Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck
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| Released for the Nintendo 64 on September 16, 2000 by Infogrames, and developed by Paradigm Entertainment, Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck pits the avian title character against Marvin the Martian in a Looney Tunes-based 3D platformer. |
Right before the pandemic started, I visited the local Play 'n Trade, looking for a copy Donald Duck Goin' Quackers for my Nintendo 64. I was surprised to find a copy, headed home, and booted up the game in my Nintendo 64 to find the wrong duck on my screen. I'd actually bought a copy of 2000's Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck without realizing it. I couldn't believe my mistake, and put away the game until recently, when something compelled me to give it a try.
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| What the duck? And I mean that literally. |
Admittedly, I'm not even sure if I ever even heard of Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck before accidentally purchasing it. I mean, obviously I'd seen the famous Looney Tunes cartoon many times, but I didn't realize someone had adapted it for the Nintendo 64. That's a great thing about that age in video gaming: nearly everything had its own video game adaptation. Looney Tunes had experienced a bit of a resurgence in the 90's due to Saturday morning cartoons, and the success of 1996's Space Jam. It had many video game tie-ins to this point, but somehow Duck Dodgers was the only Looney Tunes Nintendo 64 game released in North America...and then, at first only at Blockbuster Video as a rental before becoming available to the general public late in the Nintendo 64's run. No wonder I'd either never heard of it or forgotten about it. However, after recently giving the game a shot, and playing through to the end credits, I've found that I accidentally bought a pretty decent game.
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| Yeah...I never take a duck at its word. Think I'll try it first. |
Duck Dodgers fully utilizes its Looney Tunes license. The simple story finds Marvin the Martian trying to destroy the Earth, only to find that his weapon needs more energy atoms. Enter the player as the arrogant and wacky, yet lovable Daffy Duck, who must find all of the atoms on five separate planets in order to prevent Earth's destruction at the gloved hands of the diminutive Martian. This story naturally lends itself to the old Nintendo 64 staple, the 3D platforming collectathon. While Duck Dodgers might not reach the excellence of the top tier collectathons made by Rare and Nintendo, it rests comfortably in the respectable middle tier. This is no surprise given that it was developed by Pradigm Entertainment, who created the beyond respectable Beetle Adventure Racing and Pilotwings 64 for the 64-bit console.
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| Spoiler Alert: I wouldn't quite call Duck Dodgers "beyond" respectable. But respectable? Definitely! |
Paradigm nails the Looney Tunes aesthetic, as Duck Dodgers worlds feel like perfect 3D representations of 2D Looney Tunes cartoons. Environments are fairly large, Daffy is animated nicely, and colors are bright and cartoonishly vibrant. Paradigm brings out many characters from the Looney Tunes stable here, from Daffy and Marvin, to Porky Pig, to villains like Rocky and Mugsy, Yosemite Sam, and the Abominable Snowman, among many more. Even most of the planets' minor enemies come from the cartoons. This game is a Looney Tunes fans' treat. I couldn't believe how many more lesser known characters Paradigm trotted out here, and they all look great and are well-animated. Thankfully, when the game is in motion, the frame rate is generally smooth and rarely if ever slows down.
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| I miss when all the 3D platformers were trying to one up each other's water splash droplet effects. The ones here are pretty good! Now, it's "how many square miles of ocean does your game have?" |
Paradigm also utilized voice acting that sounds right out of the cartoons, though I wish there was more of it. Duck Dodgers' music is solid, and somehow manages to avoid being cloying considering the cartoonish possibilities, though not much is overly memorable. The sounds effects are spot on. However, if a game's not fun, than those production values are ducking pointless. I'm sorry. I'm...really, really sorry. Anyway, thankfully, Duck Dodgers gameplay is solid.
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| Solid as ice...er...really cold ice |
The framework here is simple. Daffy (and Porky) land (usually crash) on a new planet. Daffy collects atoms ala Stars in Mario 64 or Jiggies in Banjo Kazooie that are either hidden throughout the planet, or received after some challenge is completed, or a puzzle solved. Once Daffy collects enough atoms (usually about 80% of a planet's atoms), he can gain access to that planet's boss. Then Daffy beats the boss (by learning and exploiting its patterns), and cue humorous (very well done) cutscene of Daffy and Porky flying to the next planet (and generally getting shot down or crashing into it). Rinse and repeat.
