Somewhere along the line
Somewhere along the line, kids action games
started mimicking whatever was popular for adults. When platform games were all
the rage, kids games - including those from Disney - also used that metaphor.
Now that the best selling and most popular games on the PC are first-person
shooters (everything from Half-Life to Quake III: Arena), it's no surprise that
kids games are also starting to look like these bloody fragfests (minus the
blood, of course).
Unfortunately, part of the visceral appeal of an
FPS game is the shooting and killing (as sad as that sounds). Once you remove
that, all that's left is a lot of running and shooting, and maybe a little
strategy. Disney's Buzz Lightyear of Star Command game does include some
strategy, but unfortunately both the running and the shooting are extremely
difficult, for both young and old.
The problem lies in the fact that all of the
action is very scripted. Mostly, you will be firing at a moving character who is
scripted to move around in a pattern until you finally zap him enough times. The
shooting scheme is, for lack of a better term, rather fidgety. In fact, it's
sort of like trying to throw a football through the center of a tire. You're
never really sure if you're hitting anything, mostly because all of the action
takes place on a level playing field and it's hard to keep your eyes on the bad
guys. You're also at a disadvantage because most of the weapons are seriously
underpowered. You can't just shoot once at the bad guys, you have to hit them
umpteen times.
Graphically, the game leaves a lot to be desired.
This is not a true 3D game, but all the characters are actually 2D animated
sprites. This is basically similar to the original Doom series, but Doom made up
for this with extra strategy and cool weapons. There's almost no sense of being
in a real-world environment, although all the characters are brightly colored
instead of your typical drab greens and browns in the adult games.
All of this is one way of saying that the game
gets old fast. On the one hand, its too simplistic and the levels do not offer
enough variety or a reason to keep playing. On the other hand, the shooting
scheme is so difficult that you might have to repeat a level several times to
complete it just because you can't see the alien baddies. Both my five-year-old
and 11-year-old gave up on the game after the very first level!
Gameplay = 3 There's very little to do as
far as gameplay. You shoot the bad guys, then you get to the end of the level
and have to shoot the Big Bad Guy (aka The Boss). Then repeat. Weapons are hard
to control, and the brightly lit levels are not realistic enough to hold the
attention of either young kids or older ones. The far better Animorphs game uses
a similar run-and-shoot concept, but there are a lot of other things to do.
Graphics = 3 The colors in Buzz Lightyear
are bright but uninteresting. Most of the levels actually look the same.
Sound = 7 There is one truly redeeming
quality in the game, especially for sci-fi nuts like me. There's some cool retro
sounds like gunfire and aliens who squawk and drone at you like something out of
a bad 50's sci-fi flick. This is all planned of course, and Buzz himself makes a
great bad-talking, alien zapping hero.
Difficulty = 1 One of the reasons my kids
bailed on this Buzz Lightyear action game is that the shooting is just too hard.
You would think that the first level to a game should be incredibly easy, but
even though I've played through some of the hardest shooters ever including
Half-Life, I had a hard time getting through the first level.
Concept = 4 There's not a lot of ingenuity
here, mostly because it's basically Doom for kids. Just like with Doom, you
can't shoot up and down and the characters are all 2D animations. Even the now
archaic Blake Stone game from Apogee had more interesting graphics.
Multiplayer = Not supported.
Overall = 3
Installation = No problems.
Buy the Game? The only reason to buy this game is
if you have a child who simply insists on playing the gory shooting games like
Quake, but who is no where near old enough to play those games. Buzz Lightyear
makes an okay substitute for Quake, although the new Animorphs game is far
superior in both graphics and gameplay.
