Whiplash (PS2)

Sometimes I stumble upon a video game that has such an odd concept that I feel the need to check it out for myself based on that concept alone. Whiplash (not to be confused with the 2014 film starring J.K. Simmons or the racing game known outside the US as Fatal Racing) was one such game for me, whose main concept involves a weasel and a rabbit who are chained together with the goal of escaping an animal testing facility. After looking for a physical copy of the game for some time, I finally found one at a place I irregularly visit that sells vintage/retro games and started playing at the next best opportunity I could find. After actually getting to play it, I found the experience to be worth what I paid for (it doesn’t go for very much second-hand), though it wasn’t entirely perfect.

The animal testing facility known as Genron proudly uses animal testing for their products, as well as a whole host of other experiments. Before they could be sent to a Recombinator, a long-tailed weasel named Spanx and an American white rabbit named Redmond, both of whom were chained together, manage to escape their fate and start making their escape Just as they do, the two come across a room where a mysterious voice tells them to “cut loose”.

There isn’t much to the story, though what is there makes it work. As Spanx and Redmond try to find a way out, they are also tasked by another figure (with assistance from a cyborg owl named Lincoln) with taking down Genron as a whole. The head of Genron, Franklin D. Mann, isn’t seen much outside pictures hanging on the walls in some areas, though the level on which he despises animals is enough for him to fill the antagonist role.

Redmond (left) and Spanx (right) have to work together
to escape Genron.

The voice acting works for what it is, with the voice actors giving good performances. Between the two of them, Spanx is silent while Redmond provides a lot of snark, and as such he is the character you hear the most. For a game like this, it’s obvious that he can only have such a limited dialogue pool during regular gameplay, though thankfully it’s varied enough that it doesn’t become annoying (it’s certainly a lot better than in other games such as Neverdead). That said, he makes a few jokes that seem a little Shrek-esque, such as one about the stereotypical “movie trailer voice” and comparing a minor antagonist to fugitive film director Roman Polanski.

There’s also some humorous minor details about Genron, such as signs seen in some levels that off-handedly bring up their treatment of animals as though it’s normal (a favorite of mine is “We pick up where Mother Nature left off”) as well as some of their more absurd products and loudspeaker announcements. The background music by Kurt Harland is also good; the primary piece was especially memorable since, as I had been playing the game in chunks and I had to take a break for a few days for a trip, I was still able to remember that music.

As for gameplay, it largely consists of Spanx using Redmond as, to quote Redmond, a “war mace” to attack enemies, with various combos that can be unlocked during the game. That said, combat only really requires a handful of basic moves, though some enemies come prepared to defend against specific ones. One especially tough type of enemy are female henchmen that seem prepared for nearly everything; for some reason they made me think of Lara Croft, which is humorous since developer Crystal Dynamics would not become exclusively a Tomb Raider developer until right after their next game, Project Snowblind. On the subject of combat, one thing that really irked me was that, even after adjusting the camera to not be inverted, the optional combat camera is hard inverted, which really threw me off a number of times.

Spanx also takes advantage of Redmond’s invincibility for other things, such as grappling and disrupting gear-based machinery. You can also throw into certain things to give him temporary buffs, such as setting him on fire or freezing him, as well as fill him with helium to turn him into a balloon and traverse upwards. One short mission in the early game involves covering Redmond with chocolate to distract a guard, which results in the humorous button prompt “Press [Triangle] to get your chocolate on”.

This virgin art for a print ad shows one of the many things
you can do with Redmond.

A side mission throughout the game is to cause as much damage to Genron as possible by destroying breakable items and bringing their value down; there’s supposed to be a special scene in the credits for managing to do over $6 Million in damage, though I was just unable to get that amount. What may have contributed to this was a glitch I encountered at one point where, while breaking a room full of beakers, I suddenly began falling through the level and into nothingness, leading me to not break all of them upon loading from a Checkpoint for fear of reproducing the glitch. Another glitch occurred after booting up the game for the first time, in which one section didn’t load properly, forcing the save file to become corrupted and me to start over (I didn’t have to redo very much, but still); fortunately, the game continued to load properly from there.

Whiplash is not a perfect game, though it is enjoyable overall. The combat can be a little repetitive, though the general gameplay is varied enough that it doesn’t become boring to play. Some of the jokes don’t really age well, though thankfully most of it is still funny. While it isn’t exactly a diamond in the rough, it is a more obscure game that I would, as Lincoln suggests during the ending, encourage people to play if they can find a copy, or even just borrow it from someone who owns it.