12 months have passed...
On the gloomy ruins of an abandoned construction site, the rain pattered down onto the soggy ground, the twisted piles of fallen scaffolding were lit only by the occasional crackles of lightning that flashed across the cloudy sky. It was not a night to be outside.
Three people, however, were outside, and the miserable weather was making them very much irate. They were not particularly pleasant folk to begin with, either, and it would be a fool who crossed them on this dark and stormy night.
"Right, this is the place." Mr. Stamp, the postman, paced up and down and shivered. His thin postal uniform and hat did nothing to keep out the driving rain, and the ink was beginning to run in his letter satchel.
"Are you SURE?" Mr. Sky hovered around the remains of the scaffolding. "It seems awfully quiet." His jetpack turned the puddles to steam as he flew about, scanning the area for any signs of life.
"Oh, this 'az to be the roight place, moi loves." Mr. Paint, the last member of the unholy trinity, walked up to the scaffolding and tapped it. "Give uz an 'and to move this girder orf, will you?"
The trio heaved and strained, and after what seemed an eternity of digging through the rubble, a flash of lightning revealed a shoe. "There he is!" Mr. Stamp shouted over the roar of the storm. "Pull, quickly!"
With a heave and a strain, the three became four. Mr. Pie was standing in the middle of his old drinking partners and glowering at them. "It's about time, you degenerates?"
"Oh...YUCK." Said Mr. Sky... for Mr. Pie had changed. The 12 months underground had taken their terrible toll on his body, reducing him to a mere skeleton. He stood in the tattered remains of his clothes, nothing remaining but bones.
"That's disgusting!" moaned Mr. Stamp, turning a distinct shade of green. "How can we possibly proceed now? I mean, what kind of sick and twisted people would have a living SKELETON as the main villain of a game?"
"No, really, I'm fine." Pie snapped. "A couple of hot dinners and I'll be right as rain. Now, why has it taken you a whole year to get me out from beneath there?"
"Well, to be honest, we couldn't really be arsed." Stamp replied. "I mean, you never pay for your round down the pub, and nobody really likes you..."
"But then we zaw this." Mr. Paint flourished a newspaper, the headline to which was revealed by a suitable dramatic lightning: 'MR PANTS AND MRS PIE TO WED!'
"I... I don't believe it!" Mr Pie gasped.
"No, me neither." said Stamp. "I mean, how do his wedding plans manage to make the front page of the paper? It defies all logi - "
"I MEAN," Pie snapped, "my treacherous wife thinks that I'm dead and so it's okay for her to marry that brazen hussy Mr. Pants! Well, we'll just have to show him that rumours of my death have been GREATLY exaggerated. C'mon, lads, I have a plan..."
"Is it an evil plan?" Stamp asked, trailing behind his resurrected friend.
Mr. Pie considered. "I suppose it is, yeah. Is that a problem?"
"Nah, not really."
"Right, now pay attention, you three." Pie led the way through the forest, oblivious to the streaming rain - lack of nerve endings will do a lot for a man. "We're going to need as much help as we can get for this one, so the first thing we'll do is contact Mr. Trout - "
"Er, he's dead."
"Really?" Pie looked a bit startled. "What killed him?"
"Unpopularity. But we've still got the e-mail addresses of a few of his followers."
"Well, then..." Pie rubbed his remaining hand against his side gleefully. "We'll get them to hurl objects at Mr. Pants - "
"Like the last game?"
" - like the last game, yes. While this goes on as a distraction, Mr. Sky can spirit my wife away to the secret lair that we built underneath the pub. Remember it?"
"Oh, yeah..." Mr. Sky smiled. "We got SO drunk that night. Anyway, I'm not much good as a boss, so I'll fly around and try and prevent Mr. Pants from ever reaching the rest of you. With all of us working together, there's no WAY he'll get to us this time..."
"I'm so nervous!" Mrs. Pie whispered to her about-to-be-husband as they walked slowly down the aisle. "How do you feel?"
Mr. Pants considered this. "Great, great, great!"
"Oh, you're so sweet." Pie smiled. "And just think, tonight we'll be able to see what lies under those... what's that noise?"
The guests screamed and scrambled for the church exits as Mr. Sky, laughing demonically, smashed through one of the stained-glass windows and descended towards the startled bride. "You're coming with me, Pie!" he cackled, making a hasty escape for the church doors with Mr. Pants in hot pursuit.
"I've got her!" Sky called, as he flew outside and up into the air. "Start throwing things, boys!" he called to Mr. Trout's followers, who dutifully began to hurl bizarre items plucked from the carnage of the wedding.
"Oh, well..." Mr. Pants sighed, watching the love of his life being dragged off into the distance, and then deftly evading the hail of objects coming from overhead. "One more time..."
Mr. Pants 2001 builds upon the fine tradition of one previous game, catapulting him past mere cameos in blockbuster Nintendo titles to star in a line of fangames played by a tiny section of the Internet. Mr. Pants, originally designed by Leigh Loveday of Rareware to help sprinkle a page with "art" (because he couldn't get anyone to do up a graphic he wanted), has since grown into a mascot rivaling Donkey Kong himself. Well, maybe Diddy. OK, that stupid "Kiddy" one we saw for all of one DKC game.
The point of Mr. Pants has always been to avoid the objects falling toward you while collecting "Scribes", letters to Rare's website which are comprised of "arse" every third word. New to the series are RPAs: Rubbish Picture Attachments. Collecting three of a like color will net you a special power, but you can only try to carry one color at a time.
The sequel also features a Co-Op mode, with Taskbaa helping you collect Scribes, and Counter-Op, with Mr. Sky nabbing them and RPAs from your grasp. If you also don't like the RPAs and boss encounters, you can play in "Classic Mode", which removes those two elements for pure Pants action.
The game features quite a few levels, some hidden, as well as several secrets to find. Play is simplistic, but addictive; a bit like Tetris in some weird way. Boss encounters are clever, requiring careful use of RPAs. And of course, it features a giant stickman with a bowler hat running around in only his underpants, do you NEED any other reason?
I highly suggest you give the game a DL, you won't be disappointed. And if you are, don't tell anyone, we want to live in our imaginy world of happyness.
-Kulock
Last Updated: 5/15/01
