Looney Tunes: Back in Action is a 2003 video game based on the film of the same name. It notably doesn't have any main human characters with the exception of the chairman (voiced by Joe Alaskey instead of Steve Martin). It was developed by British studio Warthog Games and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action contains examples of:
- 11th-Hour Superpower: Tweety, of all characters, for the final boss.
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: The travel fare for each area gets more expensive the farther in the game you get. Foghorn Leghorn will also increase the price on his monkeys in each subsequent area.
- Adapted Out: Despite being major characters in the movie, D.J. and Kate are completely absent.
- Alice Allusion: One of the people at the movie studios says "I'm late for a very important latte!"
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck get clothes for progressing the game after collecting enough money.
- Anvil on Head: This happens if the player gets a Yosemite Sam symbol on the slot machine in the Wooden Nickel level.
- Arc Villain: Most levels have a classic Looney Tunes villain being responsible for the level's conflict:
- Warner Bros Studio has Porky Pig and Speedy Gonzalez. Downplayed in that they aren't really villainous since they're just doing their job as security guards.
- Paris & the Louvre has Elmer Fudd.
- Wooden Nickel has Yosemite Sam.
- Area 52 has Marvin the Martian.
- Jungle Ruins downplays this with Taz, who only appears in a single mission, and has otherwise nothing to do with the tribesmen that have been pestering you the whole level.
- The ACME Chairman can be considered this for the game as a whole.
- Area 51: The fourth level in the game takes place at "Area 52".
- Ascended Extra:
- Porky Pig and Speedy Gonzales get more focus in this game than in the film.
- Tweety becomes a key character in the final level where he transforms into a pterodactyl.
- Balloonacy: In the final mission of the "Wooden Nickel" level, Daffy has to use a bunch of balloons to fly up and pop Yosemite Sam's balloons to defeat him.
- Blue/Orange Contrast: Bugs and Daffy's designated Toon Pads and Costume Rental doors are orange and blue, respectively.
- Butt-Monkey:
- As is to be expected, Daffy Duck and Wile E. Coyote.
- Later in the game, Foghorn Leghorn ends up as this, first having his body switched with a monkey, then almost being cooked alive and turned into stew, then actually being turned into a monkey along with everyone else at the end of the game.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The CEO initially shows up in the first cutscene and seemingly has little to no importance to the plot, up until the very end when it turns out he needs the gem to power his ray that turns everyone into monkeys.
- Classic Cheat Code: Several, all of which can be entered by going to the options screen on the main menu and selecting "cheats":
- AMUNKEY: Grants $500 to the player. Can be entered as many times as you want.
- FURRYOUS: Automatically unlocks all of the Wile E. Coyote bonus levels.
- HENSAWAY: Gives the player hen grenades that can be used at any time.
- SUITSYOU: All costume doors are free.
- GOBBLE: Unlocks a special "Gossamer" costume for Bugs in Warner Bros Studio.
- WEENY: Grants Bugs and Daffy a shrink ray to use on enemies. Notably replaced by a rifle in Paris & the Louvre. Useful for getting rid of security guards.
- PASSPORT: Unlocks every level in the game. This code will also disable saving until the console is turned off.
- DANGERD: Gives Daffy his "Duck Danger" costume permanently.
- TOUGHAGE: Grants invincibility.
- OUTTAKE: Unlocks a secret optional boss in Warner Bros Studio based on Daffy's movie pitch at the beginning of the game.
- Collection Side Quest: The Michigan J. Frog statues and the Road Runner seeds. The former gets an extra monkey upon collecting all 20, while collecting all 7 of the latter opens a stage of the traffic minigame where you need to reach a certain distance (the later the level, the farther you have to go) to earn yet another monkey.
- Developer's Foresight:
- By pausing the game, you can automatically cut off dialogue that any character was currently speaking. Should you do this while Bugs or Daffy is speaking to the character currently being played as, they'll have unamused reactions to the player doing so when they return to the game.
- Normally, Bugs and Daffy will appear in a small portrait while they talk to the player. However, if the other is on screen when they start talking, the portrait won't appear, and they'll have proper lip syncing for the line they're currently speaking.
- Excuse Plot: In contrast to the sometimes convoluted plot the movie has, the game's version of it is pretty bare bones — Bugs and Daffy are chasing a monkey to retrieve the valuable gem he's reportedly stolen. Subverted near the end when it turns out the gem was for a machine that turns everyone into monkeys.
- Fake Action Prologue: The game begins where Daffy Danger tries to defeat Elmer Fudd. It turns out to be a pitch by Daffy Duck. It originally came from a deleted scene of the film. A cheat code allows you to actually fight Elmer as a secret boss.
- Fake Longevity: The door to the final boss cannot be opened until you have 35 monkeys total. This would normally not be a case of this...except this is the only time in the whole game that any kind of progression is locked behind a certain number of monkeys, so the player likely hasn't been concerning themselves over them beyond making sure all the normal objectives were completed. Furthermore, the player is not forewarned about this in any way until they actually reach the door, so if they didn't go in knowing this, that's some forced backtracking to earlier levels that will be needed.
- Falling Damage: Falling from a great height will cause you to lose a chunk of health. Amusingly, falling from a height that is not high enough to cause damage will have Bugs or Daffy fall face-first onto the ground with a resounding "thunk".
