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Circus Caper

Posted by Sjixxxy on January 10, 2002

What is the root of all evil? Some common answers that people might give would be money, Satan or modern pop music. These answers are all close, but none are correct. So what is the true answer to this question you ask? The answer is clowns. The root of all evil is dirty, dirty clowns. Dirty clowns that when given the chance, will eat you and everybody you love. What Circus Caper is, is a game full of enough clowns to make general Patton wet his pants and scream for his mother. Prepare to enter the world of Mr. Magic and his disturbing circus through the magic that is Circus Caper.

Say a prayer that I don’t punch you in the gut you damn dirty clown.

The plot is simple, the circus is in town and you take your sister Judy to see it, except when you arrive, there is only one ticket left. To get the ticket you must play a game of dice with a clown who tries to impose his religious beliefs on you by making you pray. The clown rolls his dice and you win the ticket. In fact, you win the ticket no matter what number the clown rolls. I’m guessing that since this clown is a religious fellow, he has some aversion to gambling so he sissied up the rules to his game to always let the opponent win for moralities sake.

Any ways, to sum things up, Judy enters the tent, everybody disappears, Mr. Magic says you can’t have her, and then you enter the tent in pursuit. Let the hellish games begin.

Yeah, and you sure have been hanging out with those Sigfried and Roy fellows a little to much White Tiger.

The wreched “sack” clown.

The first level is the most clown intense of the game. Not only does Timmy have to fight clowns and acrobats on the floor amidst pools of alligators, but the entire grandstand is filled with clowns who just sit and watch as you fight for life as oneclown after another jumps down the the top of the tent and comes after him. Try to image Russell Crow in Gladiator, only Russell is a little boywith rosy cheeks named Tim, and instead of being captive in Rome, he is being held captive by P.T. Barnum. You can imagine the horrors.

One aspect of this level that would have surely made me throw the controller against the wall if I was eleven and had a bad temper, is that the very first few pits that have to be jumped over were insanely difficult for me. It took me probably no less then thirty tries to clear the first few gaps. The problem was that in order to cross the pits, it is necessary to jump onto the the mouths of alligators. The crappy part is that often the alligators wouldn’t evenshow themselves, leaving poor Timmy stuck with the choice of either leaping forward to drown to death, or to stay put and get devoured by a reptile.

Further enhancing the difficulty of this damn game is the fact that if you die at any point up to defeatingthe boss enemy for that level, you get sent way back to the beginning of it. With each level being divided up into two or three stages, one can lose a lot of ground. I really love save states.

Now since I mentioned the boss enemies, I think it is fitting to talk about the very first one that is encountered. The first boss is probably the most demonic misfigured clownthe world has ever seen. It is essentially a horrid “sack” of a clown. I can’t even begin to fathom the amount of evil hell lust that would be required to spew up such a freakish clown-organism. If I ever seen one of these at a circus, I’d probably grab the closest invisible dog harness and hang myself with it, just to get away from its freakish presence.

Sadly, the horribly misfigured enemies don’t stop with the sack clown. In the second level Timmy encounters the tightrope walkers of the circus. These tightrope walked truly are ahorrible sight. The way they move can only be described in one word, “Jointless.” These tightrope walkers seem to have been bred without functional knees or elbows. They move in a horrible way that a pirate would if he had two peg legs and two peg arms, and to top their horrible appearance off, the tightrope walkers’ noses are about four times to big. I’m sorry, their grotesque appearance is too much for me, I must end this topic now.

This would be sexy If it wasn’t.

Throughout the course of Circus Caper, Timmy can enter doors to special areas where a fairy gives him a chance to engross himself in a couple of mini games. From what I found there are three mini games.

Mini game I: Jump over Fire
In this game, Timmy is paired up with a bear and together they must leap over moving rows of fire.

Mini game II: Drive really fast on a dangerous road
In this game, Timmy hops into 30’s or 40’s era car and speeds down a road which is cluttered with huge boulders. Not the safest of roads, but it is still better then driving through Michigan.

Now these first two mini games definitely can’t be sending good messages to children. I wonder whatpercent of kids falling in fire, or car jacking an antique car and drivingblindly into a boulder can be credited to the bad influence of playingthis game? I’d assume it is pretty high. These these first two games canbe labeled as bad influence, but the third is something totally different.

Mini game III: How many times can Godzilla do it?
Yes, that is right. The game is to see how many times Godzilla can, ahem, “do it.” Now jumpingover fire is one thing to be teaching children, but reptile orgasms? I’mnot sure if that is an acceptable thing to be showing our children. Bythe looks of it, I’d say old Godzilla likes it in the out hole. Never wouldhave expected that from one who has destroyed so many cities, and has donebattle with Mothra, but I guess there really is no wrong way to love.

Oh sweet bliss.

With all the evil clownery, gay reptiles, fairies and sissy tigers that are found in Circus Caper, Toho did include one level which should put a smile on even the most hardened criminal’s face. For one level near the end of the game before we get to encounter Mr. Magic and his crappy magic skills, we are treated to the sights of the circus coming down in flames. With the sight of the circus on fire, we get to experience first hand, the thrill of a clown on fire.

The Final Verdict
The only good clown is a . . . . is a . . . . Well. There are no good clowns, even if they are dead.