Earthworm Jim Coming to the Virtual Console

Interplay has announced that Earthworm Jim and Clayfighter, together with Earthworm Jim 2 and Boogerman, would be making an appearance on the Wii Virtual Console sometime later this year. The games, originally developed for the Sega Genesis, will apparently be direct ports to the Nintendo Virtual Console service, without any new enhancements or content.

Earthworm Jim was originally released in 1994 and became one of the craziest adventures created in a videogame. After a battle between a Psy-Crow and a rebel pilot, the Ultra-high-tech-indestructible-super-space-cyber-suit, built by the renowned professor Monkey-For-A-Head, is brought down to Earth and Jim, who's been up to that point the most uninteresting of worms (literally) is mutated into an evil fighting super worm. He then goes on to battle Queen Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed, Slug-for-a-Butt to stop her from conquering the galaxy. Other interesting enemies Jim meets along the way are Major Mucus, Chuck and Fifi, Evil the Cat and Bob the Killer Goldfish.

Clayfighter is equally weird, being a fighting game in which the characters are covered in clay that grants them supernatural powers. The game is made even more weird by the fact that they were all circus employees. So the Wiiwill give you the chance to fight as Ickybod Clay, who is a ghost with a pumpkin head, or as Bad Mr. Frosty, a cynical snowman with quite the bad temper.

Bringing these games to the Virtual Console is part of Interplay's plan to revive and monetize some of its most interesting intellectual properties. Games like Battlechess, Dark Alliance, Descent, Giants or Sacrifice will also feature in Interplay's plans to return to greatness.

This flurry of activity was made possible by the 5.75 million dollars that Interplay has gotten out of the deal in which it sold the Fallout 3 license to Bethesda, creators of Oblivion. Apparently, Interplay has maintained the rights to a Fallout themed MMO which it also plans to deliver sometime in late 2009.