Daffy Duck In Hollywood (Psionic Systems 1995)

When Yosemite Sam arrives home one day and finds his entire golden movie award collection missing there is only one choice of duck detective for the case. The thief demands a cool million in cash for the return of the stolen goods and has covered his tracks with dynamite to shake off any would be heroes. All this doesn't faze Daffy though and he must now travel through the sets of famous Hollywood movies, defusing dynamite and getting back the awards.

This is Daffy's first foray on the Mega Drive (as far as I know) and it's no surprise that he stars in a platform game. There is a bit of a twist though. Instead of simply having to reach the exit you have 99 seconds for each segment of the level during which you have to find all the dynamite hidden around the level and then make a dash for the exit. Initially this is quite straightforward but later levels has them hidden in some devious places and the levels can be quite maze like. There are six levels, each split into three sub-levels which are further divided into smaller segments. There are no passwords or save feature so you have to complete the game in one go.

Levels are pretty varied and there are some nice settings like Duck Dodgers in the 34th century and Assault and Pepper. The latter is particularly cool as you trade in your gun for some melee attacks such as punches and flying kicks. Even your jump turns into a cool somersault. Small touches like this makes the game very interesting visually and the tons of animations give the game a polished look. Levels are colorful and enemy designs straight out of a cartoon. It's a pity that you face off against the same boss every time as there was scope for some really cool bosses. The game is more about the puzzle solving of finding all the hidden dynamite so this is not really an issue though.

Sounds are pretty average with no tunes really standing out as excellent. None of the tunes are irritating fortunately although a few sound a bit out of places and a bit more variety would have been nice. The sound effects are pretty good with some nice yelps and screams from Daffy. Actions are handled with three buttons, shoot, jump and run. Seeing as time is of the essence you'll be using that last one quite a bit. Controls are responsive but felt a bit stiff at times to me.

If you like Daffy then you should dig this game but it's not going to convert non-platform fans to the genre. Although it has some original touches it's still pretty much straightforward platforming and as such isn't really going to be something you'll come back to once completed. There is the extra incentive of finding all the awards but it would have been cool if there were records for fastest level completion. You still have your highscore table to aim for but with only six levels and three difficulty settings you shouldn't have any problems.

 [8/10]