[A-Z Games] E: Earthworm Jim

Earthworm Jim was a rival, of sorts, for the gaming royalty of Mario and Sonic - the flag bearers for Nintendo and Sega respectively in the early 90's (they have retained that position, I think). Platform games were the default genre of the era with seemingly all publishers wanting a bit of the action from Mario which Sonic was able to harness for a while. As they were console specific, if you could release on both major consoles of the day, you really were quids in. Bubsy the Bobcat, Robocod and Rayman were among a string of hits and semi hits from western developers wanting a piece of that pie. Earthworm Jim transcended it with a multimedia approach - it had an excellent cartoon to go with it. The game itself had a strange sense of humour and the cartoon took that and played with it. A favourite of mine was the planet where everyone was scared.
"Aaargh, something green!
Aaargh! Something not green!"

I have only played Earthworm Jim fleetingly but it has many, many fans and they speak highly of it even today. The original had quite a different art style to conventional platformers with a more hand drawn aesthetic and bright colours - which suited the cartoon down to the ground. The game spawned one sequel too but by then, 1995, the platformer, and 2D generally were on their way out as the Playstation redefined the state of play.

Remakes are available of this, you can check them out here:
http://www.gog.com/game/earthworm_jim_1_2

3 other E titles that might be interesting: 
Einhander - What happens when RPG makers find out about the shoot 'em up genre with excellent results.
EA Hockey - A fun game, especially when there used to be no good football games on the Megadrive. 
Earthbound - Cult RPG by Nintendo. The reason imports start.