Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal

Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal

released on Oct 09, 2007

Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal

released on Oct 09, 2007

Tag-team with the Tunes in the fight for their lives! Wield a major arsenal of ACME weapons as the tunes team-up to hunt down the mad scientist, chasing him through exotic locals from the past, present and future.Unite Bugs, Taz, Daffy, Marvin and more in a co-operative whack-and-smash romp through time - including online play!Melee and projectile weapons: Each character's weapon/melee skills can power up three times on the fly as you go.Vehicle Based Action: Race a jet scooter across an alien environment or wage battle on top of a giant flying Pterodactyl...the possibilities are endless!Travel to various locations such as Camelot, Ancient Egypt, Mars, the Wild West and more!Top-notch voice talent provides the characters with their classic voices and an authentic Looney Tunes slapstick adventure, while giving their look an updated, next-generation, modern edge.


Also in series

Galactic Taz Ball
Galactic Taz Ball
Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor
Looney Tunes: Cartoon Conductor
Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck
Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck
Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt
Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
Looney Tunes: Back in Action

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Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal tries to blend zany Looney Tunes humor with 3D action-adventure gameplay, but the result is a mess. The controls are clunky, the combat feels repetitive, and the chaotic environments are often confusing to navigate. While the occasional Acme-infused gadget might make you smile, the game lacks the charm and polish of the classic cartoons it's based on. Unless you're a diehard Looney Tunes fan, this is one adventure you can skip.

Now before I begin I just want to clarify this:
This is strictly my own opinion. If you disagree with me, more power to you. Just keep the comments civil and respectful.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to
GAME MODE: ON!

Now before I head on with what I have planned for October, I have enough free time to look at one more licensed game.
Turns out the game I have chosen was a bit of a mistake.

Starting off, I'm sure everybody's known about the Looney Tunes at this point. It's one of the most iconic multi-media franchises of all time and a real pioneer in the fields of animation and comedy.
The old cartoons had lovable characters, memorable quotes, hysterical set-pieces and an incredible everlasting appeal that has continued to inspire children and adults for generations.
For as much as they try out new iterations, there's no denying that the classic shorts are where it's at.

However, much like the Terminator, these wild toons haven't exactly the best luck when it comes to transitioning to video games.
Granted, this franchise has had a few more gems under it's belt but that doesn't mean that it isn't plagued by some stinkers out there and unfortunately, the subject of this review is one of them.

Looney Tunes: Acme Arsenal, developed by Redtribe and published by Warner Bros. Games, is a 2007 action-platformer released for the Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii and the PlayStation 2 and received generally-unfavorable reviews with many bashing the game for it's lack of fun factor and backwards-ass gameplay. Suffice to say, I haven't heard many say nice things about it.
As for how I came across the game, I was at a friend's house sometime ago and I was browsing through his library for any PS2 titles to borrow and that's when I took one look at this and included it in the pile out of curiosity. Really, the only things I know about the game after taking it home is that it's an action-platformer and the reviews were poor to say the least. That's it. I have no idea what the gameplay is like, what the story is like or if it's even playable. I pretty much went into it blind and after having finished it today.... I honestly wish I was playing any of the Crazy Castle games instead.

I suppose I should just stop wasting time and get into the review already.
Alright then, time to strap in and pick apart the little mess known as Acme Arsenal...... More like Acme ASS-SININE!!!

STORY & CHARACTERIZATION:
The Looney Tunes crew have found out that the evil scientist, named Dr. Frankenbeans here, desires to rid them all and has conducted a plan to send his robotic minions throughout time to attack their ancestors.
Luckily, the Tunes manage to steal the plans and create their own time machine so they can go and foil Frankenbeans' plot before it's too late.

