Looney Tunes: Back in Action

The Hunt is On!

NA release: 24th November 2003
EU release: 30th January 2004
JP release: N/A
Developer: Warthog Games
Publisher: EA, Warner Bors
NGC Magazine Score: 56%
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

Based on the live action hybrid film, this platformer doesn’t really follow the plot of the film, but rather uses its rough outline with similar locations and elements like a giant diamond. In this, the live action characters are removed and you’ll play as Bugs and Daffy while chasing around monkeys. Incidentally, the design of the monkeys reminds me a lot of Monekybone, a character from a Brendan Fraser film (who played one of the live action charts in Back in Action).

The game itself is a rather tedious platformer. You can swap between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Bugs can do a double jump and burrow into dirt, while Daffy has a feeble little flap. The camera is atrocious and loves to keep things out of view, making the game frustrating to play. At first it seems like the game is a challenge-based platformer, with all the collectables appearing to be optional stuff for bonuses.

Then, without warning, on the penultimate level, Bugs refuses to finish the level unless you collect every monkey, which requires finding all these collectables. There’s no gating of anything regarding monkeys before this, and you’ll need to scour each map to find everything you need – and the aforementioned camera becomes even more of a problem. And once you get past this, you don’t even play as Bugs or Daffy for the final boss – instead you play as Tweetie Pie in a minigame that doesn’t tell you the controls. I figured out that the right stick does something and managed to win by waggling both the sticks, but I still have no idea what the controls actually are.

There are a few minigames which are surprisingly difficult (due to bad controls), although one of them stands out – a game where you play as Wile E Coyote on a rocket dodging cars to catch the road runner. This minigame is far better than the main game, even if it is really simple and isn’t that much more advanced than an LCD game.

Poor

Anyone listening to you play will soon come to the conclusion that it’s the most irrigating game in the world. The music plinks about – but it’s the constant chatter of the Looney Tunes mob as you run around that just creates a cacophony of confusion. They’ve got the voice talent and boy are they going to use it.
Marcus Hawkins, NGC Magazine #90

Remake or remaster?

Only in a crazy Looney Tunes compilation.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to get Looney Tunes: Back in Action.