Developer: Imagineering Publisher: THQ Release: 1991 Genre: Action
THQ sure knew how to pick them eh? As a new publisher in the industry they decided their forte would be licensed video games like Acclaim and LJN. Imagine idolizing the Acclaim business model? I digress. Unfortunately they also followed their practice of spitting out cheap cash ins to make a quick buck. Like their earlier Peter Pan and the Pirates Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is an awful game. While not quite as bad it fails at almost everything it attempts and is a waste of your time.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is a series that I know of through osmosis. For some god forsaken reason the movie was incredibly popular when I was a kid but I had no interest in it. Likewise I did not care for the cartoon which this game is based on. If the show is anything like this game I can safely I did not miss out on anything great. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is another in a long line of bad license titles and even worse as it is a late release.
As Chad Finletter your only means of attack is stomping on enemy heads. It is not very compelling over the long haul but you have to make do. You have some amount of control once you leap for better positioning but that is about the extent of it. This would not be so bad if the game were not so particular about its hit boxes. If you aren’t pixel perfect with your jumps you will always take a hit. As a result you are better off avoiding enemies in most cases. This is easier said than done as the game spawns enemies infinitely and a good portion are invincible. Take combat out of the equation and you are left with exploration and the game does not do that good either.
I will give the game credit for at least trying something different. Outside of the first level the rest are not straightforward. I was going to say the initial city streets are a chance to adjust to the game’s mechanics but there aren’t any, hah hah. After that every successive level becomes a massive maze. There is nothing wrong with mazes; they provide good reasons for exploration. Unfortunately the items in this game are lunch bags for health and fertilizer bags which grant points that do nothing. I wish that were the only problem with the game’s level design.
In short the level design is a complete mess. They exhibit all of the problems that were typical of western developed games at the time; collision detection issues, confusing design, intense repetition. Objects you can interact with blend in to the background and make platforming more of a hassle than it should be. This is especially notable in the tomato factory where it took minutes to realize an innocuous button in the environment was actually a switch needed for progress. The sewers are barely any better in terms of their layout. One of the absolute worst is the final level. This grueling climb up a control tower features a layout that wraps around itself multiple times and sees you ascending and descending multiple floors to progress. In theory it should be the best stage but in practice it makes little sense and only gets on your nerves.
Mercifully Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is incredibly short. There are only four main stages and as annoying as they are once you “get” their gimmick they are brief. If you watch the full credits there is a secret fifth stage that leads to the true ending. Normally this would be cause for celebration. But in this case the last level is the god damn worst. The repetitive hallways are all identical and it is very hard to tell if you are going in circles or progressing. It is also the longest and most frustrating. In a way that describes the entire game. It is not difficult, just full of stupid mechanics and badly executed ideas that annoy the player rather than make the game interesting.
In Closing
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes is not a good game. It should come as no surprise as the cartoon it is based on is forgettable as well. I would have preferred a straightforward and generic action platformer instead of this mess. Sometimes I wonder how THQ survived so long considering they have crap like this in their catalogue.
