The Adventures of Willy Beamish

The Good
Willy Beamishes most impressive feat at the time of it's release was it's hand-drawn, cartoon-styled characters. Gone were Sierra's traditional blurry rotoscoped characters, in their place were characters that looked like they were created by Disney(okay, maybe not Disney, but Don Bluth or Ralph Bakshi).

Combined with a great story and inventive sequences, Will Beamish is fondly remembered as one of the most innovative of Sierra/Dynamix's adventure games.

The Bad
The game was certainly difficult the first time through, with some of the end-game puzzles maddeningly hard(partly due to bugs). But the game was fairly linear, so if you had beat the game once, you could breeze through it a second time in only an hour or two.

The Bottom Line
A worthy edition to any avid adventure gamers collection. Get the CD release for a full-talkie version of the game.

The Good
Graphic adventure games were one of the favorite type of video games, although they tended to be more common on computers then home consoles. One of the giants within this genre was fine folks of Sierra.

Taking advantage of the CD-ROM format, this great computer adventure game is made ever cooler with an, amazingly, talented crew of voice actors (especially the narrator) and a few other good changes (i.e. the ability to actually play the game in Willy's bedroom and to save your progress).

The Bad
Two of the major problems are mostly the fault of Sega itself for failing to make the Sega CD into a proper, or even halfway decent, upgrade.

First, the cartoon quality artwork and animation had to be cut down from the PC's 256 colors to the Sega CD's 64. Second, the Sega CD edition of the game also suffers from very slow loading times (hence the ability to manipulate Laser Balls while you wait).

Minor problems: It would have be nice if an option existed to get text and or voice.

The Bottom Line
The Adventures of Willy Bemish is a great graphic adventure game and I truely wish it was redesigned for Windows XP or one of the modern video game systems.

Yet, adventure games mean solving, often, complex puzzles, which may seem dull if you simply want to blast your way out of any given situation.

You need to be willing, even eager, to interact with an assortment of interesting people (often with a bit of innuendo and satire) and simply experiment and explore the environment.

The Good
The Adventures of Willy Beamish features some amazing, cartoon-inspired graphics, music, sound effects, a witty sense of social commentary, pop culture references and slapstick humor.

The story and character development is also quite impressive for an early 1990s video game.

Willy is a typical Generation Y preteen from the suburbs who plans on winning a video game championship this summer. To do so he has to stay out of trouble, or at least not get caught, and solve plenty of inventory based puzzles.

As the plot thickens, Willy and his friends participate in various shenanigans, the plumbers go on strike, and Willy's dad finds out that his boss has some unpleasant plans for the community.

Interestingly enough, this edition of the game, actually lets you play a mini video game in Willy's room.

The Bad
In making the jump from the PC CD-ROM to the "Next Level" Sega CD system, obvious sacrifice had to be made.

The Sega CD couldn't match the standard 256 colors of the PC, which means that Willy, and his cartoon universe, has a slightly washed out and less detailed look on the Sega system.

Certain character frames of animations were deleted in the Sega CD edition, and the game suffers from some of the worst loading time on a Sega CD game. I guess Sega CD's can store les memory then a CD for a computer.

The Sega CD also was noticeable slower then a standard PC computer, because just about anything you attempt to do in the Sega CD edition comes with its own loading pause.

I say, "attempt" because certain early editions of this Sega CD game were known to totally freeze up.

Beyond these technical faults, some of which may have been unavoidable for the game's designers, it is slightly inappropriate to label this a kid's game.

I would say that it's more of a PG/PG-13 type of video game, although the Sega CD edition came out prior to the establishment of a formal age classification for games.

Granted, some of the game's mild sexual innuendos may be missed by the younger kids, but the the frog is named, "Horny", one of the items you collect is a "nudie calendar" and Willy refers to a New Age, bouncer as a "tinkerbell".

Similarly, I am not sure how many kids will be able to fully appreciate some of the, well, er, um...."more dated" social and political commentary in the game.

The Bottom Line
The Adventures Of Willy Bemish for the Sega CD is not a perfect port of the PC CD game, but it is still an enjoyable adventure, seen through the eyes of a "typical" American boy. This is one adventure game that would do well with a re-release.