Activision has had the Dreamworks
Animation license for a while now, and boy, have they used it. Name any of the
animation company’s films and you could probably list a handful of games based
on that movie. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though — most of the games are
pretty good, at least by “licensed kid’s game” standards, anyway. Their latest
cinematic adaptation is Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and while I can’t speak for
the quality of the film, if you’re trying to find a game to keep the kids
entertained, you could certainly do a whole lot worse.
The game begins, like the film, with
the four central characters (Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo,
and Melman the giraffe) trapped in Madagascar, living with the lemur King Julien. After the training stages set in Madagascar, the gang takes off in an old cargo
plane to return to their home in New York. The plane runes out of fuel en
route, so the penguin pilots are forced to land in the savanna of Africa. The game hits the major plot points of the film, but branches out to create new
scenarios for gameplay. Adult players might be surprised at how many of the
jokes are actually funny — I caught myself laughing much more than I thought I
would.
The tutorial is set up as a series
of photo shoots, with King Julien taking pictures for a tourism brochure.
The standard mode of gameplay
here is 3D platforming, but there are plenty of other playable activities strewn
throughout to keep things interesting. The platforming is pretty standard — if
you’ve ever played a 3D platforming game, the hop-and-bop action here won’t
surprise you. But the platforming is broken up by a different mini-game every
few seconds, so it never really gets a chance to get stale. In the mini-games,
you’ll take control of one of the four animals and use their specific skills to
tackle the given task at hand. Marty, for instance, is great at running and
kicking, so in his stages you’ll most likely be either racing against various
opponents or kicking balls at various targets. There are a ton of different
activities to play, so even if you’re not crazy about the challenge you’re
currently facing, you’re never more than a few seconds away from some new type
of gameplay.
In one mini-game, you’ll help Alex
catch butterflies.
Still, while the game changes
things up often enough to keep the whole thing interesting, the gameplay’s got
some problems. For starters, the Wii motion controls feel very tacked-on. Sure, the motions match the in-game actions pretty well, but they feel
unnecessary most of the time, and using buttons is usually a lot simpler and
more accurate. The bigger problem, though, is with the game’s guidance system. With so many tasks and diversions constantly being thrown at you, it can get
confusing trying to figure out where you’re supposed to go next. The game
certainly doesn’t give the player any help in this regard, either, so players
can expect to wander around aimlessly, hoping to stumble onto the next mini-game
or plot point. With so many recent games streamlining and refining the way the
game tells you where to go next, it’s frustrating to play a game where this area
is so poorly developed.
The game also includes a
collection of multiplayer mini-games, different from the mini-games encountered in
the single-player game. None of these mini-games are particularly bad, and some
are even kind of fun with a few friends. On the flip side, though, none of them
are knock-your-socks-off fantastic, either. Honestly, the whole multiplayer
aspect of the game feels a bit tacked on, and doesn’t come close to giving any
of the dedicated party games out there, like Mario Party or Rayman Raving
Rabbids, a run for their money.
The game’s technical aspects
aren’t tremendous, either. The visuals are bright and colorful, and do capture
some of the life and character of their big-screen counterparts, but glitches
and other technical problems keep things from looking great. Almost as
important as how the characters look is how they move, but the animation here is
spotty. The audio side of the game is a mixed bag — the music is pretty good
(mostly taken straight from the film), but the sound-alike voiceovers are
uneven. Some, like Alex and Julien, are pretty good, but some of the others are
pretty bad — notably Melman, who’s voice is grating and irritating on top of not
sounding anything like the film version.
The in-game characters look pretty
good, but graphical glitches
(like a camera that gets snagged on the environment
far too easily) mar the overall visual package.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
isn’t the greatest licensed game of all time, and I don’t think anyone would
argue the point. It’s not the greatest kid’s game ever, either. What it is, is
a perfectly decent game that will keep any fan of the movie entertained for a
few gaming sessions, and any parent doing some holiday shopping for the under-10
crowd could do a lot worse than to pick up a copy.
|
Review Scoring Details for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa |
Gameplay: 7.1
Make your way around the game world
via 3D platforming, while completing minigames and random challenges along the
way. It’s the WarioWare approach to game design — the game always has something
new for you to try, and it switches them up fast enough to keep things
interesting.
Graphics: 6.5
Madagascar’s visuals are
serviceable, in that they do an acceptable job of presenting the look of the
film in a real-time, playable form. Still, players will notice a lot of
repetition in the environments, and the camera bounces and stutters enough to
become a major frustration.
Sound: 7.2
The score is catchy and fitting,
which makes sense considering that most of the audio is lifted straight from the
movie. The voice-acting, on the other hand, is touch-and-go — some of the sound-alikes
deliver respectable performances, while others butcher the humorous dialogue
with poor acting and obnoxious accents.
Difficulty: Easy
Madagascar 2 is aimed squarely at
the pre-teen market, so it was clearly designed so that even the least skilled
movie fan could make their way through. More experienced gamers can keep things
entertaining by pursuing the more difficult bonus goals, but anybody can beat
the game, given the time and patience.
Multiplayer: 6.2
A couple of the mini-games offered
here are fun to play for a few minutes, but there isn’t enough content here to
justify playing this over any dedicated party game.
Concept: 7.5
It’s a game based on a kid’s movie,
so the 3D platforming stuff is to be expected. The assorted challenges you have
to tackle throughout, on the other hand, are more inventive, and do a good job
of highlighting the differing skills of the various playable characters.
Overall: 7.0
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a
solid licensed title, and one of the better games aimed at kids to release this
holiday season. It’s not going to redefine the licensed-game market, but it
will provide a reasonably good time to any little Madagascar fan who finds a
copy under the tree.
