NES #43: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

 Developer: Imagineering

Publisher: THQ

Release Date: January 1992

 

In a way Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is the opposite of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. With Home Alone 2, Imagineering made a completely bonkers game out of a standard, boring kids movie. It’s a bad game, but killer suitcases and homicidal maids are more memorable than watching Kevin order too much room service and bugging an unusually boring Tim Curry. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is a true oddball. The original movie came out in 1978 and was basically a cult classic by design. It was made cheaply, savaged by critics, not liked that much more by audiences, but somehow spawned a minor media franchise including the Saturday morning cartoon this game was based on. The movies were not made with children in mind but turning weird non-kids' movies into cartoons wasn’t that unusual at the time. This is the same era that gave us Toxic Crusaders after all. The show was surprisingly strange and irreverent being mostly based on the more comedic sequel, Return of the Killer Tomatoes. It was full of meta humor and odd characters. I was hoping for a weird game to go along with the weird franchise. Well, this time around Imagineering made one of the most normal games they could possibly make. It’s so normal that it is a bit hard to write about. It’s the type of 8-bit platformer that I’ve played hundreds of times. Normal is not bad in itself, so does Attack of the Killer Tomatoes have anything to offer besides mild nostalgia?

Well, it’s not unpleasant to play at least. The controls are decent, and the graphics are fine. It’s not offensively terrible like certain other licensed NES titles. It’s just that there’s so little to get excited about. Most of the game is walking to the right and jumping on tomatoes. I know it’s accurate to the show, but there really are a lot of generic tomato enemies. Most of them are normal looking tomatoes that you just have to jump on once. Somehow this ends up being more difficult than it sounds, and I found myself frequently getting injured during my tomato stomping. There are some less common variations like bats and worms, but they don’t show up nearly as much as the normal mutated tomatoes. Every so often there will be a larger semi-boss, but they don’t add much to the experience. They mostly wander without much purpose, and some of them can be skipped entirely. The levels are somewhat maze-like, but all of the branching paths just lead to more tomatoes or various health restorers. None of the attempts at depth really work. Most of the time my attempts to collect more health just led to me getting hurt even more, and there’s just nothing else to find down all those branching paths.

 

It’s also a game that is stunningly short. I know length is relative in 8-bit games because they tend to be difficult and full of permadeath. Contra may be only about twenty minutes in length, but it will take many attempts for a player to get good enough to actually finish. Attack of The Killer Tomatoes is a fairly difficult game. It took me several attempts to progress past the sewer section. Still, the entire game only takes about eleven minutes. That’s just not enough for any amount of difficulty to justify. And those first couple levels are not fun enough to be played so many times. It is slightly longer than it appears, however, because the game has a fake-out ending. This is a fun meta-nod to the kooky source material that I approve of. I might have been a little annoyed if it was a longer game that I thought I had finally finished. Still, this clever trick doesn’t hide the briefness of the overall experience. The short length just makes it feel like another cheap cash-in.

 Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is yet another forgotten THQ game released after a Christmas season which saw many households upgrading to a 16-bit system. It came out with little fanfare while nobody was paying attention and never gained a cult following like some of the other THQ games. They just didn’t do a bad enough job to make a memorable game or a good enough job to make a decent one. I am putting it just a notch above Home Alone 2 because it is a better made game, and there is a chance that people might feel compelled to actually play it and not gawk it at. Still, that’s about as much good as I can say about Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. For a game made from such an interesting IP it sure doesn’t make much of an impression.

Overall Rank: 143/164

NES Rank: 39/43

NES Quality Percentage: 21/43 or 48.83%

(screenshots are from mobygames.com. I tried to take my own this time, but for some reason they didn't save. I'm still learning how to use my new computer.)