N-Philes

Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure

Posted by Archived.

Amusement parks are fun. Roller-coasters are some of the greatest thrills available in life today. So, by their very nature, games based on amusement parks should be fun. There have been many games already made about amusement parks that have turned out successfully, namely the Roller Coaster Tycoon series. Unfortunately, Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure is not another great game in the amusement park game genre, and it's not just the lack of roller-coasters.

When you first start the game you get to choose from 6 different characters. There's not a single difference in any of the characters, except for the political correctness. So, you can choose between a male or female white, black, or Hispanic child. Upon choosing the child of your choice, you are then set loose in the park. With your newly chosen 6 year old character free from his parents and all alone in this amusement park the adventure begins. Well, not all alone. Your guide for the day is Woody Woodpecker, but he doesn't actually do much guiding. He informs you that today there is special stamp collecting going on, with 8 total stamps to be collected throughout the park. These stamps are collected by completing the 6 rides available, correctly answering trivia questions, and finding 16 letters strewn throughout the park that will spell "Universal Studios". After informing you of this, he then stops being your guide, and you're free to explore the park.

The problems with the game crop up immediately. While the controls for exploring the park are infinitely simple, they simply weren't executed well. The controls consist of two things. The Z button is used to bring up the pause menu. With every other button available they chose to use the Z button, the least desirable of all the buttons on the Gamecube controller. The other part of the controls is pushing your control stick in the desired direction to run in that direction. The run, though, looks more like jogging in place while slowly moving forwards. When you decide to stop moving for a second, your character will continue running for another three or four steps. This becomes extremely problematic later on. The other problem with the movement around the park is the camera. For each area there is a fixed camera. Sometimes these angles are in such a position that you won't be able to see your character because he or she is blocked by a non-playable character walking around. Or where you are on the map is so far away from the camera angle, that your character is now simply a small speck on the screen.

Making this even more frustrating are the invisible walls. Each camera angle seems to have a miniscule area which you can actually move around in. Running around, trying to find the way into the next area can be nearly impossible the first time through, as you may think you can go a certain way, but in fact are cut off from going that way. There is a map which can be acquired, but that doesn't really help any. It shows where you are, and where the rides are, but it doesn't show routes. Once you figure out where you can go, it becomes easy to navigate, but until then it can be a pain, and you may find it impossible to figure out how to get to a certain area of the map. Fortunately, since the whole park doesn't seem to be so huge, it doesn't take that long to know where you can or can't go.

Once you get to the first ride, Woody Woodpecker re-appears. He tells you to go on in, and enjoy yourself, etc., etc. Each of the rides is a separate mini-game, some of which are better than others. Obviously, each is based on a separate movie. There are mini-games based on Backdraft, E.T., Back to the Future, Jaws, Jurassic Park, and Wild Wild Wild West. There is also a 5 second show based on Waterworld. This is perhaps the worst feature I have ever seen in a video game. All it comprises of is a five second CG video of a plane crashing into the water. That's all it is. Nothing to do other than choose your perspective. But at least you get points for the time spent. Points are also received upon completion of a mini-game.

Why do you need points, though? Well, upon exiting your first ride and proceeding onto your next it becomes painfully obvious. When you arrive there Woody informs you that there is now a line-up, and the only way to bypass this line-up is to go to Woody at the front gate and buy hats with points to enter the rides. Since most of these hats cost more points than you have, though, you're in trouble. But fret not, for there is another way to get points. Someone will walk up to you and complain about garbage. At this point you can walk around and pick up garbage for points. So for the first little while most of the time is not in fact spent on the rides, but picking up garbage around the park. There is also the trivia game, but the questions there are so obscure that it is nearly impossible until the questions start repeating, which takes a fair amount of time.

While the garbage collecting is tedious, it would be livable it if the rides made it worthwhile. The rides, though, still suffer from the same faults as the main game. The game with the most potential, Backdraft, ends up being unplayable because of the three step walking problem and the camera switching angles which end up disorienting and subsequently harming you. E.T. has camera problems where you end up hidden from view, even though it's on a 2d plane and control problems that make the game rather frustrating. Back to the Future and Jaws are fairly boring and don't hold the interest for long. Wild Wild Wild West is a game better suited for a lightgun. It does execute well, and is even a decent amount of fun, but is very short. The best ride is Jurassic Park, which is an on rails shooter.

The graphics in the game are fair at best. The opening video gives a lot of hope, as it is very well done, and looks quite nice. Even when entering the park it still looks fairly good. Upon closer examination there are some major problems. The backgrounds contain people which are nothing more than simple sprites with a simple two frame sequence. The people in the foreground are very simple polygon figures and while there are a few running around in each area, it's nothing overly impressive. The texture work is very boring as it's mainly flat colours.

The mini-games aren't any better. If anything they're worse. E.T. stands out the most, simply because of how muddy the quality of the picture is. Jurassic Park has extreme fogging, rivaling the famous Turok fogging. The slowdown in it is also extreme, with individual frames able to be counted. Back to the Future has some pop up issues, as well.

The sound can actually be quite good. The music is taken directly out of the movie, and you'll recognize the themes to most of them. It can get very nostalgic, and the first time you hear a tune it sounds very cool. The tunes which were developed for the game are not nearly as good, and they're short, so they can grate on your nerves rather quickly. The worst part of the sound has to be the voice acting. Woody Woodpecker sounds nothing like what Woody Woodpecker should sound like. Instead he sounds annoying. All other voices in the game are also either annoying or boring. Fortunately, there aren't many voices in the game to begin with.

There are also four two player modes. These modes are so absolutely boring that they don't deserve to be played. You can play a two player trivia, two player memory, two player puzzle, and two player wild west. The only interesting mode is when you can play against somebody else in the wild west, but that gets old quick.

This game gets an N-Philes score of F.

What Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure truly comes down to is an advertisement for the park. The majority of people you can talk to in the park will tell you how great it is, and how much fun they're having. While this may be true for the actual Universal Studios, it just isn't true for this game.

Posted in: Reviews

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