- Frying Pan of Doom: Daffy uses this as a weapon.
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The final boss, the stone monkey golem, has no buildup, appears completely out of nowhere, and doesn't even have any story reason for being there other than providing a way for the heroes to stop the ACME Chairman from carrying out his plan. In fact, the Chairman himself ends up being The Unfought, while the boss is fought as a mutated Tweety rather than Bugs or Daffy, whom you've been playing as the entire game.
- Ground Pound: Bugs does this so he can go into the ground and destroy objects.
- Guide Dang It!: The final boss has an extremely unintuitive control scheme with no instruction on how it works, and it's made even worse if you have never played a boxing game before. You're supposed to somehow come to the conclusion that you need to control it with both joysticks. This is especially nonsensical with the right stick, which has had no utility beyond camera control for the whole game.
- Guilt-Based Gaming: Inverted. It's reasonable to assume that the player might feel bad for attacking the tourists considering they don't mean any real harm...which the game cleverly combats by keeping them just as giddy and excitable even when you attack them.Tourist: He touched me! He actually touched me!
- Hope Spot: The Wile E. Coyote bonus levels end with Wile E. seemingly having finally achieved his lifelong dream of catching the Road Runner... only for Road Runner to suddenly reveal it was actually a monkey in disguise, meaning Wile E. still failed. Even in the games, Wile E. Coyote is still a Butt-Monkey.
- Human-Focused Adaptation: Averted. Unlike the movie, Kate and D.J. are completely absent, putting the focus back onto Bugs and Daffy.
- Invisibility Ink: In the first mission of the Louvre, Blacque Jacque Shellacque uses this on himself so he can steal paintings. Bugs has to use a spy outfit to find him and get the paintings back.
- The Man Behind the Man: The monkey you've been chasing through the entire game mistakenly gets zapped with anti-monkey ray at the very end of the game and turns out to have been Michigan J. Frog the entire time.
- Medium Awareness:
- There are several examples including where Daffy said "Ah. Life in 3D."
- Bugs asks Daffy "Did you ever get the feeling that you was being rendered?"
- Mythology Gag:
- Bugs says "Hey, I still got my Space Jam skills!"
- One of the two guys driving a film cart around the jungle set says, "We got you a bottle of water, Mr. Schlesinger!", referring to Leon Schlesinger, a producer for the original Looney Tunes shorts.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: The Jungle Ruins have waters infested with crocodiles that will eat Bugs or Daffy when they fall in.
- No Fair Cheating: The "passport" cheat code automatically unlocks every single level in the game, but disables saving, so any progress made after the code is entered will be lost upon turning the game off.
- Piranha Problem: Las Vegas and the Jungle Ruins have piranhas that leap over logs, threatening to bite Bugs or Daffy should they get in the way.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: It has the same charm as the film but has differences such as the Blue Monkey diamond found by Daffy first in the game before taken by the chairman.
- Save Point: The game saves after the player gets a monkey.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The gem that Bugs and Daffy chase through the whole game ends up being rendered completely moot when, after they finally do retrieve it, Daffy trips and drops the gem into a pit of lava. This has the effect of undoing the damage caused moments earlier by the villain, but considering most of the game led the player on a wild goose chase for the gem...
- Shout-Out:
- Daffy poses as Batman in the intro.
- Daffy says "Up, up and away!" when jumping.
- One of the people at the movie studios says "Go ahead, make my day."
- Solid Clouds: In the movie studios level, once you are able to climb up the water tower, you reach an area full of clouds that you can walk on.
- Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: The Michigan J. Frog statues emit a ribbit and the Road Runner seeds sound the iconic "beep beep" noise to help aid the player in tracking them down.
- Super Drowning Skills: Bugs can't swim. If he falls in a deep enough volume of water, it's an instant death. Averted with Daffy.
- Take Over the World: The chairman wants to take over the world after he gets the Blue Monkey.
- That's All, Folks!: Bugs gets to say it throughout the game when he defeats an enemy. There's also the screen with this text in the Game Over screen for the GBA version, including the final part of the Looney Tunes theme.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change: Littered throughout the game are minigames that aren't platforming focused at all. Special mention goes to the final boss, in which the player takes control of a mutated Tweety of all things and the game suddenly turns into a boxing game.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential:
- This is actually needed to progress at a few points in Wooden Nickel, where you must attack Elmer Fudd to create balloon platforms that Bugs and Daffy can bounce off of. Nothing's stopping you from continuing to wail on Elmer.
- You can hit Oliver Owl to make him stop singing if he begins to get on your nerves.
- You can have Bugs or Daffy attack each other depending on who you're currently playing as.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Some characters, such as Granny, will attempt to hit you back if you attack them.
- "Wanted!" Poster: In the first level, there are wanted posters of Daffy everywhere for some reason. Daffy has to hide while Bugs destroys all the posters.
- Weaponized Camera: Unintentionally, but an "enemy" that appears throughout the game is an excitable tourist who will all too happily take blindingly bright photos that will cause you to take damage. Of course, he doesn't mean any actual harm, he's just oblivious to this fact.
- What the Hell, Player?: Bugs and Daffy will often complain if you spend a long time without switching to the other.
