Sitting Ducks - Sentimentality Can Only Take You So Far

08/04/25

Sometimes, I get excited for shovelware. I just didn’t realize it’d be Sitting Ducks - the licensed title of an animated series I’ve heard next to no one talk about - that I’d be excited to finally get around to. Is that excitement enough to serve as a counterweight to this game that is, uh, not very good? And by not very good, I mean there are some AWFUL sections of this game. Time will tell, I suppose.

Sitting Ducks holds the dubious distinction of being one of the games that directly inspired the creation of The Game Boy Abyss. I remember, for whatever reason, I was just scrolling the list of GBA games on Wikipedia, and my eyes fell upon Sitting Ducks, and I was beset by memories of this weird ass CGI cartoon I’d watched in my youth. Seeing the fact that next to no one talked about - or even posted more than a handful of videos - of the game made me wonder if it was worth giving a spotlight to forgotten like this. I don’t even remember liking the show that much, besides thinking Bill and Aldo were kinda gay - that, and remembering that I watched it airing on Nickelodeon at 2am. Why it aired in that slot, and why I was awake then, who knows, but it’s a fun little memory that’ll always stick in the back of my mind. The game, too, will probably stick around in my head, but for far less sentimental reasons.

Seriously, I’ll be as fair as I can be, but did you really expect *that* much from the GBA version of Sitting Ducks!? When that quack-infused theme kicks in on the title screen, it truly does set you up exactly for what’s in store for ‘ya. Something a little low quality, a little funny, and something that can be really, really frustrating. Rather than being the general, generic kind of shovelware produced for the GBA, Sitting Ducks *does* boast a notable amount of variety as compared to what I generally expect. The loose framing device of the game is that there’s some contest - I genuinely can’t remember what it was for - and Bill and Aldo need to go and do various tasks to earn tickets to win said contest. These tasks take the form of the surprisingly decent variety of minigames and formats Sitting Ducks has on offer - quality notwithstanding. Honestly, the variety is just nice; I’d rather a handful of mediocre-to-bad playstyles than just the same kind of mediocrity through and through. I’d prefer something good, of course, but when I’m booting up Sitting Ducks, I’m not really expecting ‘good’.

There are essentially four major modes of play in the single player element of the game - the best easily being what can only be described as ‘Baby’s first time trial’. Usually as Bill, you’ll be tasked with locating certain items or characters within the city, with your only real path of indication as to *where* the items are to follow a trail of coins - which you better not lose track of, as there’s very little in the form of landmarks to ground you, making it very easy to get very lost, very quickly. These coins exist not only as a pathway, but also increasing the amount of time you’ll have left on the clock. Whilst these levels are undoubtedly easy - I didn’t fail a single one - there is something really satisfying about gathering up those coins and trying to cut down your time as much as you can. When coupled with the game’s medal system - more on that later - there is some decent fun to be had here. Sure, ‘time trials’ of this kind of breezy difficulty wouldn’t quite be enough to fill up a game, but it’s a bright spot in a rather devastating black hole of a game.

The other game modes, sadly, did not meet the average standard set by the time trials. In fact, not only do they fail to meet that bar, I got the impression they thought the goal was somewhere deep, deep within the bowels of the earth, because… Well, there’s a reason I didn’t quite reach this game’s ending. The other most common game mode in Sitting Ducks puts either Aldo or Bill in a maze-like environment, tasking you with locating keys and switches to open gates to either find the exit, or locate a certain amount of an item. These levels are insane to me for two core reasons; firstly, navigation of these zones is stupidly frustrating, as the majority of these zones take place in forestry parklands, with nothing to serve as landmarks then the directions of certain roads. Thus, it’s ridiculously easy to get lost, running out the clock as you simply try to get from Point A to Point B or vice versa. Secondly, one of these levels featured quite possibly the worst - and funniest - bugs I’ve seen in the Game Boy Abyss yet. Playing as Bill, I had to dodge a number of pitfalls which, upon falling in, just wastes a few seconds as you wait for Bill to respawn nearby. However, near the end of a level - one of the last in the game, mind you - I accidentally fell into one, and instead of respawning, the camera panned down and right for around twenty seconds, got stuck at the very corner of the map, and just didn’t respawn Bill. It was so baffling, so surprising, I laughed so hard and so long the time ran out, and I promptly stopped playing the game. There are certainly buggier games, but I’ve never seen one floor me quite that way.

The third game mode is more or less a subset of the mazes, where Bill has to infiltrate alligator territory for one reason or another, but has the added detriment of having to actually avoid his natural predator. It’s easier than it sounds - even if he gets grabbed by a ‘gator, you just need to spam A or B to get Bill out of death’s grip. Usually these would just be a be ,ore mediocre than anything else, but progression in these levels can be a bit awkward; whilst most alligators will just hold you, forcing you to spam your way out, but without any real warning, there are certain alligators that upon grabbing Bill will just automatically fail the level. These levels are just more annoying than anything else, but suffer most from the lack of signposting what direction you need to go in, and with the absence of the coins from the time trial levels, can leave you just wasting time lost. They’re certainly better then the more common mazes, since there’s just a little more interactivity to them beyond just wandering mazes, but they’re still very, very forgettable.

