Developed by little known studio Bamtang Games and released by GameMill Entertainment, Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports sure had its work cut out for it for those two names alone. GameMill, known for pushing out licensed games of dubious quality, has mangled many popular properties such as The Walking Dead, and, well, Bamtang isn’t a household name either, so I went into Wacky World of Sports with my expectations in check.
Having fond memories of Looney Tunes B-Ball from back in 1995 on the Super Nintendo, I had hoped that this latest sports-themed Looney Tunes game would be good, given that the source material is ripe for it. In the end, though, I came away from it thinking it was merely okay, closer to mediocre if taking into account that only two of the four sports featured are actually any fun to play.
Soccer, basketball, gold, and tennis are the only ones you get to pick from here. Unfortunately, due to terrible A.I scripting for the computer-controlled characters on either side, your best bet is going for the individual ones, which themselves play as pale imitations of much better titles available, especially on Switch. Still, for what it is, a collection of at least a couple of close to enjoyable and quick to play cartoony sports games, Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports is halfway decent.
Visually, you get some neat looking character models for the big names in Looney Tunes as they’re brought to 3D via cel shading, popping out well of the rather simple, PS1 era-ish backgrounds. Back on Sony’s first attempt at a console, the franchise got a couple of incredible releases, such as Sheep Raider, and funnily enough, the treatment here really reminded me of that particular release. That’s not as much of a knock against Wacky World of Sports as it may seem since the now 20+ year-old game looked rather amazing back then and still mostly holds up.
Sadly, I can’t say the same for characters not on any of the teams. The random audience are ridiculously bland designs that don’t really fit within the Looney Tunes look. It would have been better if the team at Bamtang would’ve used the show’s numerous secondary characters as crowd members exclusively, it could have resulted in something way less generic than the final product, where handpicked ones dot it, while surrounded by pastel-colored clones.
As mentioned before, your teammate A.I is what really kills the game, since they never seem to do anything either on defense or offense, making things rather difficult when things are rolling. There’s no clear way of switching characters when playing defense either, and since characters move very slowly even when using the game’s excuse for a run button, it’s nearly impossible to catch up. And considering that the base gameplay is already very basic and paper-thin, the cooperative sports included aren’t fun to play on your own.
Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports does sport multiplayer for up to four people which sorta helps, if you manage to scrounge up some friends or foes to play with and against. Bear in mind, though, that if there are any A.I characters in the mix, you’ll still run into the same issues that were brought up, as even opponents are dumb as door knobs, stopping right in front of the goal waiting three or four seconds before deciding to shoot.
As it stands, Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports is an okay at best sports game to play with friends with a couple of options that are closer to fun than the rest, but with a number of much better options out there, like the Mario and even Sonic spin-offs, GameMill’s release is hard to recommend. That’s all there is to say, folks.
You can switch defenders with the triangle (PS4/PS5)
Did you even play more than 30 seconds of each sport?
Yes I have, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that players not controlled by me don’t move or respond during the matches. Thanks for the comment! =]