Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt review:
The Animaniacs have been off the air for several years now,but that didn’t stop Ignition and Warner Brothers from teaming up to bringYakko, Wakko, and...
Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt review:
Wakko, Yakko and Dot are back for their latest adventure, the Great Edgar Hunt. The Animaniacs are crazy, and they’ll go to incredible measures to secure the Edgar trophies that are scattered all over the Warner Bros. world. We’ve seen plenty of games similar to this on the Xbox, ranging from The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie to Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2, but the Animaniacs cartoon is a classic, and a game based on it is something fans will definitely enjoy. It’s just that, well basically Animaniacs was cool in 1996, but now nine years later the franchise is slightly worn.GameplayAnimaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt is your basic kiddy adventure game. Control Wakko, Yakko and Dot through different environments, collecting coins, gold, and different items, to ultimately collect all the trophies and kill the boss. Along the way you’re confronted with loads of different enemies though, ranging from cacti that come to life and fire their pricks at you, to snakes that want nothing more than to bite you. There are six different levels to make your way through, each with different tasks and mini-games to pursue, making Animaniacs a game that takes no more than five hours to beat.Pinky and The Brain play a large part in this game though, which was odd at first. You’ll find them on the screen when you’re entering in your name, and then all throughout the game there are mini-games which they will host, and there are also different environmental features that represent the Pinky and The Brain cartoon as well. The mini-games include such things as using a magnet to get horse shoes, or racing along the top of a good old fashioned train in order to save Dot who is tied to the tracks.Health is a bit of an issue in the game. You get three apples of health, and the apples slowly get eaten as you lose health. There are plenty of apples around the place though, but if you need to backtrack then you may find that you’ve absorbed all the apples already. If you have full health, the apples should just stay where they are instead of being absorbed by your character pointlessly, but unfortunately they don’t.Each character has their own moves, but they all follow the same sort of controls in the end. Your weapon is a large hammer, just like what they use in the actual cartoon sometimes, and you have about three or four ways to attack your enemy, including spinning around, just full on whacking them, and even a sit down bomb just like in the late Mario games. The game features a fair bit of comedy, but it’s quite a low level of comedy that children would find amusing. The game is of course targeted at an audience aged anything under twelve, which puts the comedy in its respectful place. Some of the jokes race by so fast though that we’re not sure how any 10 year-old would be able to read it and understand it in time!Throughout the game there are doors that pop up all over the place. They are not only checkpoints, but are also ways to travel to different parts of the level, or ways to swap characters. Sometimes you’ll find a secret door under a waterfall or somewhere, which will let you warp to somewhere else in the level, however you won’t be able to warp back to there for some reason. There are lots of people wandering around the place, but very few that you can talk to. The only ones you can talk to are the ones that will give you a new objective to complete, which gives the game a more linear feel than it should. As you progress to a new area, the area expands out in every direction, but if you have an overall goal to complete for that one area, then the game is made to feel very simple.GraphicsThe environment is bland, yet colourful. The colours are just like in the cartoon, which one would of course expect. The characters look just like they do in the cartoon as well, which makes the overall feel of the game great for any Animaniacs fan. The environment isn’t really all that interactive, but there are a lot of things to climb on, including mountains and houses, in order to collect more items. The camera angle can actually be locked in a position by pressing the left trigger, but you can freely rotate it around if you want.SoundThe sounds don’t really get all that annoying, which parents will find pleasing. The only annoying noises in the game are when you visit the Native American tribe. They make the most ridiculous noises over and over again, and it can get on your nerves quite easily. The background music is simply that, background music. It doesn’t intrude on the game at all, so there’s a nice blend of noises coming out of your speakers while playing the game. The main theme song is of course within the game because Ignition Entertainment secured all rights to the Warner Bros. cartoon, so this adds a little bit of satisfaction for fans.OverallWith a very short campaign, pretty pointless mini-games, no multiplayer support, and pretty much an extinct franchise, Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt was definitely an interesting game to play. It’s definitely a game designed for any youngster to start off on, but if you’re looking for complex gameplay, Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt is most definitely not for you. To sum everything up, if this game was released four years ago it may have been successful, but in this day and age there’s no room for an average adventure game based on an old cartoon.Thumbs Up Some nice graphics that really suit the cartoon. Mini-games offer a little bit of replay value. Budget title (RRP $69.95), great as a present for a child.Thumbs Down No multiplayer. A co-op feature could have really livened up the game. Far too short. Stop making adventure games that aren’t adventures. The most simple combat system of 2005. full size >>
Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt review: