Garfield: A Week of Garfield

The impassible point.Game Plot: The official title of the game is A Week of Garfield: Garfield. Redundant, but indeed, effective. I find the repetition of the word "Garfield" very familiar and inviting. The title screen is complete with the instantly recognizable "Garfield" font and the ubiquitous "press start" command everybody has grown to associate with Garfield. Then that crazy, lazy cat comes a hustlin' in stage left and stops. Quite the entrance! His boy Odie comes in stage right, fashionably late, and bumps into Garfield only to turn around in idiotic routine and wander off. The animation is key here. How Garfield's lazy old eyelids suddenly pop open in surprise as Odie runs off was just perfect. Seeing both of Odie's pupils randomly (and independently) moving and tongue lolling just made me scream "Garfield!!!" until I was blue in the face.

However, the fun doesn't stop there! When odie makes his grand exit, Garfield inquires heartily with a speech, um, box (complete with orange and blue border), that reads "WHERE ARE YOU GOING ODIE?" I like it! They cut the crap and get right down to business! Lazy business. After Garfield goes a hustlin' off stage right to pursue his right hand man, I waited around assuming that Jon and the gang would make special cameos a la the Super Mario Bros. 3 opening. Boy, was I wrong. The little Garfield / Odie vignette just kept looping until I realized that Odie's sprite was about one third the size of Garfield's. Perhaps the raging Japanese lunatic decided this was artistic, perhaps so not to draw attention from the protagonist.

"How could we ever NOT notice Garfield?" you're probably asking yourself, "He's so lazy!"

Weapons: He's not lazy for long, kiddies. With my wacky Sidewinder X-TREME controller in hand (I think that's what it's called) I was ready to embark on my Journey into A Week of Garfield: Garfield. I hit start and wow, did the action start! Lazy old Garfield was just chilling in, I guess it's the kitchen, heavy eyelids and pimp-like posture intact, but when I started moving, holy moley! Those lids popped right open! Left and right make the lazy cat go a hustlin' in the respective directions, while up makes him stretch (or bear his throat to attackers, I can't decide) and down makes him duck. While ducking, you can make him crawl, just like a real cat! Except, this ain't no ordinary cat! This is Garfield, and he lets you know it by staring right at you while in the down position. Now that I think about it, he also judges you amiably (it looks risky, but you might win) when he jumps. It's the A button makes him jump, and he jumps quite nicely, I must say, but then the shit hits the fan the moment one depresses the B button, adjacent to our good friend A. Garfield's "Super Lazy Kicky fast Kick" is by far the lamest video game attack maneuver I have ever witnessed. The animation, however, is spectacular! The raging Japanese lunatic really wants to let you know how lazy Garfield is! Garfield puts SO much effort into kicking, the look on his face seems to say "don't fuck with Garfield."

A table every six feet!Enemies: The only problem with such unchecked aggression is that it gets Garfield into fights with all the frogs, mice, spiders and unidentifiables in Jon's house. That's it. Nothing remotely interesting, except that there are frogs, mice, spiders and unidentifiables in Jon's house.

Speaking of the house, It is pretty damn wacky. The man has a kitchen table every five feet not to mention wardrobe after wardrobe after dresser after various unidentifiable pieces of furniture. I also have trouble grasping the concept of this unique find. First off, our crazy, lazy hero starts with no power, so (what I gathered) he must shit out icons of coffee and milk in order to gain enough power to defeat the aforementioned household minions. It certainly is a week of Garfield, as the "MON" label on the status bar right next to "POINT" would indicate that it is the start of a harrowing week of frog, mouse, slug, and spider clean up! Maybe Jon went away? More likely, he thought he didn't want to be in this gum-on-bottom-of-shoe-only-to-step-in-shit-and-slip-on-puke-and-crack-skull-open-and-piss-himself quality situation of his kitchen.

Number of Levels: Who knows? Presumably seven, due to the "week" theme. More like weak. I didn't make it all that far (keep reading).

Number of Bosses: Think about everything you just read. Garfield is too LAZY to fight bosses, let alone frogs, mice, spiders and unidentifiables.

Defining Moment: A Week of Garfield: Garfield is a spectacular journey of roughly fifty seconds because I turned it off to type this. If you ever pass the second spider, call me. It definitely deserves a comfy spot here in ROM Pit, to whither away and die with other licenses gone wrong such as Transformers. Play it only for shits and giggles, and by the way, you only get one life, and there is only one song. Enjoy!

Each category in the rating system is based out of a possible -10 score (-10 being the worst). The overall score is based out of a possible -50 score (-50 being the worst).

– Chinese Dynamo (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)