A playthrough of Viacom's 1994 license-based action game for the Super Nintendo, Beavis and Butt-head.

Played through on the "dude" (hard) difficulty level.

Games based on television shows are usually regarded with suspicion, and with good reason. They're usually terrible. Just check out some of the trainwrecks bearing the Ren & Stimpy license.

Beavis and Butt-head, however, fare better than most. Virtual Stupidity (   • Beavis and Butthead: Virtual Stupidit...   ) on the PC was legit GOTY material when it came out, the graphic adventure on the Genesis was an innovative and thoughtfully created bit of toilet humor (   • Beavis and Butthead (Genesis) Playthr...   ), the Game Boy game was an odd-but-fun diet-Zelda take on the franchise (   • Beavis and Butt-head (Game Boy) Playt...   ), and the Game Gear got a simple, fun, good looking platformer (   • Beavis and Butt-head (Game Boy) Playt...   ).

The SNES game is one of the weaker games, but it, too, is an amusing and servicable way to get your interactive B&B fix. It's a straight action game in which you guide the dumbasses through the town of Highland looking for a way to get to the upcoming GWAR concert. It's quite similar to the Game Gear game, just better fleshed out.

You run around, fighting bad guys (mostly animals, kids on skateboards, and Principal McVicker) with things like ray guns and baseball bats. You can search background objects for money to buy food, and there are bonus areas that you can enter to gain extra lives and weapon ammo. It's all pretty simple stuff once you get the hang of it.

There are a lot of fun little touches that sell the feeling of the show, too. You can play the arcade machines in the background at the mall (who wouldn't want to play a game called Butt Fighter!?), you can smack Daria in the cafeteria to take her pizza, you go "couch fishing" between stages for life refills, and the photos that you can pose for at the password screens are sweet.

The action itself feels a bit loose and clumsy, but the controls are simple and reliable, and the game is generous enough with health items that the occasionally cheap hits you take aren't a big deal.

(But oh man, was that clothesline hopping section really necessary? What a pain that was!)

The graphics, though not nearly as nice as they were on the Genesis, do look good and capture the feel of the show nicely, and the voices are spot-on. The music goes for the grungy guitar sound - it does include Gwar music, after all - but it sounds about as good as you'd expect this style to be on the SNES. That is to say, its tinny and seems to want to sound like Doom.

Overall, Beavis and Butt-head's SNES outing falls firmly in the "not bad" category. If you enjoyed the cartoon, you'll probably have fun with this cart. I did.

(This is a new playthrough to replace my original 240p recording.)
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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