6

- - -

So here is another PS1 game that people say is awful but I don't find that bad, except the story. So the story is only told in the manual of the game, and if you don't have that you won't know anything because the game doesn't tell you anything. So the story of the game is that some evil time traveling time lord named Kronon wants to steal a time machine from some scientist guy who is Rascal's father so he could go back to the past and take over the world... this story makes no sense because if he can teleport back in time, just do it, you don't need a time machine, and he teleported to the scientist's lab to kidnap him, and the manual doesn't say he can't go back by himself.

- - -

Gameplay/Controls

- - -

Now the gameplay is way to similar to Bubsy 3D's, but not as stiff, moving around has the same tank controls as Bubsy but it's more loose, turn left and right and move forward and back, but the good thing is you can use the analog stick in this game unlike Bubsy and I suggest you use the analog stick instead of the D-Pad or you will not get anywhere. X button jumps and pressing it again will do a ground pound, just like in Croc, the square button shoots your bubble gun, yes a bubble gun, which i don't understand at all, people who reviewed this game say the gun does nothing, it's not that is does nothing it just takes forever to kill enemies in the game. See there are 3 ways of attacking in the game, jump on them, ground pound, and the gun. You can upgrade the gun finding these pickups in the level, red bubbles are long-range homing bubbles, green bubbles are long range, and blue ones are short range, since you run out of ammo so quick in this game it's pretty much useless. Now time for gameplay, it's a 3-D platformer going around collecting stuff, now since the game tells you nothing, i have to explain it. In each world there are 3 stages that are timed based like past present future. The objective of each level is to find 6 pieces of a golden hourglass. These pieces are either scattered in the level or with an enemy, now before i forget lets talk about the enemies, there are the big enemies that take so many bubbles wasting ammo, and the little enemy's that you can jump on dropping health and ammo, but they can sometimes respawn on you dying instantly, the big enemies don't respawn though, not like it matters cause there are only like 3-6 in a level. The level design is pretty cool, like the first level being a castle stage in the past, and going back into the stage after you beat it sends you to the future stage that turns it into a museum, also like the pirate ship turning into a sunken ship, now the future stages you gotta fight some bosses, excuse me "boss", it's the same guy everytime, Kronon, he's pretty easy just run around turn and shoot, he attacks with fire throwing hourglasses and throwing gyroscopes? Who throws gyroscopes?! Whatever, the annoying thing about the stages is the awful camera, since the camera is solid it gets stuck on walls all the time. I forgot to mention that in my Bubsy 3-D review, anytime you turn near a wall the camera will get glued to it and won't come unstuck until you move away. Another complaint in the game is the awful platforming, because of the bad camera and jump, the jump kinda sucks because you can't turn whiule jumping forward, kinda like the mach speed jumping in Sonic 06. So make sure your jumps are perfect or you will fall, and if your running and want to take a quick turn before falling in lava or something, make sure you stop all the way because if you don't, Rascal will slide of and die, lava is your biggest enemy becuse if you fall in you're doomed. Extra lives are in the game but there are so little, there are only 2 or 3 lives in a stage, which doesn't seem bad but with the problems i said, it's like why bother. And when you lose all of your lives you get a game over, and the game doesn't auto save so you have to do it over again, you can save by going into this room with a memory card on it, so if you save with like one life left and die in a level and load up again, the lives don't reset. There's also swimming in the game for only like 3 levels, they aren't to bad, exept the air meter which is annoying to fill if you suck at swimming. Last thing are these annoying slides. Sometimes slides are in levels to either advance ahead or a quicker way down, there are like 6 and you only need to use 4 because you can back track which is easier, because on the slide there are rocks and if you hit them you lose so much health, but the slides are to dark to see on and there are to many turns to see anything.

- - -

Graphics/Sound

- - -

The graphics and sound are amazing, yeah with a game that i described you think it would look and sound bad but it doesn't, everything is nicely detailed and fit the environment, the music does the same except the mayan and castle stages. The sound effect's aren't to great though, when you get hit he sounds like a girl that saw a spider, and enemies make the same grunt and squeak noises.

- - -

Final Verdict

- - -

This game isn't as bad as everyone says it is, well to me anyway, the graphics and sound are great, the level design is cool. The only bad things are the camera, controls, and the game not telling you anything or what to do.