Kung Fu Panda, while having a lot of potential (especially when compared to the next-gen versions), ultimately comes through as a bad movie tie-in game filled with issues that just make the game feel rushed.

Visually, the game isn't bad at all considering the age of the system. Textures and models are a little blurry, but that is better than blocky in my opinion. The visual style of the levels definitely sells the China-influenced settings that both the movie and game use. Everything from Pagoda Island to the Jade Palace just feels right.

Audio has a few issues. While it sounds as though the actors from the film reprised their roles for this game (although I can't confirm this), there were enough failings that just hurt the overall presentation. For one, there are times when the background music seems to simply not play, and other times the wrong sound clip will play. During "Po's First Day," he has to run through a series of rooms that are designed to test Po's skill, and acts as a tutorial for more advanced moves. For some reason, every time I jumped in that level, the sound clip that played was the one when Po takes damage.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of levels that take place in a lake and you have to jump across lily pads. As you would expect from such a platformer-heavy game, the pads start sinking and you have to jump almost immediately. The audio problem surrounding this part is the fact that Po will make a "Whoa" sound every time he jumps... every single time. So when jumping across the lake, you hear that sound clip over and over again. While playing the 360 version, I noticed that the game only played this clip every fifth or sixth time he jumped. It's just little things like this that makes the game feel unpolished and, at times, annoying.

Kung Fu Panda's level design is typically good and, typically, just long enough to work. The game is only a dozen or so levels long and really isn't that much of a challenge, provided you can get over some of the flaws with the mechanics, but more on that later.

Po, a Panda who seems to be destined to run his father's soup shop, really loves Kung Fu, and when given the chance to watch a competition featuring The Furious Five, masters of each form of Kung Fu, he inadvertently shows up in the arena itself and gets deemed The Dragon Warrior by an ancient master. Both The Five, and their teacher, Shifu, are shocked by Po's appointment as the greatest master ever, especially since one of the other five was sure to get the title.

With the escape of a former student of Shifu, Tai Lung, it seems that Po's training will have to be accelerated and if he truly is The Dragon Warrior, then he will have to realize his potential quickly. At the time of this review's writing, I haven't seen the movie yet, so I can't say how close the events in the game match the film, but there does seem to be quite a few parallels based on what I've seen in previews.

Po has a variety of attacks at his disposal. You can either use basic fighting abilities like combos or flying kicks, but there are other attacks that are specific to Po's "unique" form of Kung Fu. These attacks include Panda Quake where Po jumps up and belly flops the ground, Panda Stumble where Po trips and rolls around the area in a ball and Iron Belly that uses Po's big gut as a counterattack while blocking.

Besides the Story mode which will allow you to upgrade various attributes like health, Chi and the strength of different moves, Kung Fu Panda also offers a multi-player mode that lets you partake of various party-style mini-games like brawlers. Throughout the levels, you will find various green coins that are used to unlock multi-player levels and features. While somewhat enjoyable, the multi-player aspect was also the most disappointing since it is here where a lot of audio issues appear, and in much greater force, as well.

Kung Fu Panda has three difficulty settings; Student, Master, Dragon Warrior. The only real difference between these settings is how much damage you take from attacks and how much work it takes to fell opponents. But if you use your coins to upgrade your health and Chi as quickly as possible, then you won't really run into any problems no matter what setting you start the game with.

That being said, there are several issues that really hurt the game, and that's problems with jumping, specifically on levels that have the previously mentioned lily pads. I play a lot of platformer games, and I am typically pretty good at levels that have a series of jumps like that. For some reason, the jumping mechanic just isn't tuned right for this version of the game and I would find myself falling into the drink over and over. Oddly enough, this seems to be an issue isolated to the PS2 version, because while playing the 360, I can go through those same levels without hitting the water once. From what I understand, this problem doesn't exist on the PS3 either.

Kung Fu Panda's controls are fairly standard for action/platformers. Combination attacks consist of fast and heavy moves, and during major fights, you will have to perform the now humdrum, reaction-timed button-pressing events. When facing Tai Lung, in fact every time you face him, you will end up having to press a series of buttons creating fairly nice looking fights, but because each event's button sequence is concrete, instead of being a game of reaction timing, it becomes simple memorization. If you missed the button on the third grouping, just remember what it was and have your finger on that button when the time comes again.

I like Kung Fu Panda; it is a nice, quick game. Unfortunately, I don't like the PS2 version. There seem to be a lot of issues that occurred when bringing the PS3/360 release of this game down to the PS2 and from what I understand, the Wii as well. If you have one of the more high-end consoles, then I would definitely recommend checking this game out on one of them. If you only have a Wii or PS2, then just skip it. I would rather see people miss this game than see a version that has this many issues.