So it’s up to our wacky woodpecker to save the day.Įven though the entire in-game text is in Portuguese, the game is pretty easy to understand. So, in a completely understandable and not at all disproportionate act of retaliation, Buzz kidnaps all of Woody’s friends and threatens to kill them (for example by sawing Andy Panda in half with, fittingly, a buzz saw). Woody’s nemesis Buzz Buzzard (or, as he’s called here, Zeca Urubu), however, is miffed because he didn’t get invited. Here, Woody Woodpecker and his friends are heading out for a peaceful vacation. The game weaves pretty much all the known characters from the TV show into its backstory.
Nevertheless, in 1996 (though the in-game credits of the Mega Drive version say 1995), Ferias Frustradas do Pica Pau was released exclusively in Brazil, for both the Mega Drive and the Master System (which was still going strong in that country). As the rumor goes, the game took roughly four years to get finished. If certain sources are to be believed, it was kind of a troubled production, with disagreements about the actual license handed out to TecToy and the overall treatment of the material. The show itself got more of a mixed reception, although it gained quite a following in South America.ĭue to his popularity in Brazil (where he went by the name of Pica Pau), TecToy somehow acquired a license to produce a game based on the character. But nevertheless, the wacky woodpecker with his trademark laugh still remained a more insane sort of character than most of the other types encountered in a Saturday morning cartoon. So eventually he received his own syndicated TV-show – which meant of course, that his more aggressive tendencies got smoothed out in favor of a more family-friendly approach. Whereas Bugs Bunny was more of a good-natured loony who acted (mostly) out of self-defense, Woody Woodpecker was more of an aggressive, if not outright psychotic character (like in the short The Barber of Seville, where he flat-out menaces a guy with a straight razor for almost three minutes – without any reason at all!). As a contemporary of other similarly wacky figures like Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny, this feathered fiend gained popularity fast due to his erratic behaviour and crazy antics.
Little hint to future game developers, don’t call your own game frustrating – especially if this little factoid turns out to be true! The title is immensely fitting, except for one thing: a vacation this game ain’t.įor those of you who don’t know who Woody Woodpecker is, he is one of those screwball animated anthropomorphic animals, created and brought to life by cartoonist Walter Lantz. The Frustrating Vacation of Woody Woodpecker… now there’s an uncomfortably foreboding title right there. Genre: Platformer Developer: Tec Toy Publisher: Tec Toy Players: 1 Released: 1995
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