Earthworm Jim

Story

How Do You Play?

Basic gameplay

Planets

•  New Junk City:  The first level of the game, New Junk City immediately makes no
  

   Please, sir, I'm but a mere cow...
  bones about making sure the player understands exactly how odd the game will be. Immediately, the sight of the planet is a large city made of garbage, and a few steps to the right will lead the player to the famous 'cow' sequence, where a cow must be launched into space in order for the player to continue. This is a very straightforward level, though there are areas where the floor is covered in piles of tires, causing Jim to be quite bouncy when he stands on them. The main enemies in this area are crows and Fifi, a small dog that looks more like living steel wool. They can be dispatched with a single head-whip (does Jim ever get whiplash...?), so it may be best to save ammo for more difficult enemies, such as the garbage robot who serves as a mid-level boss. Wheels as legs and arms, a garbage can as a body and a headlight for...well, a head, the robot goes between stamping the ground to drop saxophones on you or getting into car mode, charging around, and spitting anvils at the player. The boss, Chuck, is an obese garbageman, suspended above the ground. Shooting him causes him to do nothing but make armpit fart noises, and whipping him will cause him to belch fish at you. Knock the boxes he sends your way onto the spring and duck the fish he belches until victory!
• Andy Asteroids?: Rather than Jim magically manifesting himself to a new planet, the
  

   IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL! WHEEE!
  game gives direct control of Jim as he flies through an asteroid belt/wormhole in a race against his rival, Psy-Crow, in beautiful, beautiful Mode 7/ Blast Processing. The level is on rails, with 3 types of collectibles scattered through the area: the bubble (collect 50 for an extra continue!), the shield bubble (makes a shield to protect Jim!), and the turbo bubble (it's a bubble that makes you turbo!). Ramming into Psy-Crow knocks him and slows him down, though Jim is unaffected, and hitting an asteroid is a large detriment to Jim. The level is, first and foremost, a race. Beat Psy-Crow and the next level immediately opens up. Lose, though, and a different level loads up as a punishment for your failure.
• Psy-Crow: As a punishment for being terrible at avoiding asteroids, the player must go
  

   MY WORST NIGHTMARES HAVE MANIFESTED THEMSELVES INTO FLESH!
  up against Psy-Crow, though truly, this fight isn't terribly difficult. Psy-Crow mostly flies at the top of the level and shoots hooks at Jim and tries to ram him. To defeat him, all it takes is a few rounds into him (making him go dizzy) and then whipping him as he falls to the ground. Each successive round of the level gets more difficult (so later Andy Asteroids losses results in longer fights). Psy-Crow is never truly defeated, but merely gives up and flies away after enough hits. After winning this battle, Jim gets on his pocket-rocket and flies away. After this random planet, Jim is not forced to repeat the race levels, and instead continues on as he was.
• What The Heck?: This level is, for all intents and purposes, planet Hell. This level is
  

   Dante never described such terror...
  chock full of horrors one would expect from hell: Landscape that looks like it's melting, as though magma flows over it readily; bursts of scalding hot gas; shadow monsters with huge teeth that bite at the precious flesh of Jim's head; insurance salesmen. INVINCIBLE insurance salesmen. Even more straightforward than New Junk City in terms of platforming, What The Heck may be one of the funniest and most memorable levels nonetheless. The background music, for example, starts as the
  
  

   More like evil the RAT
  terrifying Night on Bald Mountain, then cuts off with a record scratch and starts into elevator music, Evil the Cat dancing in the background the whole time. Though said shadow monsters DO exist, they take  a bit of a shafting when compared to other enemies, like the aforementioned insurance salesmen. They can be defeated by a Mega Blaster shot, but why waste one? This level also features giant green gems which can be stood on and used as an elevator, or a others that must be ran on to teleport. One takes Jim to the midlevel snowman boss, who appears right under Jim and launches fireballs with his mouth. The final boss of the level is Evil the Cat, a two phase battle. The first just involves the player dodging attacks, as Evil has stolen his suit. The attacks eventually melt the platform that Evil is on and Jim gets his suit back. The next phase involves Jim standing in a dark room. The shape of Evil flies out at hm and he must attack it. 9 attacks have to be warded off (one for each cat's life), and each flies off as a little ghost with a number on it. Defeating all nine sends Jim off on his pocket rocket again, onto the next level.
• Down the Tubes: A juxtaposition to the hot and fiery level from before, Down the Tubes is a cool, water filled level in which cats roam around in underwater pipes and strange gas-filled meteorites hover around like they own the place. Jim actually can't defeat most of the enemies in this level, so it winds up being more of a 'stealth' game in terms of
  

