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IGN Review of Happy Feet
Occasionally a game will manage to break conventions and do something completely amazing. The latest case is A2M's handheld title based on the hit movie, Happy Feet. When's the last time a Gameboy Advance game has had great tunes in it? I can think of a couple games that have had some fairly nice scores, but nothing anyone could sing along to. Happy Feet for the GBA brings toe tapping groove to the handheld in the form of songs by hit artists that actually sound decent. What's amazing is that this really cool feature is embedded in a maliciously boring game that is not worth the pain of having to find the music.
Players should be familiar with the Happy Feet film before playing the GBA version of the game, since the storyline in the game is so poorly presented that it is nearly impossible to follow. Large chunks of the story are written out at intervals in the game's progress. The story chunks are confusing, and don't match up with what's going on in the game. They're filled with poor grammar, causing some of the sentences to lose all meaning. It feels like the chapters were written by someone who didn't really know English, or just didn't care at all. A game marketed at kids shouldn't be riddled with easily noticeable errors; that's just stupid.
Most of Mumble's journey is a no frills platformer. Players guide the little penguin around his colony, jumping across floating platforms of ice, and talking to other penguins. The fellow birds will give Mumble some fetch quests to go on, such as finding baby penguins, or collecting musical notes. Later in the game, Mumble even has to go fishing for some of his penguin friends' favorite foods. With the exception of the swimming parts, the fetch quests are so mind numbingly boring that they can hardly count as a game. Players just walk in the opposite direction they came, stumbling upon the needed item, and then they're magically teleported back to where they started. It's just an inconvenience, and it isn't fun.
Breaking up the monotony are two other types of levels. One of them, a simple rhythm game, comes up occasionally. Players have to tap the D-Pad and the A or B button as circles slide up across the screen. Surprisingly, the GBA game features music from the soundtrack, so players can groove to the music stylings of Stevie Wonder and other artists. The sound quality isn't bad for a GBA game either, and the songs don't come out too tinny. The controls for the minigame are pretty forgiving, so it's hard to get perfect scores on the songs. However, it's hard to tell if players are doing well at all, since there isn't a solid indication of how accurate the notes were hit.
Belly sledding rounds up the gameplay experience with a few race levels. Mumble slides down the icy slopes, collecting fish and dodging obstacles. The levels are hard to maneuver through, and the field of depth is hard to determine, causing unnecessary death plummets. However, even with the death, the levels are a snap to beat, since Mumble is just deposited right back where he was and the game continues on. Even the later levels don't offer a challenge and are easily blitzed through.
The only challenging part of the game was the underwater swimming level where Mumble was being chased by a leopard seal. Still, this was only hard because it was the first instance of really swimming and the game just kind of dumps players into it, offering no explanation of how to swim or escape the predator.
There is some mildly impressive animation involved in the rhythm games, with Mumble dancing like a maniac on screen. His dance is just an animation though, and doesn't change based on how well the player is doing. The underwater portions of the game are pretty nice looking, using some good colors, and the backgrounds are simple, but give the appearance of Antarctica, however boring that may be. The sprites are pretty barebones, with many of the penguins not moving at all, and a lot of the other ones have one animation that just loops.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Players should be familiar with the Happy Feet film before playing the GBA version of the game, since the storyline in the game is so poorly presented that it is nearly impossible to follow. Large chunks of the story are written out at intervals in the game's progress. The story chunks are confusing, and don't match up with what's going on in the game. They're filled with poor grammar, causing some of the sentences to lose all meaning. It feels like the chapters were written by someone who didn't really know English, or just didn't care at all. A game marketed at kids shouldn't be riddled with easily noticeable errors; that's just stupid.
Most of Mumble's journey is a no frills platformer. Players guide the little penguin around his colony, jumping across floating platforms of ice, and talking to other penguins. The fellow birds will give Mumble some fetch quests to go on, such as finding baby penguins, or collecting musical notes. Later in the game, Mumble even has to go fishing for some of his penguin friends' favorite foods. With the exception of the swimming parts, the fetch quests are so mind numbingly boring that they can hardly count as a game. Players just walk in the opposite direction they came, stumbling upon the needed item, and then they're magically teleported back to where they started. It's just an inconvenience, and it isn't fun.
Breaking up the monotony are two other types of levels. One of them, a simple rhythm game, comes up occasionally. Players have to tap the D-Pad and the A or B button as circles slide up across the screen. Surprisingly, the GBA game features music from the soundtrack, so players can groove to the music stylings of Stevie Wonder and other artists. The sound quality isn't bad for a GBA game either, and the songs don't come out too tinny. The controls for the minigame are pretty forgiving, so it's hard to get perfect scores on the songs. However, it's hard to tell if players are doing well at all, since there isn't a solid indication of how accurate the notes were hit.
Belly sledding rounds up the gameplay experience with a few race levels. Mumble slides down the icy slopes, collecting fish and dodging obstacles. The levels are hard to maneuver through, and the field of depth is hard to determine, causing unnecessary death plummets. However, even with the death, the levels are a snap to beat, since Mumble is just deposited right back where he was and the game continues on. Even the later levels don't offer a challenge and are easily blitzed through.
The only challenging part of the game was the underwater swimming level where Mumble was being chased by a leopard seal. Still, this was only hard because it was the first instance of really swimming and the game just kind of dumps players into it, offering no explanation of how to swim or escape the predator.
There is some mildly impressive animation involved in the rhythm games, with Mumble dancing like a maniac on screen. His dance is just an animation though, and doesn't change based on how well the player is doing. The underwater portions of the game are pretty nice looking, using some good colors, and the backgrounds are simple, but give the appearance of Antarctica, however boring that may be. The sprites are pretty barebones, with many of the penguins not moving at all, and a lot of the other ones have one animation that just loops.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved