FGC #549 Garfield: Caught in the Act

Dear things I loved as a child: please don’t embarrass me as an adult.

Garfield: Caught in the Act is a game I played when I was a child. Why? Come on, stupid, you know the answer to this one: like all right-thinking children, I loved Garfield. Some of my first purchases as a good little consumer were Garfield collections bought from the school book fair, and one of my favorite cartoons was Garfield & Friends. Despite the fact that a solid three pages scarred me for life, Garfield: His 9 Lives was one of the earliest books/comic books/graphic novels that I remember reading and rereading until the pages crumbled to dust. So, yeah, given the opportunity to play a Sega Genesis game starring Garfield, I jumped on the cartridge like a cat on lasagna.

And Garfield: Caught in the Act is… well… I mean… You can see that they tried, right? Coming off of Aladdin, this is obviously a videogame that leans heavily into that whole “hand drawn sprite animation” trend. Garfield looks gorgeous. He runs. He jumps. He dances! And he does it all with a full range of motion that would even put his daily cartoon to shame. Eat it, US Acres, this is the good stuff. And the Catsablanca stage? With that faux monochrome style? C’est la fête. Unfortunately, the gameplay does not quite live up to the visuals. Garfield is gorgeous, yes, but the actual levels seem sloppy, with frequent traps and enemies that come out of nowhere. What’s more, the designers seemed to recognize that Garfield was going to take a lot of damage, so he has ten hit points, and life power-ups are distributed roughly every nine inches. This leads to a weird situation wherein, aside from the handful of bosses, you almost always feel like you are playing the game… wrong. Are you supposed to be taking this much damage? Tanking this many hits? Probably, because there are another six hamburgers ahead, so you may as well soak those malevolent ghosts. And G:CitA relies on level design that is very… Bubsy… with a number of branching paths and “underground” areas that require random doors and the screen’s focus fuddling all over the map. The game is pretty to look at, but not exactly delightful to hold.

And, as someone who has continued to follow Garfield titles through adulthood, this seems to be the standard for our favorite orange feline. Garfield and his Nine Lives for Gameboy Advance has about as much to do with the comic of the same name as Garfield has to do with exercise, but it is another pleasant enough micro platformer. The same could be said for Garfield and The Search for Pooky. They’re passable, and the worst you can say is that they are clearly not the kind of lovingly crafted games you’d find elsewhere on the system. And if you’re looking for something on modern consoles, try Garfield Kart: Furious Racing. This one allows you to play as any number of Garfield luminaries (Liz! You know Liz! The woman that made Jon drink dog sperm? Her!) with gameplay that matches Mario Kart: Double Dash (complete with blue sparks), but is otherwise a fairly generic kart racer. And that’s fine! It’s a Garfield game, and that lazy cat has been sponsoring mediocre games for decades now.

Garfield is just kind of there, being occasionally funny, but at least reliably marginally entertaining. As one of my favorite childhood comic strips, I’m rather happy to see Garfield popping up on occasion, and I enjoy getting reacquainted with these old friends (when the related games are on sale for like ten bucks). Garfield made me happy as a child, and he brings a smile to my face even now.

And then there’s Dilbert.

Fuck Dilbert.

Back to autobiography land, I was a voracious reader as a child, but it was years before I encountered another comic strip that captured my attention like Garfield. The comic strips of the day were generally aimed at parents, the elderly, and whatever the hell is the audience for Pluggers. It seemed like the comic strips that were aimed at kids were too kiddy, and the ones that were aimed at adults were too exclusive (yes, B.C., please make another joke about President Taft. That doesn’t get old). And then Dilbert came along, and I was enrapt. It may seem weird that a comic primarily about office work appealed to a kid that was still a few years away from having his first job, but you really have to understand the weird timeframe wherein Dilbert came into prominence. Did you know that not everyone used to have a computer? Or access to the internet? The cast of Doonesbury had never seen a computer, and it was likely because the author was right there on the same page. But Dilbert! Here was a place where computers not only existed, but they could be involved in jokes! Nobody made jokes about computers! Or the internet! Or Linux nerds! There was an entire strip that called Linux nerds bearded, suspender wearing weirdos! That was funny and accurate! Holy RAM, Dilbert, you’re speaking my language!

