Gameplay

Wrong

What follows is a rundown of the first level:

I landed on a beach-planet, ran out into the surf, and started swimming. Almost immediately, I was eaten by a giant fish. Now wary of the water, I ran around. I didn't meet any enemies for a while, although I was chided by a police officer by stomping on childrens' sand castles. After I ran around the entire island and accomplished nothing of interest, I realized that the floating weather balloons tell you exactly what to do. After finding out I had to switch off the force field surrounding the legs of the Virtua Circus building, and where the switch was, I went and turned them off. Going back to the building (also, apparently, a spaceship), I found evil robots sunbathing next to all of the legs. After five minutes or so, I found that what had to be done was jump on the robots' bellies, which caused the giant fish to eat them, and subsequently, the leg of the ship. After all four legs were eaten, the ship lost control and flew away.

This may sound moderately entertaining, but it isn't. There isn't any challenge in the game other than making or failing jumps. If you fall off something into a bottomless pit, you have to restart the level from your last save point. If you fall into water, you have to swim to a gradually-inclined shore, because you can't climb out of the water at all. Fall off a bridge, and you have to climb back up the mountain, etc. The enemies are not at all challenging, and the only reason jumping is hard is because the controls suck.

Running again

So what are you saying?

Let me make it clear for those of you in the cheap seats: THIS GAME IS NOT FUN. Even disregarding the box's claims that it is an "action space adventure for gameplayers of all ages" and assuming it's to be marketed at little kids, it still isn't fun. Why? Because the game takes the horrible, horrible road of challenge through frustration. There is nothing interesting to do in the levels; in fact, there's not much action at all.

And again