Finally, there are the vehicle sections, which are either once again time trial-ly in nature or just flat out races, and I can attest that these stages are ATROCIOUS. Simply atrocious. Controlling the different vehicles feels like driving through mud that has been churned with amber and tar at the same time, and that’s before trying to deal with invisible barriers and racers alike having some of the worst hitboxes I’ve ever seen in a game. Not Shrek Speedway bad, because the racers don’t cheat the way they did in that game, but still - pretty damn bad. Honestly, the fetch quest/time trial variant of the vehicles are way worse, as I was constantly getting stuck in corners and whatnot and just flat out not being given the information I needed, leaving you driving somewhat randomly around just hoping you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for. Again, I don’t want to make it sound like this game is particularly hard - it’s not - it’s just goddamn annoying at the best of times, and ridiculously frustrating at the worst - and most - of the times.

Beyond just finishing the game, there is a little bit of incentive to retry levels. Medals can be earned in all the levels from completing them in a certain amount of time or finding enough items in the stage. So basically, in time trial levels, it’s finding the most efficient path to the objectives, whilst in the item collection levels, you need to make sure you’re not missing out on a stray object here and there. Same tac applies for all the different levels - speed of completion or quantity of collectibles. Honestly, going for the medals can be pretty fun, especially in the time trial levels, since there’s some decent satisfaction to be found about optimizing your route or hunting down each of the required items - the frustration only really comes into play in the other, much worse segments of the game. Simply put, if they’re not fun to just play normally, there isn’t much appeal to pushing through them at a much higher standard. I had a good time grabbing them where I felt like it, though.

But what’s the actual point to grabbing the medals? Well, Sitting Ducks does have a side mode beyond just the single player which is expanded by collecting the medals… but sadly, if you don’t like earning the medals throughout Sitting Ducks, the added content isn’t going to help. You unlock… races. Races, and vehicles. As far as I can tell, you don’t get anything for completing these races, they’re just simply meant to be a bonus for those willing to go the extra mile… but when the races make up some of the worst content of the game, it’s not particularly a draw, if I do say so myself.

Also, in my continuing hate campaign on this topic, this damn game once again features passwords! The complicated, gibberish kind due to having to take into account all your medals and whatnot. It’s particularly annoying here because whilst the game isn’t super long - around two hours, I’d say - it’s long enough that if you switch the game off without jotting down the code, time to play through all that good, great gameplay! I’m willing to bet you didn’t memorize those awful mazes, either, didn’t ya? It is a fairly early game in the GBA’s life cycle, but this excuse doesn’t really hold water when GBC - and even vanilla Game Boy - games had save features, even from third party devs, so I really shouldn’t keep bring up early GBA games like that.

Whilst the game isn’t nearly on the level of the more acclaimed titles on the Game Boy Advance, I kinda don’t hate how the game looks. It has a very bright, poppy art direction, and whilst many of the sprites look a bit off, the general vibes of the locales and whatnot gives the game a very charming feel - the nighttime infiltration missions are a hell of a vibe. Of what’s of less debatability is the audio - this game genuinely sounds terrible, particularly it’s quack-sourced tracks, but I simply just can’t hate it. It’s terrible - it grates the ears, but there’s something so frankly bizarre and hilarious about such a terrible soundtrack I can’t do anything but love it. Mission failed successfully, and all that.

I could only find the PS1 version of the song, so imagine this waaaay more crunchy.

Sitting Ducks has a few bright spots - mostly in it’s off-colour visuals, bizarre soundtrack, and the genuinely enjoyable time trial levels - but so much of what’s good is coloured by a variety of other modes that are boring at the best of times, and outright maddening (I think I hate GBA cars…) at the worst. It’s a game that holds a little bit of funny, sentimental value, mostly in my weird memories of the cartoon and how it helped form the Game Boy Abyss, but there really isn’t much to love here in the form of an actual game. Just throw the soundtrack on, I gurraunte it’ll be just as much fun.

Thanks for reading my review of Sitting Ducks on the Game Boy Abyss. Another one in the dust, one that I’m excited to have finally done - but now that I’ve played it, I’m even more excited that it’s in the rear-view mirror. Nothing crazy coming up in the near future, just more weird one-offs, but I hope you’ll stick around all the same! As always, you can find me over on BlueSky and Twitch under GameBoyAbyss, and email me at mgeorge7003@hotmail.com or cckaiju@gmail.com if you have any questions or requests. Thanks again for reading, and I’ll see you next time!