Beavis and Butt-head Do U.

"'Hey Beavis, I wish chicks were as easy as this game.' 'Mmm yeah.'"

Beavis and Butt-Head do U. is a relatively straightforward take-off on that infamous and ground-breaking MTV cartoon show where the two fellows go on a field trip to Highland State with their class that is intended to interest them in higher education. Of course, Beavis and Butt-Head are only interested in scoring, but they play along in the hope of meeting College Chicks. For the first phase, after a painful lecture by the dean you must disrupt, they must visit eight locations and complete tasks in each one; you can refer to a map, which gets checks as you complete tasks, to switch between these locations, which include the library, dorms, music room, cafeteria, agriculture, biology, track, art and communications center. Then the boys must leave a lame party organized by the faculty before heading to a frat party, where they need to pick up three items around campus(the dean's diploma, the mascot's head, and a shield on a statue) to be initiated. Finally there's a weird paintball video game where they need to blast their way through to recover a stolen crib sheet--and then they are promised that they'll get to score. Unfortunately the story gets less realistic and entertaining with each stage, but there are some unique if easy puzzles at the beginning, mostly involving humorous theft and destruction of valuable property. There's no way to get killed although Beavis frequently gets mauled even if you don't do anything wrong, and if you do something pointless, it's rather refreshing to see Beavis curse or Butt-Head make fun of Beavis in place of the usual ''that doesn't make sense'' message.

Controlling the two misfits is rather simple; they pretty much hang around together and you just bring the cursor to the edge of the screen to move them in certain directions. Occasionally it will turn red, which allows you to move to a new sub-location, but during cut-scenes the only operation is to skip them. The map to move to the eight different locations(including the dean's office, quad, and parties) is in the upper left, and the paper bag with all your belongings is in the upper right. Click on it, click on the item, and you can use it on something else. You can also left- and right- click to operate and look at items, or talk to/look at people in the general locations. There are two brief video game styled scenes--one after Beavis commits his most hilarious act of vandalism which is a simplistic memory exercise, and one near the end which is the shooter I mentioned above.

Of course Beavis and Butt-Head often fail to execute your commands successfully, which adds to the puzzles and humor. For instance, in the agricultural center, they need to milk a cow and get eggs. You can click on the eggs easily, but Beavis and Butt-Head start fighting and throwing them around...oops. The eggs you will give to the supervisor are actually another species, and the cow, when you enter her stall, runs out to the dorms, but the stage is set for two puzzles in different locations. To make up for their stupidity they sometimes give superficially silly hints when you use something incorrectly--if you try to operate a dryer in the dorms, then use the dollar bill on it, you hear, ''Uh, I think we need like money and stuff/Uh, we need coins.'' They even get impatient if they sit around, with random useless actions like Beavis picking his nose or Butt-Head swatting at a fly. Some of this stuff gets annoying if you try it a few times, as the results are the same, but on the other hand, it isn't hard to find something else to do.

As for specific link-ups with the TV show, there are a few boners. The game opens well with the classic shot of Beavis and Butt-Head sitting in their two chairs and cutting up. The light-bulb that appears next to Butt-Head's face after you solve a critical puzzle is pretty cool, Beavis's ''boioioing'' never gets old, and they fight often enough to make me want to see a little more. However, I expected to see the originally hilarious but now overused Cornholio act(seems to me the show went downhill after that episode, the greatest of them all) and was proven sadly correct. It's a pity Daria, Tom Anderson, Principal McVicker and Buzzcut were missing although it is Van Dreisen who takes them on the field trip, and they sucker Stewart into taking the fall for their actions in one scenario. I really had hoped for them to air-guitar ''Iron Man'' after solving a puzzle as well, which seemed the obvious thing to do. I suppose the sexual euphemisms get old after a bit, but the game rarely copies from any specific episode I remember, and it still would feel like an episode even without the introductory ''warning message'' and opening theme song with the segment of the boys laughing cut out.

Graphics come out as good as the TV show. Although Beavis and Butt-Head have no lettering on their t-shirt throughout the game(the only major difference--Skull/Death Rock only appear in the credits and intro--I imagine it made graphics easier to produce) the peripheral characters(adults in charge of each area) are generally strong. What I find interesting is that the male characters are so much more prominent than the females, and after a while, you are thinking ''Where's the Chicks?'' along with Beavis and Butt-Head. The animation is a bit choppy but that is how the TV show was--the only part where it's faulty is when a few cut-scenes are cut in unimportant places, and Beavis stops moving his mouth before the end of a sentence. Occasionally the graphics are in perspective when you move between sub-locations, which seems unnecessary. However, stuff like Beavis getting run over by a bull is pretty cool. The boys' facial expressions and hair are as you'd expect, and the locales vary substantially and have better detail than most cartoons, yet they still allow you to see items easily.

Since Mike Judge does a lot of the voices, the sound is reminiscent of the TV show(Butt-Head narrates, Beavis screams and goes off on tangents,) and the opening theme will bring back memories as well. No new and exciting voices are added to the canon, although the students Beavis and Butt-Head serve food to in the cafeteria are well-done. There's plenty of rockin' music and plenty of wuss music, and there's even a switch to turn off the sound and read captions--you choose the speed. If they didn't over-use the phrase ''college sluts'' so much, the sound would be even better. Surely there are more subtle ways to show their desperation, or perhaps they could discuss other important issues like TV!

Overall, the challenge isn't much, as you'd probably expect. There are only so many things to click on in one location, and you can pretty much ransack a room by moving the mouse around and clicking on everything in it. That some rooms are bigger than a screen-width is the most salient point to remember. A telling example of the difficulty level is when you're on the back of a garbage truck and there are three things to touch. Only the lever opens the garbage door, and then there are a bunch of items you can pick up and throw out of the truck before you find the one you want. The comments in the meantime when you do something wrong are funny. So if you want to buy this game, it should be for the wise-cracks and clever side-paths you can take in addition to seeing a rather nice elongated episode unfold, which results from solving the puzzles. Although this game is no replacement for not chasing college girls enough back in the day, it is as funny as the time I discovered this show and was hooked for a couple of months. I feel this game tries for consistent belly laughs and for the most part does it well. Huh huh, I said ''feel'' then I said ''does it.''

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/25/01, Updated 10/25/01