The Adventures Of Willy Beamish

Sierra isn't taking any chances in deciding which of its popular computer titles should be ported over to the Sega CD: The Adventures of Willy Beamish earned an overall 9 rating in the pages of the March 1992 issue of VG&CE. Like the lion's share of Sierra/Dynamix titles, it's a point-and-click adventure game with a wry sense of humor, and it includes plenty of puzzle-solving, decision-making and animation sequences.

As the young Beamish, you must outsmart your peers, superiors and family members in your quest to participate in the Nintari video-game championships. Along the way, you'll get wrapped up in various subplots that involve terrorism, kidnapping and frog-jumping contests—though not necessarily in that order. Though the game's story line is not flawed, certain parts of the adventure left me somewhat confused on the issue of how Willy should act. In the earlier sections of the game, it's important to behave yourself in order to keep Willy from being sent to military school. Yet, some of the dialogue menus only allow you to choose from three different sarcastic remarks, and it's up to you to determine which is least offensive. Other times, you'll make a harmless comment and the computer will follow up the other person's response with a wisecrack, putting words in Willy's mouth that you didn't necessarily intend to be there.

Of course, it's all in good fun, and there are plenty of scenarios in the game in which you're expected to act like a juvenile delinquent. By the time Willy sneaks into the Golden Bowl Bar and steals a "nudie calendar," you will have seen and heard plenty of things that you'd never have experienced in a Nintendo-approved title. Nothing particularly offensive—but I did get a kick out of the schoolteacher's response when Willy told her the name of his pet frog, Horny. ("What did you call me?")

As a straightforward translation of the IBM PC version of Willy Beamish—squeezed into the Genesis' color palette—the graphics here aren't quite as enchanting as the images that appeared in the original. There's also a problem with disc access time, and I'm sure that anyone who has been spoiled by the full-motion video in games like Night Trap and Sewer Shark will not be too thrilled by the limited animation of characters like the school principal, Mr. Frick—whenever his mouth stops moving, the beads of sweat that roll down his bald head stop moving too.

The Sega CD version of The Adventures of Willy Beamish is not bad for an early effort on a new, unproven platform, but I know that both Sierra and the Sega CD are capable of much more than this. Expect better things from Dynamix's Stellar 7 Sega CD, which—unlike Willy Beamish—is being reprogrammed from the ground up to take better advantage of the capabilities of the system it's played on.

Journey back to the time when you were an adolescent brat without a care for the world. Take part in The Adventures of Willy Beamish for the Sega CD!

Originally released on the PC format, Willy Beamish puts you in control of a young boy whose ambiguous nature always gets him into serious trouble.

Ever since summer vacation started, all Willy has wanted to do is have fun, fun, fun! However, various predicaments seem to present themselves. For instance, Willy's mother asks him to watch his little sister for awhile. Willy gloomily accepts and takes her out back to the swing set. As Willy is pushes his sister on the swing, a menu appears with a list of options, one of which is to push her as hard as possible until she falls off, catapulting through the air. It's a funny moment until mom shows up.

Willy Beamish contains other hilarious skits and actions that all adults and kids can relate to. Ah, to be a kid again!