I suppose this could be purely a quick review, but I like posting pictures of the Three Stooges, so this is probably the most thorough review of The Three Stooges for GBA anywhere.
You see, the upshot is that this is not a great game. It's a monotonous little remix that eventually makes you feel like A) I was ripped off (by the randomized death gameplay) and B) I was ripped off (by simply not having enough variety packed into that huge GBA cart.) After extensive play, it is obvious to me that this was a rush job of a release.
The history of this game goes back 15+ years, when it was one of Cinemaware's famous Amiga games. Amiga games were always graphics showponies in those days, and Stooges was purely a cute diversion. Compared to Shadow of the Beast or Defender of the Crown (some big Amiga games of the era), Stooges was an also-ran. Not much game, just some fun digitized screens of the Stooges themselves. The GBA version is much the same game. Exactly the same. Well, there are a few improvements that I'll mention in a bit, but they are hardly score-altering.
In The Three Stooges, you play a randomized series of mini games with the overall goal of collecting at least $5,000 in 30 days. With the Stooges being such well-meaning philanthropists, the cash is marked for a local orphanage that needs rent and repair money. Each "day" begins with the lads selecting the day's game by way of a swiftly-moving Moe finger. Some games are easy money, some have a low payout, and some spaces will cost you money. As the days progress, Moe's finger moves faster and faster, until selecting your favorite high-money game becomes impossible. If you don't choose fast enough, the game penalizes you with a mousetrap. (A terrible problem here is that you can't really check how much money you have, as you can only see the $ on the same screen as the moving Moe hand. Because you have to focus on the hand so you don't die, it's tough to see where you stand with the bank.)
There are only 4 moneymaking mini games - Cracker Eating Contest, Help Wanted: Doctors/Shoppers, Help Wanted: Waiters, The Boxing Match), 2 kinds of trivia (Stooges trivia and Cinemaware trivia), a mini game that slows down Moe's finger (hopefully), a random money space, a random penalty space, and the brutal mousetraps that take away a finger (and thusly one of your game lives.)
At the least, the game ought to include twice that many options, because in 30 days, you're going to be doing a lot of the same events over and over again. As cute as the games are (and they're not all that cute), sending Larry on a jumping hunt for the Pop-Goes-The-Weasel radio is not fun ten times in 30 days. How about a Pipe Dream-esque puzzle with Plumber Curly? How about a memory matching game with the E-A-Bay song? How about a Link Cable 2 Player version? My guess is that Cinemaware's main concern was porting the old game... not with improving the game for the modern Game Boy age. They did do some work here... adding in a pizza version of the Cream Pie fight, and a supermarket version of the hospital race. These are welcome additions, but not nearly enough to help the game's playability.
And now, to further pad out this review, here's a rundown of all the mini games.
Cracker Eating Contest
Although this has the biggest Stooge pictures (full screens of Curly and the soup bowl, complete with his lodge hat!), this is probably my least favorite game. The game is a white bowl of chowder, with random crackers... you have to scoop up the crackers before the oysters appear from nowhere and eat them up. The problem is that the spoon has a very flaky dip to it; you're never really sure if your spoon is on the cracker or not. Plus, the nasty oysters literally do emerge from the bottom of the bowl, so you have no warning and no ability to stop them from eating the crackers. Your best bet here is to be super fast and click the scoop button as often as you can. Result: not much money, average about $100-150 per play.
The Boxing Match
While Curly is getting ass kicked in a boxing match, you (as Larry) must run down and up a street littered with jumpable objet d'junk. At first, this will be a tough one, until you realize two things. 1. Larry has two paths he can walk, upper and lower. And 2. The arrangement of the obstacles never changes. The only thing to watch here is that Larry's timing on your up/down movements is a little off, so you might feel like you're moving him at unnatural times. You are. But this is an easy game to master (hold down left or right to move Larry as fast as possible) and you should be able to have a perfect run for $700.
Help Wanted: Waiters
Whether it's pizza or cream pies, this is the classic Stooges pie fight sequence. Naturally, the controls are weird. You essentially scroll through all three Stooges (they stand when you select them) and press A to have that Stooge toss a pie. On the other side of the screen are the grumpy socialites, who are also throwing pies. Your goal is to hit the enemies as many times as possible before your team gets hit 5 times. The secret here is to take your time and watch the incoming pies. There is a slight size difference in the flying pies, so you can tell whether they're aimed for Moe (top), Curly (middle) or Larry (bottom). Avoid being that particular Stooge, and you're safe from the attack. Basically, this turns it into an avoidance game, with an occasional attack when you know it's okay to toss. (Throwing a pie will keep your Stooge standing for a lag, so be careful on your timing.) If you throw all 57 pies, you double your score, but that is pretty difficult to pull off. Average score: around $150.
Help Wanted: Doctors/Shoppers
A top-down vertical scroller with the Stooges in a string of go-karts... either in a hospital or a supermarket. You operate Moe in the lead and the other two follow behind, picking up items dropped from the clumsy clerk at the top of the screen. Random local people will appear, and you just have to not hit them. Another decent moneymaker... $400-$600 per play.
Antics: Stooge Abuse
This game allows you to slow down Moe's wandering hand, so it's more valuable to play later in the game. Unfortunately, it's also unpredictably hard. As Moe, you have to bitchslap Larry and Curly. When you score hits, the finger speed meter goes down. When they hit you, the meter goes up. More weird controls: You have to hold left or right to face either of the victim Stooges, and then press A to poke or B to do one of those hand-floating fakeouts. Doing a fakeout will distract the victim, hopefully letting you score an A without him dodging it. Or not. Sometimes it's just as effective to keep whaling on the poke button as fast as you can. Generally, you can slow down the meter a bit, but not as much as you'd like.
Boredom aside, the game has some very nice graphics. Now, there's no big sprite effects or anything, just a lot of colorful, clean screens. There are genuine stills of the Stooges throughout, but only occasionally do they animate. Some places of particular note are the orphanage, the various mini game "storefronts," and the teeny square showing Curly boxing.
Very uneven sound quality. The Stooge voice samples are great; it's cool to hear the voices of these long-dead comic giants issuing forth from the GBA speaker. But they are by turns overused and misplaced. Why does Larry say "Oh, a fraidy-cat" whenever you start the Waiters mini game? And the quick repetition of games means the de facto repetition of the accompanying sounds.
The background music is dully average. The classic "Three Blind Mice" Stooge theme is almost unrecognizable at the beginning, and most other music is library stock that could have gone in any low-end RPG. There's something incongruous about hearing classical pieces while watching Curly trying to eat oyster crackers.
Finishing the game means that you either hit all 30 days or Moe ran out of fingers. Either way, your dollars are totalled and the orphanage lady takes it all. Depending on your amount, you get to save the orphanage, repair the orphanage, or get a "Special Stooge Surprise." On the formers, that means a subtly altered orphanage graphic. As for the Surprise, I've never seen it, seeing as you have to score some maniacal amount to get it (I've reached $13,000 and still not seen it.) I suspect you get another fullscreen Stooges still with "CONGRATURATIONS" typed across it.
I picked this up mainly for nostalgic reasons, and I play it as kind of a mindless time killer. It's harmless enough, in its way, but it could have been a bit better.
