Crazy Drake

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Peace reigned in Ducktropolis. King and the Queen traveled south for vacation and left their son -Prince Drake- to run the kingdom and protect the Holy Golden Egg. One night, Dr. FoulBrain infiltrated the Palace and stole the Sacred relic to help him stop a bunch of undisciplined power in Ducktropolis.
The game plays similarly to Earthworm Jim and your mission is to find and retrieve the Holy Golden Egg through 20 challenging levels (divided into 6 episodes). You also have to collect the eggs and defeat the minions sent by the evil doctor. Along the way you'll collect power-ups and extra lives to aid you in your quest. Drake has a gun with unlimited ammo and can run, jump, duck or climb ledges to progress through the levels. There are also some areas where he'll ride balloons over shark-infested pits and teleportation pods that will transfer him to certain areas of the level. As long as you collect golden eggs throughout the level, they will grand you with an extra life, upon reaching a certain number of points. Each episode has its own boss to fight, eliminate and go further.
Crazy Drake was launched as a shareware and the full game has six episodes with over 20 levels, while only the first episode is available in the shareware version. The levels are large and maze-like instead of linear and usually feature a number of puzzles to solve, before you can move on. If you like Earthworm Jim, then you'll probably like this one as well.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics are good and it is obvious that a great deal of care and attention has been taken over them. The first thing you'll notice is Drake's smooth, cartoonish animation as he moves in an incredible and smooth manner. Every body stance, move and attack has been carefully crafted. Drake and his foes are all extremely well-animated, and the levels never seem to loop tiles with undulating, coiling platforms and nonstandard surfaces.
Sound-wise, the game supports all SoundBlaster cards and Gravis Ultrasound, with a wide variety of sampled sound effects and speech and a catchy -but also repetitive- music.