jawbreakers! for doing a good job o’ emulating its cartoon’s graphics? Well, Search for Pooky doesn’t. It looks like shit, sounds like shit, plays like shit. It’s shit with no additives, no filler. It’s pure shit, like your great grandpa ate during the war. You don’t fuck with this shit.
& unlike Jawbreakers! the plot makes no sense. Some rats kidnap Garfield’s teddy bear. ¿Why? ’Cause they’re assholes, I guess. In the comic, Garfield & the rats had an indifferent opinion o’ each other. In fact, their lack o’ animosity toward each other was kind o’ the whole joke: a cat so lazy, he can’t e’en be bothered to hate rats.
That’s OK, ’cause the game’s plot doesn’t focus much on that, anyway, but meanders all o’er the place. Garfield wanders the neighborhood, & then some random warehouse, only for Jon to force Garfield to go with him to his farm.
The 1 good thing you could say ’bout this game is that it’s so bad, it’s laughable. It’s so bad, you know they had to not care.
Look @ this fire animation:
1st, ¿why is the grass on fire outside? ¿’Cause somebody somehow dumped an entire bucket o’ castor oil o’er the grass? That has an interesting story ’hind it, I’m sure. ¿Is nobody alarmed by that? Just a regular day in Jon’s neighborhood, I guess.
But, seriously, that shit looks like an animated GIF from some totally-rad late-90s website. ¿Why does the oily grass suddenly break off into black void ’hind the fire? ’Cause they couldn’t be bothered to copy the fire graphic & paste it onto a copy o’ the sidewalk graphic, that’s why. Only apathy could ’splain how the developers could look @ this & say, “Yes, this is sufficient”.
This game’s so repetitive & boring, I couldn’t tell if I were playing levels multiple times — ’specially in the warehouse world. It’s so tedious, I didn’t e’en bother playing this game for this article, but simply took the screenshots I took for an article I made years ago & am basing this off my memory o’ that dark time. It’s so boring, I’d intentionally fall into holes & die just to save time traversing through levels. This is ’specially the case in the farm levels, where they added the brilliant gimmick o’ making you collect chickens & bring them back to a cage — which basically just means you have to traverse the level multiple times.
The camera’s so bad, just ’bout every jump is a blind jump. Jumping off the ground causes the camera to move so high that you can’t see the ground till you land — presumably into a hole you couldn’t see before.
But the best part is some minigame on the trip to the farm — a piece o’ absurdist art that’d give The Square Root o’ Garfield Minus Garfield & Lasagna Cat a run. Apparently, Garfield’ll starve to death if he goes a single car trip without constantly stuffing his face — e’en though he went through the levels themselves fine without eating. The only way he can eat is by snatching food from covered plates being carried round the highway by a bunch o’ Liz the Veterinary clones. That’s odd by itself, but it gets better: you have to watch out, ’cause sometimes these plates turn out to have bombs in them, which hurt Garfield if he stupidly tries to eat them. None o’ the drivers are perturbed that there are a bunch o’ clones walking ’long the highway with bombs — presumably to commit some acts o’ terrorism.
Other greatest hits
Pooky is not just a teddy bear, but also a quantum device that prevents temporal malfunctions.
The game’s nice ’nough to tell you that pressing A makes Garfield jump after every level — in case you happen to fall on your head ’tween levels & develop amnesia.
This… mutant creature.
Trash cans that float in the air.
This generic yellow cat attacks you but jumping into the air with its claws out & slowly floating toward you.
Jon, after the lobotomy.
Also, Garfield can float or has super long legs in this scene.
Also, love those cheap GIF dots all o’er the colors. WarioWare showed that the GBA was capable o’ doing photographs rather well, but these guys couldn’t get the color right on flat cartoons.
Grandma smiles as Garfield claws up her furniture. Also, somebody dumped honey all o’er the floor. No reason is given.
¿& what’s with those clouds in the window? ¡How do you fuck up drawing clouds? ¡They’re just white circles! ¡*!&( #@*%^@*%^!
Garfield shows he’s hip with the slang syrup, chocobo.
( Laughs ) . No, this is not some hastily-edited screenshot for a cheap laugh. This is an unaltered screenshot.
Garfield speaking to whoever’s playing this game, straight from the blue void.
Pictured on the left: the expression permanently painted on the developers’ faces.
