Earthworm Jim 2

This continues very nicely down the path the first one started. It has some incredibly varied levels. In one, you’re making sure things that are thrown bounce as they should and not drop on the ground, using what appears to be a giant marshmallow(!). There's a race where you have to take out a bunch of obstacles in your path. One has you flying in an isometric area where you'll encounter other flyers and be fired upon by catapults. At one point you're running around an area where everything is brunch themed… bacon, forks, eggs, salt shakers. If you enjoyed launching a cow, you'll be thrilled to know this time there's multiple, and you have to protect them from UFOs. One has a quiz which is wonderfully absurd in several of its answers - you honestly have to see it to believe it. It's rare that every single level is truly inspired and memorable, and yet, somehow, they manage that here. There are more weapons, and a bunch of the new ones are the kind of stuff you found yourself wanting in the first one, including a machine gun that shoots in a 90 degree arc instead of only one direction at a time. The music is really catchy. This is the kind of stuff you can sit and listen to independently of playing, though that will almost definitely make you want to go play it again. The sound design is excellent; there's so many little choices when it comes to that in this that are amazing. Like its predecessor, this was released when in order for a game to last long for the player, it had to be impossible to beat it until you played it almost all the way through several times to get good. Today, where we can save after each level, it does end up feeling kind of short compared to that one. There is a good balance between it being challenging and it being fun. It helps a lot that until you reach the very end you genuinely don't know what the game has left to throw at you - there's always something ridiculous coming up, and it is a joy to experience all of it. The ending is hilarious

I played this when I was eleven years old. It was one of the first video games I ever beat. This version is just as fun, even if it doesn't have Lorenzen's Soil.