That's about as much plot as you're getting for a Looney Tunes game and to be fair, it's not a bad idea. Could be a fun little trip and can make for such fun callbacks to the classic shorts.
However, I can't say the same for the execution which is below-average at best and that's mostly down to it's humor. I dunno why but it just feels stale, not once getting a good laugh out of me. The slapstick is standard, the verbal jokes aren't anything special and the overall story is uneventful to say the least. We go through what is supposed to be this wild adventure only for it to turn out underwhelming, vague and, by the end, anti-climatic. I got more enjoyment out of Space Jam: A New Legacy than I did playing this crap.
Now to be fair, the best thing I can say about this game is that the voice cast is at least trying their best with the lackluster material they have to work with including the likes of Joe Alaskey, Jim Cummings, Maurice LaMarche and Bob Bergen. That being said, only a handful of the Tunes are present here including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Taz and Marvin the Martian being playable characters with the Road Runner, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Tweety only making appearances as NPCs but unfortunately, they weren't able to fit in the likes of Pepe LePew, Lola Bunny, Speedy Gonzales or Elmer Fudd anywhere and Wile E. Coyote is only playable in the PS2 version in a bonus vehicle-based level.
I will also say that while the FMV cutscenes aren't anything to write home about, they're at least decently-animated for the time and tried to keep true to the spirit of the cartoons.... That is, if they actually fucking played.
Oh yeah, just a fair warning, if any of you are planning on picking up the PS2 version of this game, make sure to switch the console's screen settings to either a 3:4 or 16:9 aspect ratio because if it's still set to full-screen, the cutscenes will not play at all. Even then, the occasional cutscene won't even load anyway. I've never had that happen to me with any other game on any console ever and it is such a bizarre design flaw that it baffles me how any kid back in 2007 is supposed to know that as well as how the console's configurations work. And yes, I know it's a nearly-sixteen year old game but even then, I've recently played games that were far older such as Simpsons: Road Rage and Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom and those titles still functioned properly as intended minus some slow loading screens in the former.

GAMEPLAY & CONTROLS:
You wanna know another design flaw? The first time you boot up the game, be sure to go to options to switch off the inverted camera controls so that it'll play like a normal game. However, be aware that every time you turn off the game and come back to your save file later, it doesn't actually save the settings so you have to keep configuring the camera controls every single fucking time you start the game. Who programmed this shit?! Honestly!
Oh well, who cares? At least the gameplay should be fun and rewarding, right?
Well, doc, you're dead wrong.
As stated before, Acme Arsenal is an action-platformer and it mixes beat-'em-up combat with light puzzle-solving and the occasional jumping sections. There's about twenty-one levels in total and disappointingly, all of them suck. What really breaks the game for me is that the level design is rather uninspired and not at all interesting. Sure, it uses locations often seen in the cartoons but they're programmed in a way that makes them not fun to traverse through and what makes it even worse is the control.
Not only is the camera barely-functional resulting in it getting stuck in places where you can't see shit but the combat itself is incredibly monotonous, stiff and boring. There's very few combos that you can use to fight your way through and only one or two of them is of any proper use because when you try to fight even the most standard of foes with standard attacks, they can take forever to defeat resulting in a tiresome experience. Not to mention, when enemies gang up on you, they can drain your health fast and that can get very annoying. You do get unlimited continues but even then, that doesn't stop the game from trying to piss you off because six times out of ten, you will respawn in the presence of enemies and they will immediately attack you as soon as you're able to play again. Again, I ask, who programmed this shit?!
Ah, but that's not it. There's also sections where you have to jump across platforms and various hazards but because the controls and camera can be janky, you're bound to either lose health or die instantly simply because you won't be able to see where you're going half the time and there's even areas that don't look like an instant-death hazard like the foot of a statue and yet, you die as soon as you jump on it. And yes, there are times when I end up glitching through the floor and falling to my death. Here's another bit of bullshit: How is it that I'm able to survive falling from a great height but there's this one area where I can't do that? How is that even fair?!
And to make things even more irritating, there are times when the villain would constantly bother you while you're fighting groups of enemies and there's only a total of four or five lines of dialogue repeated over and over again, I hate this shit.
As for pickups, there's three items worth noting. There's red vials that act as your health pickups, green canisters that boost up your attack strength and, of course, there's ranged weapons. In regards to that last one, aside from a couple that do decent damage, the rest are pretty much useless(aside from taking out snipers or hitting switches from a distance) since they're about as useful as your own fists.
There's also these glass cases where you can either unlock a weapon, extra health/attack boosts or even character skins depending on how much money you earn throughout a stage. About that last part, that's the only collectable worth getting throughout the game so don't get your hopes up on any extras.
To break up the monotony, the game also throws in a few vehicle-based levels and boss fights... and those suck too. The bosses were lame, hardly challenging and uneventful. Even the final boss was a piece of shit since his attack pattern never changes, wailing on his weak-spot is about as satisfying as watching Jupiter Ascending, the final outcome of winning the fight has no rewarding feel to it and for some strange reason, there's no music playing over the fight. For fuck's sake, Redtribe, don't make me ask again! As for the vehicle stages, oh god, are they much worse. The controls are terrible, the obstacles come up too fast to avoid, there's almost no point in shooting enemies and they take fucking forever to finish. I've played RPGs that didn't feel nearly as long as any of these half-assed levels!
And no, throwing in easter eggs and references to the old cartoons does not make this game anymore bearable to play, a pain in the ass is still a pain in the ass no matter how much window-dressing you put on it.

