Humongous Entertainment

I could honestly just post this picture and call it a day. That about sums it up. I didn't get a real game system till I was 9; I had gameboy and the computer. And on said computer, I had a whole host of parent approved "Educational Games". Now, in the 90's, educational games actually had some quality to them. Yeah there was the usual "its book, but on computer" crap, but there was quality stuff like Math Blaster and Carmen Sandiego. And one of the best companies for kids games at the time was Humongous Entertainment.

What set Humongous Entertainment apart was that they seemed intent on entertaining before teaching. The majority of their games were adventure games where you had to solve puzzles to progress, and solving those puzzles was how you learned. They also had the Backyard Sports games, but you would be amazed how quickly a kid learns things when he is trying to win a football game (like math). Now, Putt-Putt and Freddie Fish were painfully cute and have not aged well in terms of entertainment or education value. But Pajama Sam had a real sense of creativity and adventure to it that allows it to still hold up to this day. But my personal favorite of the main cannon shall always be....

Spy Fox may not have been educational, but it achieved what so many and try and fail to achieve: it entertains children and adults at the same time. In much the same way Looney Tunes and the Animaniacs amused, Spy Fox had silly-ness and slapstick for the kids mixed with clever caricatures and innuendos for the adults. To this day my dad still finds the fat pig doing a very good Sydney Greenstreet impression absolutely hilarious. I played through that game so many times (it had a variety of different puzzles it would randomly use) that to this day I still remember how to beat each and every challenge in that game.

Which makes my recent purchase of it for the Wii rather odd. I mean, it was re-released some time ago and the point and click gameplay works better on the Wii than any other console. But why did I buy a game I will ALWAYS beat and was never meant for my age group?

....Could this be that nostalgia thing I have read about? I mean, wow! This feels really weird. I've never bought something just because it reminds me of my childhood before. Heck, I play old games all the time. But this is the first time that I have gone out of my way to re-purchase something I lost touch with over time. God, no wonder there are so many remakes.