When the first game in the series had pitted our invertebrate hero against such unlikely felons as a bounty-hunting crow, a heap of rubbish and an evil cat named Evil, we weren't expecting anything close to sanity from the sequel. Suffice to say, Earthworm Jim 2 exceeded all our expectations, confronting the player with a boss battle so absolutely farcical that no arch-enemy has since come close.
One of the tougher bosses in the first game, Bob the Fish, returns at the end of the first level to continue his wave of finned tyranny, but this time around let's just say Bob isn't such a threat... Equipped with his trademark Power Suit, Jim negotiates the usual menagerie of beasties – as well as a horde of stair lift-bound old ladies and Bob's many guardians – to reach the end of the opening stage only to find his scaly foe lying in wait, literally a fish out of water, well almost. Protected by a mere glass sphere and several litres of water, the gilled villain doesn't stand a chance against our annelid hero. No fancy button combos or tricky patterns here – after the huge 'Fight!' prompt, Jim simply sidles up to the fish-bowl and plunges his hand into the liquid, snagging the wicked fish and swiftly swallows him whole. Simple? Yes. Anticlimactic? Perhaps. But in terms of surreal ingenuity, very little comes close to this mismatch of the century. Groovy.
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