Garfield's Fun Fest (Nintendo DS) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

It's difficult not to have heard of Garfield and the adventures of the lazy, Monday hating cat have been published since 1978. It's never really dipped in popularity either and after the comic strip, there was a TV series and more recently the franchise has met a new audience thanks to a couple of big screen, live action movies. This, in turn has led to a few CGI features and this is where Fun Fest gets its inspiration from. The plot is simple really. You'll help Garfield to find his lost sense of humor so he can win Arlene back from Ramone at Fun Fest! Together with Garfield, Odie, and their friends, you will explore his hometown of Grin City and the surrounding area, take part in performances of dancing and acting, and fill up on Garfield's favorite foods to help him stay energized! Sounds like your type of thing? Let's see if it's worth purchasing then shall we...

Gameplay

Most of your game time with Fun Fest will be as a simple platformer where you must explore a reasonably large area in order to locate some missing items, which are in some way linked to the games plot. Along the way you'll also have to feed yourself, as when Garfield becomes too weak he'll simply fall asleep although finding a cup of coffee will make him invincible, and very fast, for a short time. When Garfield does run out of steam he'll fall asleep on the spot and it's up to Odie, who you'll immediately take over, to find and locate one of the many alarm clocks located around the level. This will wake Garfield from his sleep on contact and it's on with the game. You'd imagine that this element would make the game more immersive but it actually comes off as annoying, especially when you fail to get back to Garfield in time and are forced to begin the whole level again.

In addition to the platforming there are also race levels. These are land and air based and, again, require you to eat food and other bonus items to stay awake but you can also gain awards for collecting everything without losing a life. There are also awards for locating Pooky on each level or the Dingle Bells on a race level. Finally there are the Dance sections but as these are stylus controlled, you'll find just about everything you wish to know about them in that section.

Controls

While playing, as either Garfield or Odie, is reasonably straightforward there are some sections where you must work together in order to build up enough power and speed to make some of the bigger jumps. Unfortunately this is a little more complicated than it needs to be and it took us some time to negotiate a reasonably small section. All this happens, of course, as Garfield grows weaker and eventually goes to sleep, making the whole experience that much more frustrating.

Graphics

The graphics and animation are fine and, to be honest they're actually one of the game's highlights. Sadly it looks like it was intended for the GameBoy Advance and last year's Garfield's Nightmare looked much better than this. Yes, it's a perfect representation of the comic book series but we have moved on since then.

Sound

With little happening in the dialogue and sound effects department it's up to the music to pick up the slack and, unfortunately, it fails miserably and, like the visuals seems more like it was intended as a budget GBA production.

Dual screen

You'll have to use your stylus during the 'dance' sections of the game where Garfield must keep up with the beat in order to impress the audience. This is simply a matter of tapping the screen when a star enters one of six areas. Unfortunately these are all the same and very simple indeed meaning that, thankfully, you'll only have to play them once.

Final comments

Before you even consider the numerous problems that Fun Fest has you have to consider the game's length and it's short; very short. In fact it could be one of the shortest games we've ever played on the DS. Everything else is pretty much what you'd expect from a movie/tv tie-in: uninteresting, linear gameplay, no real plot and repetitive levels. In fact Fun Fest falls into just about every tie-in trap we've seen and, once again, developers believe it's enough to simply feature the main characters and sections of the story with no real consideration of the entertainment value of the game. Fun Fest's one saving grace is the fact that it looks great but this is a DS title and not a GBA one and visually it's nowhere near last year's 'Garfield's Nightmare' which was far superior to this mess.

Pro: Very Colorful and Vibrant although it Does Look Like a GBA Title.
Con: Very Short and Not Too Rewarding Either
Final score: 4

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