"Addicting, fast, musical, and enchanting, but needs improvement"

Bubsy is a fun and addictive game with a high replay value, although it is a bit difficult. Despite numerous bugs (nearly 20 that I'm aware of), most of which are minor, Bubsy is a game anyone who likes cartoons would seriously enjoy. The following highlights each aspect of the game by category (credits are weights - the more, the stronger the effect it has on the overall rating).

Game play (5/10; 5 credits):

You play as Bubsy the Bobcat, who runs, jumps, and glides through levels battling woolies (rabbit-like enemies) while collecting hundreds upon hundreds of yarn balls. Enemies are defeated by jumping on top of them, of which scores a few hundred points (a few thousand in a long chain), but unfortunately, score is useless since it doesn't provide any benefits to the player. Bubsy is also pretty fast, especially when it comes to falling (under certain circumstances).

Bubsy jumps very high, half the height of the screen. However, care should be taken when it comes to falls. By falling for more than a second and hitting solid land, Bubsy dies. Bubsy's glide ability protects Bubsy from falling deaths, even if it means hitting the ground at a mind-bogglingly fast 95 pixels per frame (px/fr), of which is the fastest possible (this requires special conditions, lots of luck, and a lot of time). Gliding is also a way to cross long gaps or make it easier to get into narrow corridors after a fall as it also cuts downward acceleration by 1/4. In addition, when gliding after a fall on certain objects, Bubsy can bounce back up up to 4 times his original height and it's also the only way to fall faster than 15 px/fr.

The game's 16 levels are quite large in size and they can take quite a while to complete. You are given 10 minutes to complete a level. This, except for the desert levels (level 9 especially), is plenty, but it is possible to add a lot more time with a simple trick, due to the game's design. At the end of a level, there's a giant yarn ball that, if touched, completes the level (except if you've run out of time just as you reach it while in mid-air). The exception to this is that of levels 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 16 where a boss (or occasionally bosses) is present - defeating the boss(es) without dying and upon landing will complete the level instead.

The primary weak point of Bubsy isn't the 20 or so bugs present, it's the fact that, if you don't land on an enemy just right, and there are a lot of enemies, you'll immediately lose a life. The same goes for any projectiles enemies throw (like eggs), spikes (and there are quite a few of them), falling for more than a second without gliding, or falling into any water, among others. One hit is all it takes. Fortunately, there are plenty of extra lives scattered around, in the form of white T-shirts with a 1 or 2 on it (the number corresponds to how many extra lives you'll get upon grabbing the shirt). Speaking of shirts, there are other shirts that provide immunity to enemies and their projectiles, but nothing else, but even with these, falling deaths, spikes (with an exception due to a bug), and water are still just as deadly. The deaths, however, are quite hilarious, to some extent. They're just like cartoons - the character melts, splits in two, pops and flies off like a balloon, and various other things commonly seen in animated cartoons.

The second weak point of Bubsy is the poor control. This is a bit difficult to explain, but, let's consider an example. You start a run and reach Bubsy's top speed of 8 px/fr (which is pretty fast, though a bug provides a top speed of 15 px/fr, indirectly). The screen conveniently scrolls to the left so you can see what's ahead better (Bubsy is on the left side of the screen while you're running to the right, a handy feature). You then jump and Bubsy goes up, at 6 px/fr. Once you're not on solid ground anymore, the poor control is now noticed. If going right, you'll always go right and can only adjust the speed from 4 px/fr by 2 px/fr in either direction, which helps some, but not much. When gliding, the problem is even worse. What was 6 px/fr going right abruptly becomes 6 px/fr going left and vice versa. Avoiding running at high speeds is the only way to work around this - stand still and repeatedly jump or slam on Bubsy's brakes to keep the speed under control so that this poor movement control isn't much of a problem.

