RRR: Bubsy 3D (PSX)

What I thought back during release….

One of the worst games to have ever been released. Controls are horribly flawed and it looks absolutely dreadful. Star Fox has more believable models than this game and probably better texture. Quite possibly one of the worst games I have ever played to date. Bubsy 3D is so bad, that I honestly never played a good portion of the game, mainly because it was virtually unplayable. From stiff jumping, to absurd movements all around. As a whole, I can’t name even one title worse than Bubsy 3D, and I’ve played some duds (Fantastic Four PSX, Seicross NES, Urban Champion NES).  Bubsy 3D is poster child of “lack of quality control”, as well as a few other words, but they are all four lettered, and as much as it describes Bubsy 3D, I won’t use them.

Rating Then: 2.5

Is he falling? Is he hanging on? Is he jumping? Or is this an optical illusion, and everything is ground level?

What I think years later….

So instead of a game I thought was awesome, or a game that disappointed me big time, I’ll be visiting a game that just plain sucked. Bubsy 3D is not always the first title that pops into someones head right away when they think “horrible, travesty of a game”. From everything I remember, it should be at the top of everyone’s list. With absolutely no redeeming quality, you’d be hard pressed to find any title that would come close to this abomination. But it’s been several years since I played this one, and by played, I mean cried like a little girl from the torture. Was Bubsy 3D a victim of my over criticism? Is it humanly possible that I might find some sort of enjoyment from this game?

Lets start with load times. PSX games were based off 2x CD ROM technology, so there’s some load times in every game. Bubsy 3D is much different though. Load times were built long enough to graduate college in between loads. So after waiting for what seems like a few months, you finally get into the game. Man, I forgot how disgustingly bad this game looked. Bubsy himself looks passable, and it seems like 90% of the polygon count went to creating him. Bubsy’s animations range from decent enough (standing/idle animations) to just horrible (4 frame run animation). Enemies look down right sad, almost like Looney Tunes rejects. There’s no detail anywhere, just slightly different shadings to make the world seem like it has a shape. Really, what kind of world is Bubsy supposed to be in? There’s no definition to anything. The only way I can tell that there’s an underwater area is the fact that the textures get darker when you go into stage that’s set “underwater”. Sometimes you see what appears to be grass tile, but right next to it, there’s a bright orange tile, like a giant chess board.

That’s what the experience of Bubsy 3D as a whole reminds me of — Chess. You (the pawn) blindingly spending money to purchase this from the retailer (the Crook) and end up running to a church for a consult (from the bishop) to repent for supporting Accolade (the king) and to keep you from punching yourself in the mouth until you spit your teeth out (the checkmate).

So far, this is worse than what I remembered.

I bet if I didn't tell you this was an underwater screen cap, you wouldn't have ever known.

Can’t say much about the audio. Mostly because its sparse and silly. The music playing through the very first stages sound like a MIDI remix of the Addams Family theme song. Sound effects are hollow and over emphasized. Picking up these little atom things give an annoying punch and chime sound. All in all though, you don’t hear much of anything at any given time. The music goes from audible, to mute, then loops back its Addams Family bit. Sounds around you only come from item collections, stomping enemies, getting hit and landing from a jump. All simple Sally stuff. I read that there’s actual voice in the game, but either my copy is defective (hard to be when the game its self is already defective) or I can’t make out the voices through the aboundance of silence and Addams Family theme remixed.

I remembered two very distinct flaws to Bubsy 3D – visuals and controls. Visually, it looks worse than I remember, and I remember it looking like a wall painted orange and drying slowly. Control wise though….I really don’t know where to begin with this. Broken isn’t the right word, and neither is craptacular. Basically, Bubsy 3D’s controls just plain suck. You’ll be hard pressed to find anything that controls worse than this does. First, there’s no camera control. Physically turning yourself around moves the camera with you. Physically turning around is also very sluggish. Jumping is very floaty, almost reminiscent of Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros. 2 but less exaggeration. This can really mess with your platform jumping.

Hey look! They made "grass" on the ground, but not one cloud in the sky.

But what messes you up more with platform jumping, hell, what messes you up while playing the game at all, is actually moving Bubsy around. This was one of the reasons I could barely play more than 2 minutes at a time, and a chore to even do this RRR. Tap down and you baby hop back. Hold down for over a second and you begin to walk backwards. Running straight ahead is simple enough, but trying to turn while running is like physically pushing Deep Space Nine to the left while it’s going forward. There is no way to have forward progress and turn at all. This breaks the game more than it already is, because there’s some platforming elements to Bubsy 3D, and you have to turn what should be faster paced traveling on narrow platforms, into long, painful slow steps, slow turns while stationary. It’s weird, cause I remember Bubsy on the Sega Genesis being much faster paced, and now with Bubsy 3D, a parked car can move faster through this game than Bubsy himself.

When you jump, the camera pans into an almost overhead view to show where you’re landing. Maybe it was to help ease the fact that you have no camera control, and you can see where you can land, but the jumps are so floaty and controls are too crappy, that its counter intuitive. Mix in the fact that you can’t see some platforms below and ahead of you because of the lack of camera controls. The result is the most literal “leap of faith” ever seen. It’s almost 50/50 that you’d miss the platform below, but lets be honest, it’s not 50/50. There’s a 50% chance you’ll miss, 1% chance you’ll make it, and 49% chance you’re a moron for even trying more than twice.

Worst 3D platformer controls ever + narrow platforms + enemy at the end of platform = controller lodged into the wall.

It’s a life or death struggle to find something positive to say about Bubsy 3D. I can think of three good things to say about this game, though even these three are a bit of a stretch to call “positive”:

1. The game turns off.
2. It’s got a black bottom like other PSX games, and those look neat.
3. The overwhelming comedy from the image below :

GET IT?! It's PAUSED....and it says "PAWS" instead! Cause he's got PAWS! Ahh....shoot me.

Easily one of the top three worst games I have ever had to play. Why I even thought that time would change my views for the better on Bubsy 3D, I dunno. But this is bar none the second worst PSX game I have ever played (I had the unfortunate chance to play Cosmic Race) and not only is it bad for it’s time, not only was it bad when I first played it years ago, but it’s even worse now! If you love horror movies, Bubsy 3D is an interactive gorefest, one that will make you try to decapitate yourself with the game disc.

Rating Now: 0.5