And, lest you think it was just a matter of my nerdy tendencies, there was something else about Dilbert that caught my eye. The secret truth of Dilbert? The entire strip is about a handful of mundane characters that are smarter than literally everyone else on Earth. The public at large seemed to fixate exclusively on the pointy-haired boss and his boundless incompetence, but the premise of roughly 80% of Dilbert strips is simply “Dilbert is smarter than everyone else”. And, spoilers, regardless of your own standing in life, you are supposed to relate to Dilbert. You are supposed to see the rest of the world as a bunch of belligerent nitwits, and you are Dilbert, the mouthless man that steps back and stares through the fourth wall in a way that says, “Wow, ain’t this guy a moron? Nyuk nyuk.” And if Dilbert’s general helplessness isn’t doing it for your ego, then there’s Dogbert, who is consistently portrayed as a genius that is capable of conquering the world… but doesn’t feel like doing that this week. “Bah,” he says as he waves his paw. And if you think this assessment of Dilbert is somehow incorrect, here is a simple reminder that the first Dilbert collection was titled “Always Postpone Meetings With Time-Wasting Morons”, and the first original Dilbert book was “Dilbert’s Clues For The Clueless”, which took time on every page to outline a different kind of “clueless” person. Dilbert is about life in an office, yes, but it is more about how the great, unwashed masses are a bunch of “clueless” yokels.

And, dang, I don’t mind telling you that pre-teen and particularly teenage Goggle Bob ate that shit up with a spoon. You tell ‘em, Dilbert, you’re the only person on Earth that knows what’s up!

Of course, when you put it that way, it should have been obvious the author of Dilbert, Scott Adams, would become some kind of… is there even a word for this? Wannabe fascist? That sounds right.

I’m not going to review the many sins of Mr. Adams over the last few years, but let’s stick to one quote from 2016. After the 2016 Democratic Convention, he had this to say:

“If you’re an undecided voter, and male, you’re seeing something different. You’re seeing a celebration that your role in society is permanently diminished. And it’s happening in an impressive venue that was, in all likelihood, designed and built mostly by men.”

So maybe he’s just a misogynist? He definitely has supported Trump in a variety of ways over the last few years, and it seems like a significant factor there is the misbegotten belief that Trump is some manner of “alpha male” (or, in Scott’s own words, he has an impressive “talent stack”). Now we don’t know if this is because Adams truly sees the orange, lumpy Donald Trump as the pinnacle of humanity, or if an inheritance tax would be a threat to his income, or just because he legitimately believes that republicans would be hunted under a democratic regime. Nobody knows! But one thing is clear: Scott Adams was anxious to support a wannabe dictator, and has repeatedly, consistently defended his backing of Donald Trump, despite openly admitting it has impacted his speaking engagements/income. The man is so deep in the Trump camp, he’s finding Rudy Giuliani’s discarded llama bones.

Oh, okay, one more quote from the man:

Yeah, sure that makes perfect sense, undecided voter.

And, yes, I’m downright ashamed to have ever supported the man. And most people aren’t “online enough” to even know he’s very publicly one of the 72,000,000 people that evidently vehemently supports a man that is totally okay with hundreds of thousands of Americans dying for no reason. And, because some people in my family distinctly remember my Dilbert obsession from twenty years ago (and know damn well that I am still a giant nerd), I occasionally am still gifted Dilbert merchandise. My dad winds up getting me a Dilbert calendar every year! And that’s directly supporting a man that would manifestly be perfectly okay with some of my good friends being sent to the Gulag (or worse)! And is already totally cool with children being stowed in cages! I like Catbert as much as the next guy, but that is a bit over the line.

