Download Earthworm Jim

Hey, you know that little game called MDK? (It's one of the more popular games on Abandonia and it's great fun if you can get it to work). Well, before that madness, Shiny made this game, and I have to say it's one of the most underrated platformers ever.

In Earthworm Jim, you play a worm named Jim who happens to stumble upon a nuclear-powered suit. Here's a snippet of the game's story (I recommend reading the rest of it in the game's help file) :

"Psy-Crow is chasing a small renegade ship. The ship’s pilot has stolen an ultra-high-tech-indestructible-super-space-cyber-suit. Psy-Crow overtakes the renegade ship and they face off head-to-head. Psy-Crow pulls his gun. The renegade pulls an even bigger gun. Wrought with gun envy, Psy-Crow pulls out a huge monster gun. The renegade, realizing he has been outmatched, pleads for mercy. But Psy-Crow, under direct orders from the evil Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-behind, blasts the renegade and his entire ship to smithereens. The suit falls gently to a strange planet below. The strange planet is our planet. PLANET EARTH."

This sort of absurd humor permeates the game's atmosphere. The cast of characters are all really weird and funny, including the aforementioned Psy-Crow and Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-behind, and my favorites, Dr. Monkey-for-a-Head and Peter the Puppy. Put that together with the cartoony graphics and funny sound effects (the elevator music with painful screams in the "What the Heck" level is particularly enjoyable), and you have a fun game environment to spend some time in.

Your main attacks use your head and your gun. If you attack with your head, you pull it out of the suit and hit things with it like a whip. It can also be used to swing from hooks and you can spin it like a helicopter to glide in midair. The gun's default mode is rapid-fire, but you can pick up powerups for it, like a mega shot and homing missiles. Either one of these attacks can be used in any direction while standing in one spot. You'll need these attacks, because the end of each level has a boss that you need to defeat before you can move on. Inbetween the levels, there are fun little racing minilevels where you have to race Psy-Crow on a rocket.

Luckily, this game is 100% Windows compatible, so you shouldn't have any problems running it.

The only real problem I found with this game was the inconsistent difficulty level. Sometimes it's so easy it's boring, and sometimes it makes you want to bash your head against the keyboard. Overall, the two extremes balance out and it turns out to be a fun experience. It's one of my favorite platformers ever, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a good time.