- As space hero Buzz Lightyear, you've got your hands full. Your best buddy, Woody, has been kipped by a greedy toy collector and it's going to be an all-out race against time to save him..
Product description
-------------------
As space hero Buzz Lightyear, you've got your hands full. Your
best buddy, Woody, has been kipped by a greedy toy collector
and it's going to be an all-out race against time to save him.
.com
----
Film favorites Buzz Lightyear and Woody are back in action with
their latest video game offering, Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 2. The
cowboy Woody is in trouble in a game that closely follows the
plot of the hit computer-animated flick. Although the game is
obviously ed at luring fans of the movie of the same name, it
does contain gameplay that will appeal to a wider audience. Toy
Story 2 is not a perfect game, but it captures the playability
and humor of the film, and also has movie-quality animations and
graphics.
Woody finds himself kipped by Al, the evil toy collector, and
it's up to Buzz to save the day--with a little help from the
other toys in owner Andy's room. Buzz must venture outside Andy's
house and into the local neighborhood. Game environments include
a perilous construction area, a toy barn, and a sky-rise
apartment. Ultimately, Buzz will confront his arch nemesis, the
Evil Emperor Zurg--but getting there is half the fun.
During his journey, Buzz must collect missing parts for Mr.
Potato Head. He also calls on his buddies Rex, Slinky Dog, and
Hamm the piggy bank for helpful tips and directions. Controls are
varied but can be confusing to master. Buzz can climb, do a
"super foot stomp," fire his laser, and perform a Space Ranger
spin attack to help him get through the various levels.
All in all, though, this game's battle cry should be, "To
mediocrity... and not much further." --Bill Hutchens
Pros:
* Better-than-average graphics
* Includes movie clips that aren't available on the Nintendo 64
version
Cons:
* Probably too cute for serious gamers
* Choppy control makes some levels frustrating
P.when('A').execute(function(A) {
A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse',
function(data) {
window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100);
});
});
Review
------
Within the first few minutes of the Disney/Pixar film Toy Story
2, you can already see how the game will follow suit. The movie's
plot, while it has great pacing, is candidly segmented, and the
action is mission based and rooted in specific geographical
locations throughout the game - Andy's House, Al's Toy Barn, The
Airport, and so on, just like in a game. The PlayStation title
rearranges the order of the sequences a bit but essentially tells
the same story, with the same colorific characters and the same
amusing antics of search, rescue, crazy happenings, and -
eventually - escape. Toy Story 2 is something like n-Space's
Rugrats: Search for Reptar in that it has mission-based levels
set off a hub, which, in both cases, is a house, and that it
follows the film's scenarios to a T. Toy Story 2 is larger, with
about 15 levels (three levels within five zones) you can play
through them either as quickly and easily or as difficultly as
you wish. By picking up all the items and solving all the
puzzles, Toy Story 2 has a bit more complexity than Rugrats,
which probably exists more in the "good for kids" category. Toy
Story 2 wants to appeal to a broad range of gamers, not just
kids, and this is obvious in its level design. In each of the
levels, you have several objectives. You have puzzles to solve,
tokens to collect, enemies to fight, and items to find - in
addition to a boss fight at the end of zone. However, once you
complete one objective, you have the option to move on, fight the
boss, and work your way to the next zone. It's usually easy to
acquire 50 tokens in a level, as they're scattered about the
environment, often lending clues as to which obstacles you can
jump on, and so forth. You can also pick up tokens from dead toys
you've destroyed with your Buzz Lightyear laser. Eventually, you
must go back and replay levels, if you haven't picked up all the
goods, as you'll need a decent-sized stash of Pizza Planet tokens
to advance toward the final stages. But as in any game, you learn
certain skills as you progress that will make stages that had
seemed difficult in the beginning much easier. Another big
surprise comes in the graphics department; the PlayStation
version looks surprisingly better than even the N64 version. With
movie license games, it's easy to assume that the PlayStation/N64
trade-off, should both versions exist, will be graphics for the
N64 and sound and FMV for the PlayStation. This is not the case.
The PlayStation version actually has it all. Scenes from the
movie advance the plot; the scenes appears before and after the
game and between levels, and it actually looks a bit better than
on the N64 - which has simplistic, underwhelming stills with
rudimentary text that look that look almost like placeholders in
lieu of the animated cutscenes you get with the PlayStation
title. Otherwise, the environments are colorful, easy to get
around, and fairly free of the depth-perception problems all too
common in PlayStation games that involve jumping from one place
to another. A really nice touch was Buzz's reflection being
visible from inside his space helmet when you're in targeting or
close-up mode. The cameras presented a bit of a problem, however.
You could choose passive or active cameras, with either you in
charge of the camera or the camera in charge of itself. You
decide. What's good is that you can change between active and
passive cameras on the fly during gameplay. You'll probably find
yourself doing this quite often in the beginning. When the active
camera is agreeable, it's suspiciously good. But then, seconds
later, you'll find yourself cornered in an alley, pushing a box
next to a chair that you must jump on to leap onto a scale that
will in turn send you soaring into the air looking for the best
place to land. This isn't fun with a camera whipping around you
like a mosquito, yet you've too much going on to manage your
camera while you navigate your jumps, grabs, and leaps. This
becomes a problem far too often, dragging the game's overall
score down a bit and keeping the graphics from a potentially
higher visual score. It's certainly not the worst camera system
out there, and you will get used to it and probably settle on the
active camera at some point, cursing your way through the game.
The camera proves the game to be yet another notch away from
being a kid's game. For a movie with generous voice-over already
in the can, you'd expect an overload of catch phrases and
one-liners in the licensed game. This is not the case, and
Crystal Dynamics could learn a thing or two for Gex from this
one. It's a simple model: Less is more. The voices from the film
are intact, but they're not out of hand, at least Buzz's voice
isn't. It does get a bit annoying when Hamm whines, "Buzz, come
'ere" the entire time you're in his territory. And Sarge's pep
talk gets old pretty fast. But for the most part, the catch
phrases are few and far between - just enough to make it
interesting without driving you to the brink. And the music? Toy
Story music. 'Nuff said.--Lauren Fielder--Copyright © 1998
GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
part in any form or medium without express written permission of
GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
See more ( javascript:void(0) )