GRAPHICS & PRODUCTION VALUE:
As I've said before, the FMV cutscenes(if they can actually load to play properly) aren't badly-animated and at least tried to stay true to the spirit of the cartoons even if the writing fails it. The in-game graphics aren't actually that terrible either. This was late into the PS2's lifecycle so it's not expected to look amazing but at least I can stare at it without causing a stomach-ache. It still has those few bugs that make this barely-playable game more tedious to plow through so it's not all that great but hey, at least it's not Bubsy 3D levels of barf-inducing.
For the record, this game has six QA testers. SIX! And yet, all of them thought this game was good enough to sell on the shelves. In the same year that EA's Simpsons Game was out on the same console and that played a hundred times better despite it's own problems! FUCKING EA!!! WHAT AM I MISSING HERE?!
Finally, we have the music by Keith Leary. If the style of instrumentals sounded familiar to you, that's because he also did the soundtrack for the Cat in the Hat movie tie-in game. I thought those beats had a similar tint to them so when I looked it up, my suspicions were confirmed. But whereas Cat in the Hat had a decent and even memorable soundtrack for what is essentially an average Klonoa clone, I can't say the same for here. I mean, it's not a bad soundtrack but it's likely I'll forget most of it within a week and... holy shit, it's way too fucking loud and yes, I did try turning it down in the options menu but again, much like with the camera controls, it doesn't actually save the settings and automatically resets every time you boot up the game so you're gonna have the main menu theme blasting through the speakers, pissing off your neighbors and potentially damaging your eardrums... Every, Single, Fucking, Time.

FINAL VERDICT:
Overall, this is a good example of a 2000's licensed title that has no idea what the hell to do with itself.
It's tedious and boring, it plays like junk and it just barely honors it's source material. I may have played worse games, let alone on the PS2, but this is one I do not recommend one bit. Even for hardcore Looney Tunes fans, Acme Arsenal is an absolute must-pass. You're better off playing Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout instead.

And with that all said and done, That's All, Folks!

Until next time, thank you for taking the time to check out this installment of GAME MODE: ON.
If you liked what you've read here and want to see more, you can go ahead and follow me whenever you want.

And also, don't forget to check out my Letterboxd page for new film reviews every week.




AFTER-NOTE: Seriously, please do not ask me to waste money on any shitty games for future reviews. Just... just no.
For the record, I would like to have a word with my friend, from whom I borrowed this game, the next time I meet him.

