Hey everyone, and welcome to “The Ten Reasons”, where I discuss ten reasons why I like or dislike a game. This month, I’m going to discuss The Adventures of Willy Beamish. But first of all, let me give you some backstory as to why I’m glad to have finally played this game.
Backstory: Back in 2005, an anonymous person randomly sent me a link to GameCola. I decided to check out the link, and I read the magazine—specifically, Travis’ review of Willy Beamish. Back then, GameCola ran a column called “Free Stuff for Feedback”, in which they gave away free things to a randomly-selected person who gave them feedback. That month, they gave away four Spice Girls videos. As you can see from the next month’s Submissions page, I wrote in, and I ended up winning the Spice Girls tapes. So, thanks to this game, I won four Spice Girl videotapes.
Recently, I finally got my hands on a copy of the game, after wanting to play it for over two years. Needless to say, I was completely thrilled. So completely thrilled that I took extra time this month to give you a special bonus feature: the first two reasons contain ACTUAL VIDEO FOOTAGE OF THE GAME! Enjoy!
Reasons I Like The Adventures of Willy Beamish
1. Random Ninja Battle
2. The Slam Dunk Cola Song
A commercial for Slam Dunk Cola runs on the TV in this game. I happen to think it’s a rocking commercial, and, if this ad really did run on TV, I’d buy a whole case of Slam Dunk Cola. In fact, I sang along to the commercial a couple of times, and the song got stuck in my head, even though, when you watch the video, there is no actual song. That’s just how cool it is.
Watch the Slam Dunk Cola commercial here:
3. Social Commentary!
During the opening portion of the game, you can examine a football poster on the wall, which tells you the above information.
Isn’t that a completely accurate social commentary? Learn from this, kids: Professional football only leads to crime. Don’t join the NFL!
4. More Social Commentary!
Later on in the game, Willy is eating pizza with his friends when he gets a bad case of gas. He runs to the bathroom, where he meets up with Spider: a middle-school punk who smokes. And guess what? Spider wants to beat the crap out of Willy.
Fortunately, through a clever scheme, Willy cooks Spider’s goose. He hides the bathroom’s “No Smoking” sign, then directs him to the stall with a gas leak. Pretty soon…BOOM! Spider is killed in a gas explosion! That seems kind of extreme to me, but at least everyone learned a lesson: Don’t smoke.
5. Carmine
Carmine is a one-shot character who appears in detention with Willy. He’s supposed to be a punk kid, but you know what? I kinda like him. Too bad he didn’t show up later on in the game.
6. Gordon Beamish is Unemployed
On the first day of the game, Willy sits down to have dinner with his family. The dialogue here is amusing, with comedic gems like:
Tiffany: You know, Cliff’s father is a millionaire, and he’s not as old as Daddy. He made his fortune in women’s lingerie.
Willy: And I’ll bet he looks pretty cute in it, too!
But then Willy’s dad Gordon comes in with the bad news that he’s just been fired. The very next day, Gordon has grown an “I’m an unemployed bum” beard and is looking through the want ads. I laughed my ass off when I saw this. He’s really adapted to unemployment quickly, hasn’t he?
Reasons I Dislike The Adventures of Willy Beamish
7. The Voices
This picture was chosen randomly.
I checked just now, and do you know how many games I have that feature voice acting? One. Just one. So when it comes to voice acting in games, to me, it’s still kind of a new, cool experience, rather than a standard feature.
Now, Travis said in his review that the best part of this game is the voice acting. He was playing the Sega CD version, whereas I played the PC version. And do you know what? There’s no voice acting whatsoever in the PC version!!! That means that PC users are deprived of the best part of the game. And, like I said, voice acting is extra cool for me, so it DOUBLE SUCKS that I don’t get to hear any!
8. Ghost Beamish
At the beginning of the game, Willy gets to see the ghost of his dead grandfather, who says he’ll pop up every now and then to help you out. That sounds pretty cool, right? Darn right that’s pretty cool. But here’s the bad part: Grandpa Beamish doesn’t show up every now and then. In fact, I only saw him twice the entire game. What a major letdown.
9. Willy’s Family
Willy’s family is pretty great in this game, and the dinner/breakfast scenes are fantastic. Unfortunately, this all ends with breakfast on Day Two, and, from then on, Willy spends almost no time at home with his family, and all the coolness of the family goes to waste.
For example, on Day Three, Tiffany gets in a fight with her mom over Cliff, Tiffany’s boyfriend. The mom is mad because Cliff is a stupid, horny idiot. Tiffany gets mad, goes to the barber shop, and gets a mohawk. That’s right, Tiffany gets a freaking mohawk! Totally interesting, right?
But do you know what happens? Nothing. Willy’s adventures take over the plot, and we don’t get to see what happens with Tiffany next. In fact, we don’t even see Tiffany again. We don’t see anyone else in Willy’s family again either. When you wander around the house, it’s completely empty. Why did this game set up the family as so awesome in the first/second day, only to have them be virtually nonexistent on the third/fourth day? I’m disappointed.
10. The Model Train Room
In the attic of the Beamish house is a model train room that Willy’s dad set up. Seeing as Ghost Beamish is dressed like a train conductor, he probably helped set up the room also, but, if you look at the trains, all the credit goes to Willy’s dad. Weird.
The train room is designed as if someone who is COMPLETELY OBSESSED with trains set it up, as you can see from the picture. It’s half-interesting, but here’s the kicker: The train room never comes into play. You can beat this game without ever entering the train room. Why on earth is the train room in the game when it’s not important in the slightest?
Well, that’s it for this month, everyone! Did you see the pattern in the things I didn’t like about this game? It’s mostly stuff that seemed cool, but ended up being unimportant. But those things aside, the game is pretty rocking and definitely worth the four Spice Girls tapes. Thank you, Willy Beamish! And thank all of you for reading! See you next month with my coverage of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker!
