ISO 9000

Jim running through ISO 9000
(Sony PlayStation port)

ISO 9000, also called The Planet of Paperwork in some manuals, is the seventh level of Earthworm Jim 2.

Description

In Earthworm Jim's quest to save Princess What's-Her-Name from the clutches of Psy-Crow, the nefarious villain has trapped Jim in the bureaucratic black hole at the center of the Galaxy, from which Psy-Crow hopes Jim will never emerge.

ISO 9000 is a planet comprised almost entirely of legal paperwork, supervised by the malicious Masked Lawyers, turned insane by all the paperwork, and sorted endlessly by the killer Filing Cabinets. Jim must navigate through the mountains of lost memos and paper jams to find the world's only exit, a Door which seems to grow farther away with every step, just like the end of the work day...

Along the way Jim must deal with the nefarious flaming furnaces, spiky shredding belts and rotating bars that "dispose" of unwanted paperwork and help reclaim the planet's roving pet Mice in their large, circular rolling cages.

Manual Description

"ISO 9000"

"Psy-Crow has tricked Jim onto the Planet of Paperwork! Now, he's got to run over piles of paperwork, past sneaky Filing Cabinets, and evade the Masked Lawyers and accountants who will stop at nothing to get him to fill out his ISO 9000 forms (to renew his class 'C' Pocket Rocket pilot's license). Deeper and deeper into the archives, to where the mighty blast furnaces and printing presses await. Will the nightmare never end? Will he ever find the right form? Where can he find the the exit door? Will he become permanently filed? Is he in the right office? Which one was the dumb one, Lenny or George? I can never remember..."

ProTip: Grab the mice to start the machinery. Then, watch out for the sneaky file cabinets. How can you get past them? The answer can be found in drawer number two."

Gallery

Nintendo SNES port

Flaming furnaces (Nintendo SNES port)

Light Bulb Portal on top of a wardrobe with a leg sticking out (SNES port)

A strange machine that houses a Mouse Cage (SNES port)

Chasing The Door (SNES port)

Level map

Level map

Sony PlayStation port

ISO 9000 (Sony PlayStation port)

Jim running through ISO 9000 (PS port)

Jim gets pulled into machinery to advance in the level (PS port)

Jim using Snott to parachute over paper burners (PS port)

Chasing The Door (PS port)

Jim finally wrestles The Door to the ground and exits the world

Theme music

Earthworm Jim 2 (PS1) Soundtrack - Subterranean (Lorenzens Soil ISO 9001)

"Subterranean"

• ISO 9000 does not have its own music. Game music composer Tommy Tallarico reused music from earlier levels for ISO 9000.
• In earlier ports of Earthworm Jim 2, Tallarico reused the guitar-track "Subterranean", which was the music for the earlier level Lorenzen's Soil.
• In later ports of Earthworm Jim 2, the music used is the same as that of the Granny/Granny chair Scottish-sounding theme from the first level, A.B.T.

Trivia

• The music and background artwork of this level have differed greatly among the various ports and regional releases of Earthworm Jim 2.
• In the real world, "ISO" is an acronym for the "International Organization for Standardization". Within the context of the game, the "I" presumably instead refers to "Interplanetary", "Interstellar", or "Intergalactic".
• The name of this level is a joke on the complex bureaucratic and corporate "quality management strategy", also named ISO 9000, which has been in place since the late 1980s. ISO 9000 is now used as a global standard in big business, with millions of companies ISO-certified, although the strategy is not without criticism. This is not least due to the massive amount of paperwork involved with ISO 9000, and also since many critics have questioned the general effectiveness of the strategy.