   YAY this part's hard!
  avoiding being captured by the enemies. The small, cramped quarters of the underwater tubes make this a bit of a difficult proposition, but there's spots to hang above the large cats so that they can't catch you (they punch rather hard if they do). The small cats can merely be jumped over. The game does grant you control of a giant hamster, though, allowing the player to ride it through the tubes and pressing the attack button makes it take a giant bite out of whatever's in front of it (especially if the small cats are in front of it). These parts of the level are fairly mild, but the game then puts Jim in a detachable glass dome that he must navigate through a labyrinth of sharp rocks. The dome only has a finite amount of air AND hits before it breaks and Jim dies. The controls here are not direct, but work with a propulsion system going off and firing Jim in the direction they're pointing. It's very imprecise and difficult to control, though, so the second, longer part of the tube race is the bane of many people's existence. Possibly realizing how terribly difficult this part was to get through, the boss, Bob the Killer Goldfish, is one of the easiest bosses in the game, requiring that Jim merely knock over his goldfish bowl to defeat him.
• Snot a Problem: Bungee-cord fighting with an enemy is an underutilized idea in
  

   This is why you don't pick your nose.
  gaming, which is why a great shout of praise is given for this level. It's very basic: On a level made of mucus, Jim goes 3 rounds against Major Mucus, a mucus man, bungee jumping from the top of a cliff to the mucus puddle below, where a mucus monster resides and snaps at Jim when he reaches the end of his cord. The game allows you to spin into Major Mucus, and the goal is to get his cord to snap by ramming him against a wall. Be warned that taking too long results in your rope snapping instead, and hitting the wall can take your cord one step closer to snapping. There is no other goal, no collectibles, nothing: just a worm vs snot bungee to the death.
• Level 5: The aptly named Level 5, this is the 5th level in the game. It takes place inside a giant factory owned by Professor Monkey-For-A-Head, the man who made the space suit Jim is in and, in the end, resulted in Jim becoming the hero he is now. Being a factory, it's jam packed with gratuitous amounts of large machinery and conveyor belts to ride on. The area concludes a few interesting set pieces, such as a ride inside a cage that takes you to areas where things in bubbles fly out to attack Jim (who must be quick with a blaster, lest he get destroyed). Enemies include brains. Brains of two main types: floor and flying. Floor brains just kind of jump around, but flying ones have eyes and turn into a mass of worms when destroyed (and the worms can hurt you too, yes). The level
  

   I ain't got no boooody...
  is very heavy in platforming, where Jim is constantly climbing higher into the level, even having to jump while in the platforms as certain ones release an electric shock when stood on. The Professor pops in during the level, but doesn't pose much of a threat. In the first area of the level, there's a hidden passage to the level "Who Turned Out the Lights", essentially a maze in the dark where all that can be seen are the character's eyes, save a few spots, and an accompaniment of excellent ragtime piano (this level is short, so it gets crammed in here). The second part of this level involves Jim's head being separated from his body at times, and there are of course a few spots where the body remains on a conveyor and Jim must race it before it falls off a cliff. Part three of the level adds onto the first two, with the Professor finally becoming a threat (he throws chemicals at you). The boss here is a robot chicken, who cannot be harmed directly. Jim must hit a target that drops bombs on the chicken, causing the chicken to explode and Jim to teleport away and enter a free-fall battle with the chicken, where his blaster now does damage. Defeating it here mainly requires shooting at it continuously until it explodes. Those hoping for a final showdown with The Professor, then, it doesn't happen here.
• For Pete's Sake: Peter Puppy, Jim's good friend, needs to be taken for a walk. However, Peter Puppy also has terrible anger issues. When he gets upset, he morphs from once adorable doggy to a demonic space-dog who picks Jim up and deposits him
  

