Let me start this review with a very easy to understand description of this game. Take Mario Strikers, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis and Mario Slam Basketball, combine all four into one game, reduce the quality and mechanical depth, replace the Mario cast with the Looney Tunes roster, and you end up with Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports. There’s perhaps no better way to imagine this simple arcade sports title, and from that same description you can probably already deduce many of the strengths and weaknesses that come with such a premise.
At Wacky World of Sports, it only took a few hours before I felt like I had seen it all. This is usually a trend with smaller sports titles, but it’s becoming more and more evident here. The highlight is the Acme Ultimate Cup. This is a multi-sport tournament in which you compete as one of the nine Looney Tunes characters in football, tennis, golf and basketball. You play each sport once, are scored and scored based on your individual wins and performances, and when all is said and done, a winner is chosen.
There’s not much depth here at all and the game only tries to liven things up through the difficulty settings of the rival competitors and the fact that each Looney Tunes star is rated based on their strength, skill and intelligence. This is pretty much the same thing we see in Mario sports titles, because while Roadrunner is incredibly fast, Wile E. Coyote is (hilariously and perhaps cruelly…) much, much smarter. Another practical example is that Yosemite Sam’s strength allows him to hit a golf ball further than, say, Lola Bunny, but Lola is undeniably better at making three-pointers in basketball. Of course, there are a variety of Looney Tunes levels and maps to unlock and participate in, but they are cosmetic in nature and, unlike character points, have no impact on gameplay.
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So the gameplay. Let’s start with what I think is the best of all: tennis. It’s quite simple as the camera is positioned behind your side of the court and you simply move from side to side in three dimensions, returning the opposing player’s serves and punches by either throwing, flattening or making the ball pop up . You can aim your hits where you want them, spice things up with a time-slowing mechanic to score otherwise unattainable hits, and use overpowered ultimates to secure a point. This mode has some depth and the pacing makes it fun and exciting, even more so when you factor the Acme elements into the equation. Sometimes a target appears over the net, which when hit creates obstacles and hazards on the opponent’s side of the field. It can be dynamite, which is stunned when a player steps on it, meaning it is almost impossible to return a ball that is well placed on dynamite. It’s a simple idea that works really well and makes tennis an undeniable event for the crazy world of sports.
Next comes football. It’s a simplified version of what we see in the Mario Strikers series, where small teams fight on tight fields and try to score small goals with AI goalkeepers. You can pass, shoot, dodge or attack (depending on possession) and of course fire a shot of varying strength depending on how long you hold down the attack button. You can also use an ultimate hit here, but with a timely input it’s easy to quit. Aside from the additional challenges that Acme’s care packages introduce by introducing danger and weapons into the equation, there really isn’t much depth to write about here, but that doesn’t change the fact that football is helpful and tends to progress with ease.
It’s in golf where the cracks really start to appear. From a macro perspective, the game works like a charm, with a simple mechanical setup that offers players a lot of agency and skill. It’s the microphone that is really torpedoing this sport. The putt has absolutely no depth, which leaves us wondering why it is included. The ball and wind/weather physics are terrible and do basically nothing you’d expect; Acme’s power-ups and item use element seem insignificant and last minute; and the design of the course and holes is uninspired and too simple to be anything special. Does it function primarily as a mechanical experience? Yes. Is it fun and comparable to other arcade golf adaptations? No… the truth is no.
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But as successful as golf may be, basketball leaves more to be desired. This is the mode that feels like developer Bamtang Games put more attention and mechanical depth into it, and it ends up being an experience that feels too bloated and unrefined to impress. There are too many entries that do similar things, the camera angle and small size of the tracks make it difficult to keep track of everything, the shooting system is flawed at best, and each game is divided into four rooms that fly by fast-paced pace where the game is over before you even realize it has begun. It’s a disheartening nightmare in training and is by far the worst of the sports quartet featured in Wacky World of Sports.
While I would say that the local multiplayer support is a positive and cool feature, the lack of online multiplayer is a disappointment. Sure, there are a few additional ways to play in the challenges and more exhibition-like modes, but overall there aren’t enough ways to enjoy this game. Yes, the characters are still timeless and portrayed in a brilliant, authentic way, although it would have been nice to have access to more than nine characters (ten including the bonus character Yosemite Sam). The card design pays homage to the Looney Tunes cartoons and environments, and the backgrounds are always filled with a whole collection of additional, more specialized characters, including Gossamer. Additionally, the iconic, sparkling theme song adds a lot to the Looney Tunes experience, but an additional song or two in the background would have gone a long way toward making it feel fresh.
With these points in mind, “Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports” will leave you wanting more. There are moments and parts of the game that impress and stand out, but there are also many areas, mechanics and features that frustrate or disappoint. At times it feels limited in content and mechanically flimsy, but it’s still authentically Looney Tunes, and that alone means it’ll provide occasional laughs and laughs as you play, score goals, shoot baskets, serve and hit a few aces. What else can I say except… That’s it, friends.