The third weak point of Bubsy is the numerous amount of bugs present. While most of them are otherwise harmless (such as the glittering effect with the background scenery, due to the 1-frame delay in position updates), others cause trouble. The biggest and most common one you'll come across is the game's faulty collision detection. Every now and then, collision with an object fails to occur and with high speeds (mainly 11 px/fr and faster) with falling, the bug causes cheap deaths. Another (devistating) bug is encountered where a cheese-wheel forming woolie is just to the left of a checkpoint 3/4 of the way through level 8. By activating the checkpoint without defeating the woolie and die before reaching another checkpoint or completing the level, Bubsy will continuously die until either a continue is used or game over occurs. Also occurring with high speeds is falling through the land, but this only occurs when falling faster than 16 px/fr, possible only by gliding. If you're so skilled at the game that you can reach and exceed 81 lives and either complete a level or die, you're actually forced to use a continue, which makes no sense.

The fourth weak point is the game's password system. Instead of getting a password at the end of each level, you get one upon completing levels 3, 6, 9, and 12 only. So, unless you can complete 3 of this game's levels without as much trouble, you'll be stuck having to return to level 1, 4, 7, 10, or 13 and trying again. What's more, things like lives, continues, and score aren't saved with passwords either. Having the password system save lives and continues would be a handy element present.

The major thing that I love about Bubsy, of which is the sole element that has kept me at this game for literally thousands of hours (yes, thousands, over 15 years), is the extreme speed. To this date, I have yet to find a game with a faster scrolling speed than Bubsy. While it takes special conditions to accomplish, I very strongly enjoy the thrill of watching everything whiz by at 32 px/fr (8 screen-heights per second), which is insanely fast, and I can very well get faster than that, up to my record (taking 3 days of leaving the system on overnight to accomplish and the best possible) of 95/fr. I also like messing around with gliding on woolie's cheese wheels, especially in levels 2, 8, and 11.

Graphics (9/10; 3 credits):
Bubsy's graphics are amazing for the time the game was made. I especially love the scenery with the desert world with the rock cliffs, rocks, and sand. The river world's scenery is a close second and the carnival world's scenery is a fairly close third. All the others aren't as good in terms of overall quality but still decent nonetheless. One common case you'll see, of which gets disorienting, is that the background will suddenly stop scrolling vertically, which makes it more difficult to use it as a way to judge position within a level. The village and carnival worlds are the only worlds that really have this issue. The scenery does have a few bugs with it, but, unless you have an attention to detail like I do, you really won't notice them. The foreground textures are very well-designed, very realistic-looking for the day the game was made. Bubsy himself has plenty of detail, and he's also quite big in size, about 48 pixels tall or so (more than 1/5 the screen's height).

Sound (8/10; 2 credits):
Of all the things in Bubsy, I especially love this game's music. Two tunes from Bubsy hold lifetime records that are unlikely to ever be exceeded by another song. One of which, that of the river world, has over 1 million plays as I love it that much (keep in mind that I listen to it outside the game and I've had it since late 1994). Another one of the game's tunes, the second half of the desert world, has a half of a million total plays. Most of the other tunes almost have 6-figure plays.

The sound effects seem to be Bubsy's main audio weak point. I jump, but only about 5% of the time, I hear the "boing" sound. The sound effects don't sound much like cartoons, or anything for that matter. They sound cheaply made. However, one of the good sides to Bubsy's sound effects is present when you collect yarn balls. Each color has a different pitch and, as you collect them, you can, in a way, make your own music. This is my favorite part about the game's sound effects.

Replay (9/10; 2 credits):
If you're the type who enjoys the thrill of high speed, cartoons, a challenge, and hunting for bugs, Bubsy offers a lot of replay value. After all, I've logged nearly 4000 hours at this game (estimates range from 3000 to 4500) and still going strong, craving for more, despite having played it for 15 years (since late 1994). No other game I've played even gets half that and very few get a third of that!

Conclusion (7.2/10):
Bubsy is fun, colorful, and challenging game and I highly recommend it. Although it does have plenty of weak points, Bubsy is a game worth investing your hard-earned money in.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/10

Game Release: Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind (US, 1993)