Hello everybody, and merry Christmas to you all. I think you know what time is it. Yup, time for another review, but not just any game. We're going to celebrate the holidays by playing Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King. Wait...This isn't a Christmas game? Actually, no, it isn't. According to the game's plot, this is about a year after the events of the movie. So, why is this even named after it? Just call it Jack Skellington: The Pumpkin King and save yourself the confusion. As far as I know, there's not one ounce of snow put into this product except for the name. Whatever, let's just see what this is all about.


Gameplay:

I think that what I'm going to try to do for every review I do from now on is tell a little about the gameplay before all the other stuff so you can get a feel for what I'm talking about. At the start of the game, you get to play as The Pumpkin King himself. If it was only me, I'd say his face looks like he does on the box art, which is hard to tell whether its scary or creepy. Jack jumps like he's Superman and runs like Sonic. Jack also has an ability to hang on ledges. However, the platform can't be solid, it has to be a slab. When he's hanging, Jack appears to be looking at the screen, smiling. Don't look at me like that. Why can't you hang on any block, why just slabs? Oh, anyway, later, you find a ledge you can't grab because it's too high up. The secret is to stand back, start running, then hold down the jump button. By building up the momentum, you just barely grab it. I guess its like Metroid, how you can use the roll jump (Known as the Screw Attack) to jump higher. Speaking of Metroid, by pressing the select button, you look at the map, and its very labyrinth-like similar to Metroid. You will also have to backtrack to get items in this maze of a town. After completing your control tutorial, the Mayor gives you a Frog Gun. How ironic that my last review was on Frogger. Looks like they mounted his head on a gun, hooray! Using the gun, you can kill the enemies which are bugs. Yeah, because do you what my favorite part about the movie was? Jack going around shooting everything to death with a frog's face! I assume that, according to the story line, the bugs are the ones that make up Oogie Boogie. And if this game didn't seem like a Metroid copy already, you can collect Shrunken Heads that act exactly like Energy Tanks. (If case you don't know, Energy Tanks store health so when you lose all your normal health, the Energy Tank's health is used.) There's 10 Shrunken Heads in the game, which gives you a total of 55 hit points, plus your normal health bar. To get health, you collect fish bones found by destroying statues and killing enemies. Further down this pathway of creepy crawlies, you find a electric chair which does the opposite of killing you, restoring all your life, and a signpost that saves your game. The first boss is coming up, and it's a giant spider. After choking it to death which your gun's 'frog breath' or frog stench, seeing as it's a disembodied head, you beat the first boss and random bug guts randomly splatter the screen, including bugs that weren't in the boss at all. You collect other weapons along the way, and even find Zero, who helps you find items by shining his nose when there's a collectible in the room. But, let's just leave that for you to find out and get on with it.

Graphics: 8

The graphics aren't the worst I've seen, but they just aren't entirely detailed enough, leaving me to question facial features.


Sound: 8

The music and sound effects are alright, but I don't have a lot to say about it.


Addictiveness: 7

Playing this is like playing with Metroid's cousin. Like I said, it feels and plays a lot like Metroid.


Story: 8

The story is as follows:  It's been one year after the past events from the movie, and Jack is doing his old shenanigans for Halloween, while Lock, Shock, and Barrel tell Oogie Boogie about him. What, did he lose his brain when he died, AKA, his bug/heart thing? Because apparently he forgot about the person that pretty much killed him. He tells them to go capture Jack, but capture Sally instead. Fun fact: Jack doesn't even know Oogie has her. Some hero, am I right?


Depth: 7

You can collect weapons and health extensions in a similar way to Metroid, but I've mentioned it enough already. There are collectible items called Pick Ups, which don't seem to do anything. According to the mayor, it's the townsfolk's belonging. Good thing we can't get charged for stealing stuff!


Difficulty: 5

The game's difficulty is based on if you decide to collect powerups or not. Either way, the game is fairly easy, so you could beat it without needing to collect these.


OVERALL: 8.5

Well, there you go, a jack-in-a-review. Because that joke is hilarious. And this isn't a bad game, but it just makes you want to play Metroid. And this game didn't have to do with Christmas at all. Well, other than that, have a merry Christmas, and to all a good night. See you next year in 2013.


~Merry Christmas~


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Nice review, although I think you talked too much about gameplay and sort of disregarded the other categories. You said things about each, but you could have gone into more detail.

This was a nice review, however I felt it started out good and detailed, but then got less detailed and not as good as it progressed. Do not be discouraged by this, but motivated to do better please.