Play Earthworm Jim 2 on Snes Online

Earthworm Jim 2 came out on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995, developed by Shiny Entertainment. It was part of that wave of mid-90s platformers that weren't afraid to get strange, and it fit right in with the SNES library's mix of polished action and creative risks. The game didn't take itself seriously, and that was a big part of its appeal at the time.

You control Jim, a worm in a robotic suit, running and gunning through a series of bizarre, unpredictable stages. Your main goal is simply to survive each level and defeat the bosses, but how you do that changes constantly. One stage has you using your own head as a whip to swing across gaps; another turns the whole game into a shoot-'em-up inside a monster's digestive system. The pacing is frantic, and the difficulty can spike without warning, especially in some of the more puzzle-oriented sections. It feels chaotic and inventive in a way that makes even the cheap deaths hard to stay mad at.