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Once again, Wanderer is back to regale us with information about this week's Virtual Console release, a game I don't look forward to having to explain to an eleven-year-old ever again: Interplay's much-hyped, mind-boggling Boogerman.

This may hold some kind of record for the single longest fart joke in human history.Boogerman is an above-average sixteen-bit platformer, with good music and surprisingly decent character animation, that's devoted almost entirely to the humor potential of bodily fluids.

Boogerman has the power to inflict serious injury by flicking boogers, farting, burping, or hocking loogies at his enemies, which honestly raises uncomfortable questions about his personal life. He spends the game exploring Dimension Xcrement in pursuit of the evil Boogermeister, which seems to me like dispatching the Human Torch on an adventure into hell, but perhaps I shouldn't examine the premise too closely.

Interplay did some good work during the 16-bit period. Boogerman has a lot of the same good qualities as Earthworm Jim does; it's got great, cartoony graphics and an inventive approach to both stage and character design. It's one of the better sixteen-bit platformers, although it's not without a couple of trivial problems. The game absolutely loves blind jumps, where you're not sure whether you're dropping onto safe ground or not, and it has a really strange approach to gameplay. You can run straight through an average level of Boogerman in about five minutes unless you're playing with your elbows; the challenge is in digging through each stage for all the power-ups and destructible objects on the ground.

What makes it hard for me to play, though, is that it really is a nonstop barrage of potty jokes. It's made for kids who're at that age (which, admittedly, can be anywhere from eight to one-hundred thirty) where the mere sound of a fart, empty of context, will occasion hysterical laughter. I didn't think it was funny when I was twelve, and I still don't now; you can get all of the good gameplay of Boogerman by playing Earthworm Jim, and you won't have to fart angry bears to death. Your mileage may vary.

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