Believe it or not, Escape From Mars is actually a fairly competent sequel to the circus act known as Taz-Mania. I know that means so little you'd need a microscope to see it, but it deserves a bit of a golf clap or two.

While the foundation was there for adapting Taz to a sidescrolling affair in Taz-Mania with his spinning and wanting to eat anything in sight, they unfortunately spent the vast majority of the time lollygagging with goofy trial-and-error mine cart stages and having the poor palooka make an ass of himself trying to jump to platforms he can't even see due to his nearsightedness (unless that in itself is a nod to that time Bugs gave him a fake eye exam, but something tells me they didn't put quite that much thought into it). Fortunately for us they decided to compact stages a bit which reduces the need to make leap of faith platforming, but does unfortunately bring in a need to constantly move the camera down constantly in order to see if you're going to skewer Taz's feet onto some spikes or land within the vicinity of a bomb. I'll take it I guess, even if that means the stages become a bit amiga-core, especially in the case of the horrifically confusing final stage in Marvin's House. Yes, that is it's name. The finale of this game is Taz breaking into Marvin the Martian's House and assaulting him.

If there is one thing I really enjoy about Taz's movement it's his ability to do a vertical climb by spinning and bouncing between walls. It's an oddly satisfying movement that I don't really see elsewhere, because I guess Taz is the only person ever who would potentially do this. Kudos to them, but a bit of a double-edged sword though, because in order for this movement to exist Taz himself has to ricochet all over the place like an oversized Tasmanian ping pong ball, which makes attacking enemies a complete gamble at times thanks to funny hitboxes, it becomes increasingly common in later stages where you'll simply bounce off a defeated enemy and find Taz's face smashing into the back of another enemy and taking damage. It's obvious the devs knew this, because enemy placement was very much intended to make situations like this happen, and they start placing a lot more gas cans for Taz to drink up for a more reliable fossil fuel-based attack.

What makes Escape From Mars fairly memorable for me though is the astounding amount of gimmicks they put in here, and by gimmicks I mean actual platforming ones and not moronic Battletoads-esque buffoonery like in Taz-Mania. You're slowly introduced over the course of the game to grow/shrink rays, digging through the ground, flying through the air via...the umbrella thing on Planet X, cloning yourself, anti-gravity, etc. By far the best one though that amazed me as a kid was the boss fight with Gossamer and the Evil Scientist. It goes pretty simple at first, until you eventually knock Gossamer into the chair in the background, and you go and stand on the other chair and flip the switch. You are now playing as the boss, complete with a move set just to destroy the ceiling weapon the Evil Scientist is using. It was so damn cool, and I don't think you even see something like that much in more recent games. It always stuck with me, and it's the first thing I think of when I remember my time with Escape From Mars.

Don't get me wrong, the game is haphazard as all hell, complete with wonky precision platforming and checkpoint spawns that put me right next to mole people ready to shoot me in the face right as the screen fades back in, but it's a game worth some kind of respect and it's obvious they tried to make it better than the last one. Hell, they even got rid of the terrible dynamic soundtrack and put in actual music. Though I will admit, I crack up every time I begin the second Mexico stage and get greeted by Beaky Buzzard flying in out of nowhere and dropping dynamite on my skull just two seconds into it. It's charm. Like a beat up old vehicle, it's shoddily built and it's seats smell terrible, but it's much less complicated and more fun to drive than most of the modern dreck.

The only thing that confuses me is how in cutscenes you're transported from Planet X to Mexico via airplane, I'm not entirely sure what they're insinuating with that, but whatever. Fuck that digging machine that chases you in Moleworld 2, that thing scared the crap out of me back in the day.

I'm electing Taz for President, he's my favorite video game character.