Kong the Animated Series
Score: 30% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: bam! Developer: Planet Media: Cart/1 Players: 1 Genre: Platformer
Graphics & Sound: For an example of why great graphics don't always equate to great games, I give you Exhibit A, Kong: The Animated Series. If the title weren't enough to tip you off, this is one big hunk of licensed love, and I don't mean that in the good way. More like tough love or prison love or something disgusting like that. But, you'd never know what you were in for after starting up this puppy. The graphics are like cool Saturday morning cartoons and plenty of neat effects like static-filled transmissions pop in during missions. The characters look great, the backgrounds and in-game screens are kind of retro, in an 80's animation kind of way. But, none of this stacks up to anything against the frustration you'll feel trying to navigate these pretty screens and control the characters. The music and sound effects are good but not as good as the graphics, so you get the idea that the overall presentation Kong: The Animated Series makes is strong. Why this team couldn't follow through on such promise and actually create a game that is fun to play is completely beyond me.
Gameplay: This is a platformer. And we've seen some good ones and we've seen some bad ones, right here on GBA. I like the fact that Kong features a good backstory, taken from the show. Jason, a boy, and Kong are joined by some DNA in an effort to recreate the original Kong. That's right, the one from the movie! So, there's a cool pop culture link going on here, as well as the DNA link. At times during the game, Jason and Kong will both be playable and even able to join into a being called Mega Kong. It sounds a bit cheesy, but I like cheesy. What I don't like is the fact that playing through this thing is the gaming equivalent of slicing yourself repeatedly with the sharp edge of a piece of paper. Starting the adventure, Jason and Kong are out to recover Primal Stones ripped off by a so-called friend and colleague, Ramone de la Porta. And, they travel from level to level looking for pieces of parchment needed to activate the stones and the stones themselves, dropped by Ramone or given to his lackeys who you'll have to defeat in combat. Hence, boss battles. And man oh man, you can guess that this formula looked great on paper, and the graphics sure do make this look like a joy of a game to play, but the simple fact is that you'll be bored stiff or confused stiff after about 4 minutes. The problem isn't that the objective isn't clear or that the level is confusing, but more that the level is like a long hallway with some window dressing and enemies to kill. You walk through with Jason or Kong, pick up a few items and trounce a few enemies, grab the stones or beat someone up to get them and you're off to the next level. How fun is that? Variety is nil, new ideas are nil, and so this one dies on the table. After the novelty of playing Kong, Jason and Mega Kong, there's nothing left to do except wish you'd spent the last 4 minutes doing something else.
Difficulty: There's very little in the way of challenge that can't be chalked up to cheapness or bad control in Kong. Playing as Jason might provide more of a challenge against enemies, but Kong moves around so haphazardly that it won't give you much joy trying to just walk the big ape around. Jason is weak, has small jumps and just generally sucks. Where there might have been more of a way to encourage solving puzzles by using the unique aspects of each character, Kong just gives you 2 characters to do the same thing with, barring the occasion to change into Mega Kong, which is a character like the others, just more powerful.
Game Mechanics: There are some major control issues that make this game difficult to work with at times. Kong himself seems to jump all over the screen, making jumps difficult to judge. Both characters also seem unable to jump DOWN through a platform, which I would think is just standard in the Platformer world. In other words, you get yourself up onto a tree limb and decide you needed to be lower, right? Instead of just pressing down and jumping down, you have to jump all the way down to the ground or try to reach the next tree over and see if you can find a lower place to jump to where you should have been able to jump in the first place. Kong the character really illustrates how this can be so frustrating, because he's always jumping really high. No precision control is available. And then, getting him down is a bear. Not a real bear, although you do have to fight some of these in the game... Levels seem set up in a way that leaves you looking for more and not finding it. Every level is the same left-to-right march with some jumping involved. Standard Platformer fare is everywhere to be found, such as platforms that float, climbing ropes and bouncy things that shoot you higher than you can jump yourself. But, playing this thing for too long will just highlight how much you'd really like to be playing a quality Platformer. Not that there wasn't great potential for Kong to be cool, but I suspect instead of taking the series and really devising a unique game, it was infinitely easier to just smack a pretty face on somebody's game and push it out to the shelves. It's a shame to see something look so good, and play as such a bland, mediocre piece of junk. Steer clear of this one, even if you love the show.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
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