Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Imagination Invaders (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends is brought to you by Craig McCracken, the creative force behind The Powerpuff Girls and like the super trio the story takes place in a kind of parralell universe full of (you guessed it) Imaginary Friends. The 'Home' in the title is where Imaginary Friends are forced to go as children outgrow them as they become older. This in itself allows for a huge amount of gaming potential and, like some of The Powerpuff Games the plot could go in one of many directions not to mention the gaming possibilities.

Gameplay

If you haven't seen the show then I'll briefly fill you in on the games plot, not that you'll understand it. In order to fight off the Space Nut Boogies Mac, Bloo and the Friends pretend to be Superheroes which wouldn't be so bad except that one of the kid's imaginatios goes into overdrive and the aliens become real. You play as Bloo as he travels around the house helping out other Friends (generally by reuniting them with lost objects) and batteling it out with the aliens. All of the houses floors have a similar structure with not everything accessible at first and the last portion only opened up once certain tasks have been fullfilled. You'll also be force to backtrack through the house thanks to the inclusion of 'Friend Squares' which can only be activated if you've actually befriended these individuals. These allow you to access peviously out of reach areas but it simply feels like an extension of the original 'fetch quests'. In addition to all this you'll also have some mini-cames to contend with but as these are all over in around 10 seconds or so, they are hardly worth mentioning.

Controls

Very simple platforming stuff which, features so few actual platform sections, it's difficult for this part of the game to become even close to frustrating.

Graphics

The developers have pulled off an impressive 3D engine which not only allows for some interesting characters but also for a huge house to roam around. This is all mixed with some static cartoon screens which perfectly catch the style of the TV series.

Sound

If you enjoy the music from the show then you'll be pleased to know that it's all featured here. There's even some voice over work from Mac and Bloo although not nearly enough as there could or should be.

Dual screen

While the bottom screen is mostly used for an overhead map, your stylus will come into play when ever you call upon one of your friends for help. This cold be charging trough a blocked room of retreaving an out of reach object with the on-screen imput generally matching what you want to do so running into an object has you dragging your stylus from left to right whilst reaching a high shelf is achieved by brushing up the screen. There's a few of these, and a handful of mini-games, but nothing we haven't seen before.

Final comments

Advance Wars: Dual Strike builds on the successful franchise it has become, and adds many more features. With more units, maps, characters and action then any other Advance Wars before it, this makes it an essential purchase for strategy fans and non-strategy fans alike.

Pro: Builds on past AW games and has loads of features.
Con: Can get frustratingly hard.
Final score: 4.5

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