The Ren & Stimpy Show: Veediots!

"Beware nostalgia!"

Beware the dreaded beast known as nostalgia. It can make an average game seem good. Of course, this is fine for the actual victim of nostalgia, it's when he reviews a game that its danger is revealed. Nostalgia can blind judgement, and make games look better than they are. This can lead to reviews giving games much higher scores than they deserve, and leading innocent people to buy average or sometimes just plain bad games expecting good ones. What is the point of this little rant? As you've probably guessed, this game is nostalgic for me. However, I have tried my best not to let the nostalgia influence this review.

Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about the game. In the early 90s, Nickelodeon had a controversial but popular show called Ren and Stimpy. It really wasn't a kid's show, and didn't belong on Nickelodeon. However, despite the network, the cartoon managed to gain a large adult (kids liked it to) following that exists to this day. As usually happens when a show is popular, Ren and Stimpy spawned several video games. In 1993, Ren and Stimpy Veediots!, a predictable licensed platformer, was released. Basically, the story of the game is you play through 4 levels each based on a Ren and Stimpy episode.

Graphics: 6/10
Like most of the game, the graphics are slightly above average. The backgrounds are bright and colorful, but have somewhat of a pasted on look. Characters are accurate representations of their TV selves, but don't animate very smoothly. The graphics get the job done, but wouldn't have amazed in 1993.

Sound: 9/10
This is probably the game's best feature. I was surprised by how good the music was. There is also a fair amount of voice, which I think (I haven't seen the show in years) sounds like the show's. Sound effects are clear, and as you'd expect from Ren and Stimpy, often gross.

Gameplay: 6/10
Average in almost every way. You control Ren or Stimpy depending on the level, and do your basic platform stuff. The game is somewhat frustrating due to loose controls. The only thing that makes this game better than average is a little bit of variety in the later levels. Stage 3 is nothing but puzzles, stage 4 starts out with a long free fall.

Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 9/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Overall (not an average): 6/10

Conclusion
Ren and Stimpy Veediots is in most way your run of the mill licensed platformer. If you see it cheap, you might as well pick it up if you like the show or have nostalgia for it like I do. If not, there's realy no reason to choose this game over the abundance of other SNES platformers.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/26/02, Updated 04/26/02