N-Philes

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

Posted December 5th 2006 by Adrian DeHerrera.

When I was young I never had an imaginary friend. It would have helped since I didn't have any real friends, but I could never quite conjure enough craziness to truly believe there was a made-up creature I could befriend who would put up with a little boy who lassoes trees and pretends to be Wonder Woman. Still, there are a lot of people out there who do talk to imaginary friends and perhaps they especially enjoy Cartoon Network's award winning ‘toon Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

Created by Powerpuff Girls brainchild Craig McCracken, Foster's asks the question, "What happens to imaginary friends when the children who think them up, grow up?" According to the show, they're put into a temporary home, run by Madame Foster, where they can live until they can be adopted out again to a new family. The Friends run the gamut from a giant butler-like rabbit to a Spanish-speaking monster ripped from the pages of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" to even weirder creatures. What separates the show from the horde of awful children's programming is the surrealistic animation style and clever writing, not to mention some inspired musical scoring. Sadly none of these qualities have translated to its new video game counterpart, developed by Crave.

The first thing that anyone who wants to try this game (or buy it as a gift) should know is that this is a game for children. And when I say "children" I mean little children. Little children who enjoy boring, repetitive gameplay with loud, annoying music that loops over and over, slowly turning their brains into baby food [N-Philes in no way endorses feeding infants liquified brain material – Editor]. This game is for children who are tired of playing neutered, educational games on their Vtech V.Smile, and are ready to play neutered games without learning anything.

Upon start-up, players are immediately thrown into the game with quick blurbs that explain the basic storyline of the cartoon. For those who are already fans of the show, you have a heads-up on who the characters are and why you should care at all about spending your time doing boring things for them. If you're not a fan, you may want to head back to the game store so you can pick a game that doesn't force you to spend hours scrolling through archaic text boxes and endlessly searching for things.

And really that's about all this game is comprised of: fetching things and occasionally fighting "bosses" using weapons like spitwads. Sure there are parts that incorporate "stealth" into the mix, such as hiding behind furniture while monsters inexplicably roam the halls waiting to kill you (don't remember that in the show?), but overall every clichéd gameplay tactic is present. But don't ever worry about difficulty, as you have unlimited lives, which is perfect for when you have to start a level over 18 times because you're trying to speed your way through the "stealth" level before dying of boredom.

Yes, this game essentially boils down to a really sad, sidescrolling item hunt. This is the kind of thing that bored kids back in the mid-80's – how is it that companies continue to spend money producing the same thing today? Well parents, the reason for that is because you keep buying it. When we subject our kids to a game that sells glorified item fetching with tacked on mini-games for 20, 30, or even 40 bucks, what we're saying is that we, as brothers, sisters and parents are okay with setting the bar so low that we will spend money to give our younger family members the kind of substandard entertainment that rivals letting them pick at scabs. The difference here is that picking scabs is free. And quiet.

Yes, the music, as fun as it might be in smaller doses (and with more variation), is quite annoying. Imagine the theme song to the show reduced to around 10 seconds, then turn it into a midi file and play it on your music player on repeat for an hour. If you're not crying tears of blood after about 15 minutes, then you've turned the volume down. I found myself just wanting to pass through to the next level not only so I could just get the level over with but so that I could at least listen to a new song for a while to purge the first song from its burrowed place in the deeper reaches of my skull. There no real variation in sound effects either or anything audibly interesting to note.

Visually, the title draws very well from the show with faithfully-rendered characters and locations that look like they could have been pulled right from the cartoon. The animations of the main characters, Mac and Bloo, are pretty basic consisting of simple jumps, roll/ducks and throws. Everyone else pretty much just stands by in a frozen position until you interact with them and then, sometimes, they push a TV set or throw things at you.

In the end you have to wonder why we have set the bar so low for games just because they're for kids. On one hand, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends succeeds in pulling the look of the show onto the GBA small screen, but what about everything else? Where are the fun puzzles, Crave? No not the puzzles that consist of dragging yourself through a myriad of doors and rooms in a huge mansion looking for items – I mean FUN puzzles the stimulate the mind. Why does an entire "episode" only have one song and why does it only last for 10 or 15 seconds and replay until your goal is reached? Why are the only weapons granted to our main characters wadded up balls of paper and the ability to duck?

Maybe I'm being too hard on Crave and this game, or maybe we're all not being hard enough. When I spend 20 to 40 bucks on a game for my younger family members to play, I want quality and I want entertainment, so why is it that we're buying games for our children that don't have a lot of either? Even fans of the series are going to have a hard time staying enthused with the monotonous level designs and humor that is only a shadow of what you can find in watching five minutes of the show.

Flatline - Without an ounce of imagination, Foster's Home is closed.

How ironic that there's such a lack of imagination put forth in a game about the joys of imagination. There's not much to say about this game except that at times it has nice visuals but it's not something I would give out as a gift to any of my younger family members.

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