WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL - Chuck Rock

Publisher: Sony Imagesoft Developer: Core Design Released: 1992

I've probably said this a dozen times already during the WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL series, but I can't believe how prolific Core Design was on a system that really wasn't around all that long. Plus they covered just about every genre while they were at it.

It's easy to mark different eras in the game industry based on the specific genres everyone is trying to cash in on. Right now it's first-person shooters. At one point it was racers. Sports games. 3D action games. And way back in Mario's glory days, it was the platformer. The early 90s were filled with hundreds of me-too platformers featuring cartoony little everymen or cute, cuddly, anthropomorphic creatures (with attitude, if you're talking 1991 or later). Aero the Acro-Bat, Rocket Knight, Bubsy, B.O.B. - the list went on and on.

Before they would set a new standard with the likes of Tomb Raider, Core Design was on the Mario clone gravy train as well, and Chuck Rock was their mascot. This stupid, beer-swilling caveman with a jutting chin and ridiculously hot (read: big-breasted) wife appeared on no less than 10 different systems. And that was just the first game in the series.

The story goes like this – Chuck's wife Ophelia has been kidnapped by Gary Gritter (the local weirdo, according to the narrator), and he's off to jump and belly bump through a handful of different stages to get her back. Pretty straight-forward for 1992, really.

I do love that the somewhat perverted Gary Gritter is a play on real-life rock star Gary Glitter, particularly when we all learned a few years later that he was a bit of a perv himself.

Replaying this game, I can't believe how mediocre it was. The levels are short (though there is an endless supply of them) and mostly by the numbers. The graphics are alright, but nothing special. But for some reason I remember there being a bit of hype around this series.

Perhaps it was GameFan's fault. The magazine had a bad habit of talking up anything remotely resembling a platformer back then, especially when it came from Core Design.

Chuck Rock really goes nowhere fast, and playing it so many years after the fact is pretty painful. It has a certain charm shared by a lot of European platformers, but that never really keeps me interested past the first few levels.

Interesting tidbit? Well, as with any Core game, a lot of the folks who worked on this also helped introduce the world to Lara Croft. In fact, Lara creator Toby Gard has a direct link to the Chuck Rock series – he was the designer on BC Racers. Interesting!

Right?