Er-hem. Sorry. This gets me a little… exasperated.

So what’s the point here? Scott Adams sucks, and Jim Davis is awesome because his celebrity is used for milquetoast endeavors? Hating Mondays works better than hating bosses? Dilbert should eat more lasagna? Nah, it’s never that simple. I think the lesson here is that, in this age of “cancel culture” (the quotes mean I take this phenomenon about as seriously as the ever-present threat of bigfoot), you don’t need to be “cancelled” to be noxious. No one ever told me that the author of Dilbert was some kind of toxic creature, I simply identified that from his very public beliefs and statements. I am never going to buy Dilbert merchandise again, despite my initial love for the franchise, because the idea of Scott Adams profiting off my vices is repellant. I am, however, going to download Garfield Kart, because, what the heck, it might be a fun time, and Jim Davis seems pretty alright. Maybe I’m wrong! But, in a world where I could either defend Scott Adams (with my wallet) or ignore his output for the rest of my days, I’m going to go with the latter. This isn’t because of some monolithic “cancel movement” or whatever, it is simply because everything the man says deters me. Simple as that.

Garfield, you might not have the best games around, but thank you for simply being you in these tumultuous times. I’ll airmail an annoying kitten to Abu Dhabi in your honor.

Thanks, Jim.

FGC #549 Garfield: Caught in the Act

• System: Sega Genesis. From the people that brought you Star Wars Arcade and Eternal Champions, apparently.
• Number of players: Garfield is a loner cat.
• Favorite Boss: Level 2/Cave Cat was apparently supposed to originally be Level 1, but it was determined Cave Cat was no fun, and Level 1 became the original Level 2, Count Slobula’s Castle. That said, Cave Cat does end with a battle with a giant skeleton, so it’s pretty great.
• An end: Credit where credit is due, G:CinA has an “alien” final boss that is made from discarded television components, and he’s rendered in Vectorman-esque uncanny, 16-bit 3-D. Considering the rest of the game is lavish 16-bit “normal” 2-D animation, it really makes the final challenge pop. It’s just kind of a shame that that “final challenge” is a silly mirror-pushing puzzle.
• Hey, not all of these pictures are from Garfield: Caught in the Act: Yes, well, I wanted to see if any of Garfield’s other adventures held up and/or descended into fascism. They mostly don’t. But, if you’re curious, the other images are from Garfield and his Nine Lives for Gameboy Advance, and Furious Racing for the Nintendo Switch. Also Dr. Garfield, which is imaginary and not available as a ROM patch, obviously.
• Say something nice about Garfield and his Nine Lives: This game seems a lot more focused than Garfield: Caught in the Act, as you’re not expected to soak a hit every three inches. That said, it’s also a lot less meticulous in its graphics, and certainly looks like a desperate cash grab. It’s slightly better than Monsters Inc. for the GBA, though!
• Say something nice about Garfield Kart Furious Racing: This really is an exact clone of Mario Kart Double Dash’s mechanics. Even though you’re only ever racing as one Garfieldian character, you can hold two powerups at once. It’s very familiar! And every item has an easy, two-button option for whether you launch it ahead or behind your racer. The tracks and the characters are rather mundane, but the general usability of Furious Racing is surprisingly high.
• It is Furious, though, not Furry-ous? Correct. It’s a shame.
• Did you know? Garfield is forever tainted by Mike Pence loving the rotund cat. This probably doesn’t have anything to do with Pence loving other, slightly larger orange animals.
• Would I play again: Maybe! Garfield is responsible for good vibes, so I might play, like, a level again. It’s pretty to look at!

What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Pokémon: Sword: Isle of Armor & Crown Tundra Expansion! Yeah! Sure! Let’s believe that was randomly chosen, and I don’t just want to talk about Pokémon again! So get ready for, ya know, talking about Pokémon again! Please look forward to it!

In Sega Genesis, television eats you!