The Tick

"Possibly the most underrated beat 'em up ever."

It's not very often that I actually find a game that presents a challenge. Usually when I do, it's one of those games that's so impossible it's annoying and loses any factor of fun I may have had for it. The nicely done games that aren't easy enough to yawn, needless to say, are pretty few and far between. But then sometime in September of 1994, Sega Enterprises Ltd. licensed a game developed by Software Creations. The game was a license of a (at the time) popular cartoon being aired on Fox, which later became a live action sitcom that was promptly canceled. The game was simply titled The Tick. An oversized man in a blue spandex suit, who's key phrase is ''Spoon.'' Who would have thought that super hero games can be fun? Or original for that matter! But what many consumers probably looked over as another badly written video game marketing another cartoon series, was a rare treat of a good, challenging, video game.

Most people who've seen screen shots, or only played it for a minute probably think, ''What's so special about a side scrolling, platform, beat 'em up?'' Well, it's not like your typical one. It's no big revolutionary thing, but a lot of the small things add up. For example, in most games of this nature if you walk to the edge of say, a rooftop, your character simply stops walking. Well in this one The Tick will begin to loose his balance, and if you walk too far he will fall off, thus adding to the challenge, because now you actually have to pay attention to your boundaries. Another good example is the way the game's set up. You play a chapter, each chapter has multiple levels with slightly different game play styles, (in one you'll be fighting with bad guys, and in the next theres not a single bad guy, and your just avoiding obstacles) and some levels have sub-plots. This is to say that if you get off course from where you're supposed to be, you will encounter a sort of mini-boss. After defeating him you will continue along your journey.

Let's look away from the refreshing design of this game to look at the actual game play. Nothing so special here, but that's okay. There are, as I mentioned earlier different play styles. Some levels you will find yourself in a static location, such as on the top of a moving bus, with bad guys coming from every which way. Others you will find yourself walking from area to area fighting off bad guys and getting a cue to continue along the path. And yet even others you will be jumping from rooftop to rooftop avoiding throwing stars, knives, and other such things flying through the air, but not a bad guy in sight. This technique helps you from getting bored with repetitive gameplay. The actual fighting consists of punching, kicking, and jumping. Punches and kicks are pretty much the same thing, except with a different animation, and a slightly different sound. They do the same amount of damage, but jump kicks do slightly more. Although theres nothing special about this, it's a formula that works for the genre.

The graphics however, even considering it's for a 16 bit system, aren't all I would've hoped for. The Tick has some nicely detailed muscles on his suit, they could use some smoothing out though, but his face has absolutely no detail at all. It's just a flesh colored block, that occasionally get's a square of white on it, assumably for his teeth. The other characters aren't anything special to look at either. A lot of the backgrounds are repeated too, but it doesn't actually look bad, just boring. With or without the graphics this game could have had, it's still fun, which is what's really important. The audio isn't a world feat either. The bad recording that's played at the start of each level in which The Tick yells ''Spoon'' is bad enough to make you cringe. The only other spoken thing is when he calls for backup from his sidekick Arthur. The music is pretty fitting for what's going on around you, but just sounds like it needs to be polished. As for the sound effects they sound like run of the mill fighting sound effects.

The story is, well, pretty simplistic. You assume the role of The Tick, a super hero in a town overrun with super heroes. However, the town is also overrun with super villains, so I guess you fit in perfect. Go through the levels thwarting crime and taking out bad guys. That's pretty much it, there is no talking, or narrating to move the story along. But, hey, what can you expect from a Beat 'em up game? Especially one based on a series about, beating up bad guys.

There's some pretty neat features, from the title screen you can choose how man lives you start with, how many continues, and how many Arthurs, which is sort of like the police backup in Streets of Rage, you call upon Arthur to swoop in and give you a hand with the bad guys. There's also a sound test, although you might as well steer clear of that. The reason I like the fact that you can choose how many of each is because rather than picking from Easy, Medium, and Hard, which would probably start you out with the Most of each, Middle, then Least of each, respectively, you can mix and match. Say you want to have a lot of continues but with few lives, and a middle amount of Arthurs. It's a customizable difficulty setting, which is nice to see in a game that is actually difficult.

Speaking of it being difficult, I've never actually beaten it all the way through. I guess I probably could, but I've never spent that much time on it. I like to pick it up and play it for a while, and maybe if it had a save, or a password feature I would have played it all the way through by now. But that doesn't mean it loses it's replay value. It's a fun game, and entertaining to watch somebody else play as well. I'm particular to the levels when you jump around with no enemies, because he jumps like a ballerina, and it's not just one type of jump, it's all different ones. It adds the humor of the show to the game nicely, without ruining the game with wacky and just plain ridiculous noises and the such you usually find in cartoon based games.

It also handles pretty well. One button for jumping, the other two for attacks, and the directional pad for movement. To execute your backup you press all three buttons, which is nice for me, because like in Streets of Rage it was just one button to call the backup and I would end up hitting it accidentally when it was unnecessary and be left without my backup in a time of need. I never feel like I'm having trouble making my character do what I want, it feels smooth, and even.

All in all I would suggest this game to anyone who enjoys a good brawler. It's one of my favorites, (The Simpsons, Arcade version being my number one) and for what it is, it gets the job done very nicely. If you are lucky enough to find this, pick it up. Look at flea markets and the such, as the prices on eBay are currently pretty high (ranging from about 10 to 15 dollars for just the cart.) I'm not saying it's not worthy of that price, especially given it's rarity, but not everyone out there is willing to pay that much for a game from 1994.

Here's some scoring for those of you who need it:

Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics: 7/10
Audio: 6/10
Story: 8/10
Controls: 10/10
Replay: 10/10
Overall: 8.5/10

Worthy of a purchase? You bet.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/12/02, Updated 02/12/02