   PETER EET JIMZ HED!
  at the last checkpoint. The level where Peter must be walked would be insane even without being an escort mission. There are small robots that come and attack, little UFOs, tentacle vines that squeeze Jim and meteor attacks, as well as ravines to get over. Peter is not a smart puppy, though, and Jim must command him what to do. A whip makes Peter leap into the air and a shot makes him duck: using these commands, you must lead Peter past the enemies, over the ravines, and safely back to his kennel. It's a short level, but very difficult, though there are bosses. Instead, there's a MORE difficult path that the suicidal may take after Peter's first kennel is passed, and the second kennel is the true end (though there's no main difference between the events of the game if another path is changed). Take note: that elusive cow flies by again through the background. Be sure to wave hello!
• Intestinal Distress: Perhaps one of the duller levels in the game, Intestinal Distress is
  

   Yes, this really IS happening.
  set inside a large, unidentified organ of a large, unidentified thing. Fish with propellers on their backs float rather harmlessly (unless they are ran into) and strange ramps of...something brown roll down intestinal ramps periodically. The floating gaseous rocks from Down the Tubes return here, as well. The level is otherwise very straighforward: run along the path in front of you and don't die until you reach Doctor Duodenum. The doctor is a generally neat and tidy guy, but he also has a habit of spitting out bile from his bodily orifices. The battle consists of him trying to jump on Jim, shooting bile when he lands, and then exploding when defeated. A quick level, the soundtrack is still rather good, reminiscent (strangely) of a horror movie, particularly Psycho at a few points.
• Buttville: A misnomer (as it looks nothing LIKE a butt), this is the final area of the game. Needlessly cruel, the game starts Jim at the top and he has to fall to the bottom, through a maze of cruel, cruel spikes with no safe place to stand the whole way down. Careful
  

   Someone's about to die.
• control is needed here, as is good use of the helicopter head, so that Jim can take as little damage as possible. Once through this, players find themselves in a slightly Giger-looking area full of spikes, weird little termite things that swarm from hives, little monsters that look to be made of mucus (and the cow flies by, show some hospitality!), centipede things that pop out of walls and cut you in half (that's right, instant death!), and a crazy background that flashes lightning. Part of the level actually takes place ON Queen Slug-for-a-Butt, too, leading up to the final showdown with her. Actually, her butt must even be defeated
  

   A summary of life.
  . It's a midlevel boss, where it releases stuff at you, and you are on a conveyor that is moving towards a wall of spikes. It's pretty easy, provided you hold your footing against the spikes. In the final showdown with the queen, Jim rides a platform made of mucus that hovers around her. She wields a magic wand and attacks with it by releasing the little termite things, though a constant stream of attacks will cause her to not be able to and make her flinch. When she finally explodes, Jim continues on to find the Princess, standing there and making Jim turn into a Tex Avery cartoon. Then the cow crushes her. The end.

Controls

• B is to jump; pressing it repeatedly makes Jim's head spin in a helicopter motion
• A is to use Jim's head like a whip
• Y is to use the blaster
• Directional pad is to move

• Hold B to accelerate the Pocket Rocket
• Directional pad is to steer from left to right
• If Jim were to find a shield, then A is to activate it

• Directional pad is to steer the water jets
• B is to accelarate the water jets

• Directional pad controls Jim; left and right to move Jim left and right respectively, and up and down to move Jim up and down respectively
• B is to ram into things, whether it be Major Mucus or the walls

Trivia and Media

• The music for the Earthworm Jim games was composed by Tommy Talarico, one of the greats of videogame music. 
  
• In the TV show of Earthworm Jim, the voice of Jim was Dan Castellaneta who also dons the voice of Homer Simpson of The Simpsons TV series.
• In 2008 the game was added to screwattacks video game vault.
• In 2007 It was announced that an all new Earthworm Jim would be release on Playstation portable. ( "on hold")
• In 2007 It was announced that an Earthworm Jim movie was in the works. 
• The Genesis vrsion of Earthworm Jim is on the Virtual Console 
• On August 14th, for the Genesis 20th birthday, Sega announced a poll for the fans to decide which Genesis game should be added to the Vintage Collection on Xbox Live. Earthworm Jim was one of those choices, but was taken down 
• A new Earthworm Jim game is in the works for Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, and WiiWare