Review: Curious George (GBA)

Kids' games don't have to be bad; Lego Star Wars demonstrated this with a mix of simple gameplay, a silly sense of humour and an inventive use of its movie license. Curious George is also based on a movie licence, but one far less popular than Star Wars and pitched squarely at pre-teenagers. Given this inherent limitation, how likely is it to follow suit?

As mentioned, Curious George is based on the recent film release, rather than the books that have preceded it for over 50 years. For those not already in the know, George is a small monkey with a penchant for getting involved in big adventures. The game follows George from the jungle to the city and back again as he tries to help 'The Man with the Yellow Hat' prevent the City Museum from being turned into a car park. This involves locating a valuable artifact hidden deep in the Jungle so that it can be displayed in the museum.

Deciding what kind of game to make must have been a no-brainer for developers Torus. Being a monkey, George can run and jump, so what better kind of game to make him the star of than a side-scrolling 2D platformer? In an attempt to add variety to this most hackneyed of genres, some levels feature added objectives other than just travelling from left to right at your leisure, such as getting to the end of the level before 'The Man', or clearing the way for him. However, don't expect to spend too long on each level as the game is desperately short. Gamestyle had it finished in under three hours and, with no variable difficulty setting, there's precious little here to bring you back for more.

Something that Gamestyle found very irritating is that George lacks any form of attack - a basic right that every platform hero since Mario has enjoyed. There's no jumping on the heads of your enemy here, instead they must be avoided. Granted, George can sustain three hits before keeling over, but given that contact with the numerous animals and people who roam each level is hazardous to George's health, this seems to be a huge oversight. Perhaps, due to the nature of the licence, Torus felt that George shouldn't have an attack, but the game becomes a frustrating stop-start affair as you are required to work out how to avoid each enemy. It becomes even more frustrating given that some enemies can only be avoided by performing a running jump, which doesn't always seem to work properly. The cheap level design makes matters worse; enemies often patrol incredibly small ledges or areas, so pinpoint precise jumps have to be executed to avoid them.

In fact, cheap level design isn't just an issue in relation to George's lack of an attack; there are far too many general manoeuvres that require pixel perfect precision throughout the game. Hazards are often placed far too close to jumps or the edge of ledges by which you need to haul yourself up. George can look up and down, but there's no way to look further ahead, so it's an all too common occurrence to hurtle straight in to an oncoming enemy and some leaps of faith are required. Checkpoints are spread fairly generously, so you won't usually be sent back too far; but it's not really acceptable for progress to rely on luck in any platform game as it means the developers haven't done their job properly. There are also plenty of fireflies located around each level which can be collected in order to earn more lives, as well as being used to mark the route through each level; however, Gamestyle did find that the route wasn't clearly marked on some occasions, leading to some annoying trial and error situations when trying to find the way forward. Exploration is rewarded with some small hidden areas which invariably contain more fireflies or, very occasionally, an extra life.

There are also other inherent problems throughout the game. The collision detection is inconsistent: often Gamestyle thought it had avoided an enemy only to die anyway. Similarly, George sometimes swings right through items you would have expected him to collect. The poor collision detection is most noticeable when swinging between vines or poles; often, George will miss them entirely so you'll have to start the whole sequence again. Most worryingly for a platform game is that George never feels properly weighted; he'll sometimes slide off platforms you thought he was safely ensconced on and there seems to be little difference between George running and walking.

Curious George doesn't do everything wrong. The city-based levels features sections where you float by holding onto a balloon, which Gamestyle found strangely fun. The graphics are bright, crisp and colourful (if somewhat simplistic) and the music is blandly inoffensive.

But Curious George doesn't break out of the "kids' game" mould like Lego Star Wars did. It doesn't broaden its appeal to anyone bar the young and easily-pleased. It's a perfect example of a lazily-produced game because the makers thought that the target audience wouldn't notice. No doubt, younger Curious George fans will enjoy this title but given that the GBA library is already full of quality 2D platformers, this is one for the rest of us to avoid.

Rating: 4 / 10

Words by Andy Lucas