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| Little details, like the reflections and weapon damage in and to this floor and the fact that the boss of this planet is Hassan from 1957's "Ali Baba Bunny" show the care Paradigm put into this game. |
No molds are in any danger of being broken here, but Duck Dodgers keeps things interesting by interspersing some racing and mini-game elements into some of the planets' challenges--there's even a fun first-person shooter segment. As for as linearity, Daffy does have to visit the planets in a specific order, but the player is actually free to explore most planets at will, and to collect that planet's atoms in whichever order they choose.
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| Yeah, me too, Marvin |
As enjoyable and detailed as Duck Dodgers can be, it is missing that upper echelon level of Nintendo and Rare quality control and polish. The controls here are okay, but Daffy's jumping is most definitely not as precise or practiced as Mario or Banjo's. Like most Nintendo 64 platformers, the camera can also be problematic, though I found that the ability to shift it around via the "C-Buttons" ensured it never hindered me for long. The biggest whiff here is on the game's saving system. Duck Dogers thankfully has cartridge-backed save files (you get four different slots), so you won't need a memory card to save your game. On the other hand, the ability to save at will is missing...and Duck Dodgers has no traditional save points.
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| That's not the only thing that's not here, Daffy, dammit!! |
If you head to Daffy's ship, which is always, accessible and the starting point for each of the five planets, you can travel back to previous planets, but you can't save. You can't even save every time you collect a new atom. You can only save when the game prompts you to, which feels completely at Duck Dodgers' whim, generally, but not always after a subsection of a given planet is completed. This adds a bit of artificial challenge and extends the game's play time, but it's extremely frustrating. A few times I made it through several rooms and planet areas, was never prompted to save during that stretch, had to turn the game off because I had to do something else, and had to go back to do that particular segment again when I had time. There were a couple of times I got a game over right before a particular stretch ended, and had to do it all over it again too.
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| I already did that, but lost my progress, Porky, you son of a bitch! Sow? Whatever! |
Thankfully, if a particular section of a level is giving the player trouble, extra lives aren't hard to come by. There are a few in the form of life preservers scattered across each planet. There are also little energy units scattered everywhere that not only refill Daffy's energy meter, but give the player an extra life when 50 are collected. These energy units are liberally scattered all over each planet, and if you collect all in a room, leave, then re-enter, they all reappear, making it quite easy to collect 50 when needed.
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| Good thing you don't die every time you lose to this cheating jackanape |
Perhaps the most major aspect revealing a lack of polish in comparison to the upper tier games is Daffy's limited move-set. The old duck can run around and jump (and tapping the jump button again will cause a double-jump). He can do a ground pound. He can do a weak kick that doesn't really do much damage to anything. That's about it. Of course, you can push boxes and things when those kind of puzzles pop up, and you can fire a hand laser at select moments with the "Z" button, but that's pretty much it. At least, outside of the loose jump mechanic, these moves all work.
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| Though I should mention, the first-person shooter segment has fully-realized controls, including strafing. Nothing funny to say here, that's just really cool. |
Overall, I was surprised by Duck Dodgers. While some may find the fact that you're only really collecting one type of object a bit spare, I actually didn't mind the minimalism in that regard. The game does enough in that framework, particularly in the way it tosses fun changes of pace into the gameplay, that everything works. I also appreciate that the planets don't really follow the basic blueprint of ice world/lava world/grassy world, either...well, there is an ice world, but the other four are pretty original, and the ice world is well done.
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| Daffy just got back from the Brass Against concert |
I also dig the retro 50's/60's space age vibe that the late 90's was obsessed with being fully featured here...in fact, that's one of my favorite things in general. The pause screen sound effect is even just like one from 1999's Jet Force Gemini--if I think about it, much of the Nintendo 64's catalogue is loaded with moments featuring this space age vibe--even in just this genre, Rocket: Robot on Wheels has it, Banjo Tooie, Starshot: Space Circus Fever, Donkey Kong 64, the list goes on and on. Duck Dodgers is only about 10-15 hours long (on this higher end if you work hard to collect all 100 atoms to get the best ending), and I really, really wish that the save function was better integrated and that Daffy's jumping was a little more precise, but for fans of old school 3D platformers, Looney Tunes, or in particular, both those things, you can't go wrong with Duck Dogers Starring Daffy Duck.
OK, so this game looks amazing. Maybe I should consider buying an N64? Marvin the Martian...love it! I dare say he's right up there with Star Wars characters like R2D2.
ReplyDeleteLOL @ "What the duck?"
As long as you are okay with actively foiling Marvin’s plans, then you have to play this! (Though if you don’t already have an N64, with the total cost investment, you ***coughcoughcough***mightwanttotryemulation***coughcoughcough)
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