Nintendo - http://maxpages.com/supern/Tom_and_Jerry_in_Mouse

The old cat and mouse duo have still got it. It's sort of a happy, funny situation, but Tom and Jerry videogames tend to be pedigree sleeper hits. The pair haven't had a great big following in a while (they had a new animated series a while back, but the old classics are usually buried in the Saturday morning line-up), and yet they still get regal treatment for their videogame capers. Beginning with a wonderful NES game and still continuing today with surprisingly creative (albeit not the most exciting) Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions of the show, this duo always surprise me when they're causing some gaming mischief. Maybe it's because their wild cartoon antics lend themselves so well to the videogame world -- where critters can jump on bubbles, soap is a slippery sliding skateboard, sticks of dynamite are found in every nook and cranny, and a deadly blow simply goes away with the fade to black... as long as you have an extra life.
Features:

Vivid animated graphics, hi-color stills, and FMV from the TV duo's antics
5 wild stages with enormous bosses
Play the game's mini-games from the front menu
Only for Game Boy Color

That tradition of great Tom and Jerry games continues with this wonderfully colorful and smartly challenging new adventure, Tom and Jerry in Mouse Attacks. Developed for NewKidCo by Warthog, this Game Boy Color version is a showcase of theatrics and special tricks on the handheld, with full-color FMV, bright hi-color still frames, several special effect sequences, enormous bosses, and well-animated characters in a tight, sharp little game.

Zipping quickly through the game's five stages, Tom and Jerry romps through simple platform puzzles and bizarre enemies in Jerry's quest to save his friends from the craven cat Tom. While there are plenty of baddies standing in your way and lots of obstacles stacked against Jerry's chances for success, the challenge isn't really to knock out all the evil things -- this is a straight-forward collect-the-keys platformer without too many twisting stages or perplexing puzzles. For the most part, if you run right, you will get closer to where you want to go.

But it's rarely the depth of ingenuity that separate good platformers from the rest -- it's simple polish and smart level design, and that's where Tom and Jerry shows how it's done. Platforms are always placed mere inches away from your best jump, and the only way to get up on those precipices is to collect up one of the game's six tools to give Jerry that extra spring or lift. He'll float across chasms with an umbrella and soar through stages flying underneath a chewing gum bubble. All of these prizes are rare (although Jerry can always make his way back to the challenge stage to restock), and rationing and choosing the right tool for the job is an important skill.

Although Jerry's jumps feel a little out-of-pace with his running (gravity seems to be extra-high in this cartoon world), control in this game is still tight and right, especially in the bonus round Mini-Games. Jerry rushes along through the game, bounding off toy robots and springing off springs. The design is tight enough that individual pieces of objects and askew blocks can be stood on -- typically, the few pixels of difference get lost in the collision detection, but here, there are even slanted roofs and sloped slides that all work as they should. And helping to make the control extra-crisp, the smooth animation supports the gameplay with clean motion, while still giving Jerry plenty of expression and character as he dashed through vibrantly drawn stages full of keen little details.

As for those bonus stages, they tend to be designed to show off neat programming tricks -- the kind of stuff gamers really like to see. While the Sliding Puzzle stage concept gets me bored to tears (please, no more...), there plenty of effects and yet still enough room for breezy gameplay in the Live Bait Swim, Soap Skating, and Water Skiing bonus rounds, which feature levels of parallax backgrounds and loads of obstacles. Even the main game features some nice tricks going on, including a heat warp and some transparency gags. And talk about effects -- the gigantic bosses are showy but still smart and challenging. The scene where Jerry rolls a bowling ball off a shelf onto Tom while the cat's spitting water at him is technically impressive, but priceless, vintage T&J.

About the only problem this game has is that it's so much, so soon, that the game's few stages whiz by in no time, and then it's over. Most of the worlds are relatively small, with only one or two extra rooms to explore and a handful of bonus rounds tied in to round out the world. Then it's on to the next four more stages until the inevitable ending. The ability to play the extra rounds outside of the main game adds to the game's value, but it's still a short affair, especially without any linked play.

Also, while most of the challenges in here are perfectly suited for children, the enormous Mechano boss (a 4-screen-wide mechanized cat) is just overwhelming with unavoidable hits, and the way that the password saves your stock of lives seems unfair considering that extra lives are very, very rare throughout the game. Still, most of the challenge of this game is in exploring and avoiding enemies, so for the most part, even when the challenge becomes too much, persistence may reward a good gamer.

Sign Guestbook

View Guestbook

Kenny Harding

Click Here to Vote

The Super N

Kanno41@aol.com - jsroach1@hotmail.com - bigshot25@hotmail.com - dmakein@escape.com

Visitors: 00519

Page Updated Thu Jan 4, 2001 7:30pm EST