Garfield no Isshukan

"Good god, this game is awful."

It was all the way back in 1989, when the genius's at the Towa Chiki Corporation decided to turn the popular comic strip, Garfield, into a video game. That's right the Towa Chiki Corp. thought it would be a good idea to turn a decade-old comics strip that relies on a total of only 5 different jokes into a Nintendo game.

The actual, full title of the game is ''A Week of Garfield.'' This is why each level is named after a day of the week. Odie is missing, and it's up to Garfield to find him before the week is up, which is when, I assume, John Arbuckle will finally just say ''Forget it, I'm buying a new dog.''


Between really bad graphics, redundantly boring game play, and crappy control this game already has a lot going against it, but the clincher has to be the unyielding difficulty. you're only afforded a single life with no continues so when as you die that's it you're dead, and you have to start the game all over again, or you could just immediately remove the cartridge from your Nintendo Entertainment System and smash the damn thing with a hammer. Believe me, the latter choice would be the wiser one.

When an enemy hits it takes away almost half of your health, and just pushes slightly away from the enemy. Unlike most other video games, when you're hit you do not became invulnerable for a split second. If the enemy is moving in a straight path towards you, it will almost always push you until you are dead. All of this happens almost instantly making it nearly impossible to even jump out of the way.


You spend the first few days wandering through John's hopelessly pest-infested home while on your search for Odie. John, obviously wanting to get Odie back so much that instead of looking for his own dog, makes his cat do it, occasionally offers up some non-advice between levels. This is when you get to experience such gems as, ''Can I help?'' (he never waits for an answer), and ''Hunt for Odie at Downtown.''

I can't think of a single aspect of redeeming value in Garfield. Other than games that feature Jesus, I'm pretty sure that there aren't any that are as terrible as this one. I'm just glad this review is over, and I won't have to play this game anymore ever again. It's a good thing that I really didn't like Garfield the comic strip before this, because I know for sure that this game would have ruined it for me. Luckily Jim Davis already took care of that for me.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/03