Coming back to this game it has zero direction and the game feels empty, but I do know I somehow completed it. Not much story but I remember the co op was alright

the best player in the fuc... worldddd

The Evil Doctor Frankenbeans has built robots of extraordinary power. Doctor Frankenbeans is ready to try to destroy the Looney Tunes by going back in time to destroy their ancestors and he will stop at nothing. It is time for the Looney Tunes to fight back! Arm your Tune with Looney super weapons and suits. Get ready to fight back and go through a Looney adventure. So the question is; are you ready to fight back or not?

Characters
These are the Looney Tunes characters that appear in the game. Videos show that Elmer Fudd and Pepé Le Pew were originally planned to be in the game.

Playable Characters
Bugs Bunny
Daffy Duck
Tasmanian Devil
Foghorn Leghorn
Marvin the Martian
Gossamer
Hyde Bugs
Wile E. Coyote (PS2 Only)
Costumes
These can be unlocked by collecting coins in levels and buying them in cases.

Super Rabbit
Baseball Bugs
Duck Dodgers
Super Taz
Super Marvin
Super Foghorn
Girl Bugs
Non-Playable Characters
Sylvester
Road Runner
Porky Pig / Evil Porky
Yosemite Sam
Tweety
Michigan J. Frog (Xbox 360 only)
Doctor Frankenbeans
Bosses
The Log Ness Monster
Evil Porky on Toro the Bull
Dr. Frankenbeans's Giant Robot
Enemies
Eraser Robot
Giant Eraser Robot
Hugo the Abominable Snowman
Black Knight Robot
Axeman
Cactus
Nasty Canasta
Ball-like Creature
Gruesome Gorilla
Wildcat
Mummy Robot
Instant Martians
Screwball Daffy
Yoyo Dodo
Trophies
Michigan J. Frog Trophy In Assembly Line Insanity
Porky Pig Trophy In Muddy Evil Forest level
Road Runner Trophy In Pyramuddle
Tweety Trophy In Whack Tastic Robot Bash
Wile E. Coyote Trophy in the Volcano Way Out
Yosemite Sam Trophy In Low Noon
Ancestors
King Daffy
Grandpapi Sammy
The Old Devil
Pharoh Bugs
Mervin The Martian
Cornol Foghorn Egghorn
Levels
Little Green Man with a Plan
Location: Dr. Frankenbeans' Castle

Wack-tastic Robot Bash
Plan-Tastic Voyage
Log Ness Monster
Camelot O' Trouble
Location: Camelot

The Muddy Evil Forest
Escape of Excalibur
How the West was Wonderful
Location: Wild West

Low Moon
The Old Devil
Location: Prehistoric Tazmania

Pterodactyl Treetop Terror
Volcano Way Out
Bully for Porky
Location: A Warm Place

Deep Fried Porky
Pharaoh Nuff!
Location: Ancient Egypt

In De-Nile
Pryamuddle
The Martian Fashion Explosion
Location: Mars

Scooterway Scramble
The Martian Fashion Show
Canyon Chaos
The Great Egg-Scape
Location: World War 1

The Filthy Half Dozen
All Noisy on the Egg Stern Front
Full Metal Omelet
Wackyland
Location: Wackyland

Welcome to Wackyland
Big Furry Green Bugs in Da House
Location: Dr. Frankenbeans' Castle

Assembly Line Insanity
Roboticus Giganticus……It's Alive
Bonus Content
Location: The Desert

Wile E. Coyote Chase" to be sure I grew up with Looney tune characters in my life .....to the movie and after the comics now in game sure the Looney tunes are classic characters that everyone loves by there crazy wacky adventures but in this game ( They are heroes!!!!!) They have to save there own world by the wrath of Dr frakenbean a sinister Dr mad scientist that looks like Dr neo cortex rip off tries to destroy the Looney tunes universe ....so along side battle and be as your favorite Looney tune characters : ( Bugs bunny) (daffy duck) (Marvin) etc.....to save the universe by that crazy maniac ....mostly I never passed the game but I know all the story of this game "The game received "generally unfavorable" reviews, according to video game review score aggregator Metacritic.[4][5][6]

eyucke! This game makes me want to puke. I hate that this was what I wanted for my birthday one year as a dumb child