Reviews

Posted by: jkdmedia

Fans of Nickelodeon’s impressive lineup of cartoons will tell you that whether you’re a Jimmy Neutron fan or an admirer of Danny Phantom there’s a video game connected to said series. SpongeBob SquarePants fanatics know that their favorite sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea has a nice roster of games already so it’s no surprise that another game with his loveable goofy grin hits the PlayStation 2 once again … only this time he has a surprising list of friends lending him a hand. SpongeBob SquarePants featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom for the PS2 brings Nickelodeon’s heroes and bad guys together to battle a common threat.

Keeping Your Enemies Closer

Globs of Doom begins in SpongeBob’s underwater home world of Bikini Bottom when globs of orange slime come raining down with a strange meteor shower. Aside from making quite a mess, the orange slime has a strange effect on Bob’s friends. Suddenly, SpongeBob is joined by the young shaman Tak, the boy genius Jimmy Neutron and superhero Danny Phantom. Oh, but it doesn’t end there because The Evil Syndicate of Plankton also shows up to aid the list of heroes. It’s a strange day in Bikini Bottom when the likes of Tak is joined by the likes of Technus to stop the enemy known as the Morphoids.

Thanks to Jimmy Neutron, the new alliance of friends and foes can travel to familiar places to battle the new gooey threat. You get to play different characters and paired with a partner who will fight alongside you through five different environments familiar to each character. You’ll be running through Tak’s world of Pupununu Village and joining Gorgeous Beautiful in Bikini Bottom. Each world has a main slimy villain you must defeat in order to move on to the next world. Some of the level bosses are big and the highlight of each level.

While each character has the same basic attacks, each character does have their own individual gadget attack. Gorgeous Beautiful, for example, has a gadget that shoots kisses that stun the enemies for a few seconds. Each character can even unleash combo attacks that can be chained together with your partner so it’s great that you can swap between characters on the fly. Gadget upgrades are also available since you’ll be given a chance to collect colored coins you can use as currency. Unfortunately, combat in the game is repetitive and ultimately boring. Sure, the enemies change along the way but the same attacks just get old fast.

Nicktoons Can't Jump

As a platform game, Globs of Doom does have its fun moments here and there but they are overshadowed by the weak level design that has you dragging your AI partner through long stretches of road before encountering another round of enemies or even a trampoline. There are even times in the game where you’ll wonder where to go next or how to get to that hard to reach area. This, of course, is Ok with older gamers but the younger crowd will become frustrated quickly. Another major annoyance is the AI partner that isn’t able to navigate through the environment without dying or disappearing only to warp near another hazard. This is a game that is best played with a friend in the game’s cooperative multiplayer option. The game’s replay value is also low seeing as the game doesn’t include any mini-games or other reasons to want to go back.

Visually, the game isn’t even pretty. There are some great animated cut scenes that bring each character to life in the way they are drawn in their own animated series. Tak has that computer-generated look while Danny Phantom looks exactly just as he’s drawn in his show. The environments, on the other hand, are just hideous. If you’re going to go for a cel-shaded look at least do it right. Globs of Doom just doesn’t do backgrounds or characters good.

The Sounds of Doom 

The soundtrack feels like it belongs in a Nickelodeon cartoon and that’s very good thing. The score does have some variety so you won’t be listening to the same thing throughout the game. What you will hear a lot are the voice clips that are repeated to the point that you will want to lower the volume. Yes, it’s great to hear each character’s voice actor handle the lines but some variety would definitely would have been appreciated. At least the sound effects are fine.

As a fan of SpongeBob SquarePants and some of the games based on our favorite talking sponge, it’s sad to see great potential wasted in a game that’s just far too flawed. Globs of Doom for the PlayStation 2 features a number of Nicktoon heroes and villains and it’s fun to see them together on the same screen. Yet the horrible gameplay elements, poor AI and weak level design makes this game young gamers will not like as much as the far superior SpongeBob SquarePants The Movie game. Sorry but this is one Nickelodeon game I cannot recommend.

Gameplay: 4.5
Joining forces with The Evil Syndicate, various Nickelodeon characters go up against a massive threat. It’s a good idea on paper but it just isn’t executed well when it comes to the game. Bad camera, frustrating levels and awkward controls just makes this a game too problematic to be much fun.

Graphics: 4.0
The game’s graphics attempt to capture the look of each character’s show and does a good job during animated cut scenes. This, however, doesn’t work for the in-game action that makes certain characters look strange. The backgrounds are also very dull even outside SpongeBob’s world of Bikini Bottom.

Sound: 4.5
The music is standard Nickelodeon fare and it’s not that bad. All the characters are voiced by the actors that portray each hero and villain from their respective show. Unfortunately, the voice clips you’ll hear during the game are repeated so often you will go want to push the Mute on your television’s remote control.

Difficulty: Medium
The Morpoid Globs aren’t formidable foes but you’ll encounter some big enemies that will put up quite a fight. There are points in the game where you will be scratching your head wondering where to go next. On the plus side, you can die as many times as you like in this game.

Concept: 5.0
Heroes and villains make up the roster of Nicktoons characters and it’s fun to see characters such as Tak and Jimmy Neutron out of their usual surroundings. You can play the game cooperatively with a friend but sharing the same screen in this game just isn’t all that fun. There’s also very little to come back to when you finish the game.

Multiplayer: 4.5
Playing the game with a friend makes up for the poor AI partner that constantly gets lost, killed or hardly lifts a hand to help you. Sadly, there are no extra mini-games here so the multiplayer fun is very limited.

Overall: 4.5
Globs of Doom could have been that extraordinary kid’s title and SpongeBob SquarePants game but it just falls short in almost every way. It’s also not a very fun game despite the variety of characters and co-op gameplay. If your young gamer loves all of these characters I highly recommend a rental instead.