Retro game review: Boogerman - A Pick and Flick Adventure (Sega Genesis)

retro-room (63)in #gaming • 8 years ago

Boogerman. Yup, this is a thing that happened.

Never has a game tried harder to appeal to gross 10 year olds who wipe boogers on each other and hold down their friends to fart on them. Kids love boogers and farts, right? So developer Interplay must have had a board meeting and decided “let’s just make a game full of boogers, burps and farts. Kids will love it!”

And thus Boogerman was born. So how is it?

In Boogerman, you play as the titular hero who must stop an evil scientist from transporting the Earth to Dimension-Xcrement (yes, its really called that.) The story really doesn’t matter and its as stupid as you’d expect.

Boogerman is a fairly typical 16-bit 2D platformer that’s in the vein of other games of the era like Earthworm Jim, where you guide your hero through level after level, which are broken up into several sub-stages each. In all, there are about 20 levels in this adventure.

Boogerman has a variety of attacks available to him, which are powered by his snot meter and gas meter. The snot meter is your standard ammo, which has our hero flicking boogers at enemies. Boogers travel in an arc, so you need to position yourself properly for it to hit baddies. The gas meter is your stronger attacks that can be charged up for maximum damage. Standing while powering up your gas attack produces a powerful burp, while squatting when charging this attack unleashes a super fart.

Yeah, this is a thing.

Throughout the levels, you’ll find items to refill your snot and gas meters. Additionally, a milk powerup changes your booger to a loogie. The loogie travels straight, making it easier for your standard attack to hit enemies. A spicy pepper powerup gives you both flaming burps and farts as well as letting you “fly-fart” with the power of flatulent propulsion.

Again yes, this is a thing. A thing that dozens of game developers spent months working on.

The last powerup is a cape that allows Boogerman to take additional damage before dying. These are very important to find because he’s a big target and you’ll die quickly without one.

Each sub-stage is fairly large and scrolls vertically and horizontally, giving you lots of places to explore for more powerups and secrets. This leads to the dreaded “2D maze” that plagued many games of the early 90’s, where you have to traverse a stage that scrolls both horizontally and vertically, and finding your way can sometimes be frustrating.

And the end of each of the main levels is a well-drawn and beautifully animated boss, which are extremely challenging. Defeat them and you’ll move on to the next area.

The game is a fair challenge throughout, but bosses seem to really crank up the difficulty level. Boogerman has a large hitbox and isn’t a terribly nimble character to control, so while navigating stages is fine, more nuance in the controls would have made these frustrating boss battles more fun and less frustrating.

Surprisingly, Boogerman is a gorgeous game considering its filled with gross and disgusting content. Both our hero and enemies are extremely well animated, and might be some of the best illustrated and animated characters of the 16-bit generation. I was very impressed with the fluidity and expressiveness of this game’s animation. Like I said, character sprites are highly detailed and have a vibrant, cartoony look. Backgrounds and stages are also highly detailed and vibrantly colorful. This is simply one of the best looking games on the Genesis.

Music and sound are no slouch either. The game throws some catchy tunes at you through the levels and while not reaching “I’d listen to this in my car in 2018” status, they’re enjoyable. Sound effects are fantastics, with all of the nasty bodily functions clearly represented. In addition there are a good number of digitized voice samples that bring the characters to life. I’ll admit, when I saw Boogerman strike a pose and exclaim “BOOGER!” with an upraised arm, I chuckled at that. And then instantly felt shame for laughing at it.

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I walked away impressed with Boogerman. A game aimed at grossing out pre-teens is actually a solidly designed game with an outstanding presentation. At under $20 for the cart and just a bit more for the whole package, its a solid buy for Genesis fans who want this conversation piece in their collection.

The game was also released on the Super Nintendo a year later, but it fetches a much higher price, at about $50 loose and over $150 for a complete game. If you want to take the challenge, stick with the Genesis version unless you’re a SNES completionist.