Developer: Player 1 Publisher: Titus Interactive
Released: November 17, 2000 Rated: E 4/10
Right off the bat, Blues Brothers 2000 is its own self-contained puzzle box of circumventing biases. The Blues Brothers is a bona fide classic bit of cinema with a great cast and soundtrack. Blues Brothers 2000 is widely considered to be a failure. Casting and studio interference aside, the corny “2000” title is probably pretty indicative of its shamelessness, and the Titus Interactive logo on the front of the game offers a similar warning. Despite not being an in-house development like many previous failures, Titus’ passable publishing efforts are still few and far between, and yet, in spite of its several methods of startle display to ward off imposing gamers, the effort can still be made to try and engage with Blues Brothers 2000 free of assumption. And yet, there’s still little to take away from this uninspired, ugly, and altogether uninteresting also-ran 3D platformer.
In fact, ignoring the license when looking at Blues Brothers 2000, a game released two years after the film it’s supposed to be based on, yet therefore accurate to its actual title, is pretty important. Player 1 probably wasn’t looking to play too close to the source material when making the thing, since the stylized cartoon graphics, the collect-a-thon gameplay, and the overall premise of Blues Brothers 2000, shockingly, has almost no resemblance to any part of the film. Shocking, I know — a 3D platformer that plays most like an extremely subpar Banjo-Kazooie doesn’t have much crossover with a comedy musical featuring 18 choreographed performances in its two hour runtime. I suppose we’ll never know what could have happened with this game if the rhythm genre had gathered steam a generation or so earlier than it did.
It’s a struggle to move past the baffling premise and presentation on offer here, not just because Titus essentially lucked into the existence of another Blues Brothers film after already having the license from an NES/SNES/GameBoy release in 1991, but because the actual game is about as ho-hum, seen-it-a-thousand-times nothingness as it gets. The missions are simple, the level design is drab, the camera is uncooperative, etc., and yet, it functions. Just fine, really. It’s not completely broken or overly frustrating like Duck Dodgers or Starshot. It changes up gameplay concepts just often enough to register a pulse — in the opening level you’ll handle some platforming, some combat, some light puzzles; you’ll learn new moves that you already had but can now match each one up to a type of enemy with hardly a wasted breath, and only the dodgy hit detection to get in your way. If anything, its technical shortcomings are no more egregious than any other 3D platformer on the N64.
Level structure varies well enough, but doesn’t even sniff the concepts of originality or innovation. You’ll collect keys, move on to the next room, fight a boss that consists of using your slide move six or seven times until he’s done. Do it inside a prison, then hit the streets of Chicago, then a graveyard and finally a swamp. We are miles off course from the film and its Battle of the Bands premise, outside of the band members being your main collectible, and, somehow, that the final boss is a voodoo witch who actually does appear in the film. Less than four hours to play four levels and it’s done. Hardly enough to fill a single night off of a rental, unless you could actually find someone willing to come over for some tedious multiplayer by telling them you just got Blues Brothers 2000 on N64.
I suppose you could cover up the name on the label when you show it to them, since the oddly public-domain asset look to the cartoon-style visuals hardly even suggests the actual license. Same with the sound design, which, unfortunately, offers neither high quality nor renditions of the film’s soundtrack. Sadly, it still may be the best part of the game, owing simply to its slightly different vibe to match the souls and blues-focused nature of the film. Some jaunty tunes make for a nice change of pace from the Muzak quality you may find in truly low-tier platformers, but it’s still a missed opportunity when we’re not getting 634-5789 (Soulsville, USA) or Funky Nassau. And again, there’s only four levels so you’ll be damned to hear more than four actual tracks.
I struggle to think of a game in the N64 library more confusing in its existence than Blues Brothers 2000. From graphics to gameplay to general concept, almost nothing about this game has anything to do with the film it’s supposedly based on, and nothing about the license suggests it should exist in the video game medium in this era. And somehow, it exists in the most utterly mundane form the console has to offer. If the film made John Belushi roll over in his grave, I’d like to think an equally bad game could at least spin him again just to face the right way, but I think this game is on such an utterly different wavelength altogether that it couldn’t possibly even register. So, yeah, sorry about that one, too, Johnny Boy.
Additional Information
Saves: Controller Pak
Compatible With: Rumble Pak
Players: 1-2
Print Guides: None
Aggregate Critical Reception (GameRankings): 50.89% based on 9 reviews
Other Releases: EU, October 13, 2000
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