The Lion King

The Lion King Console-Sega Genesis Year-1994 Developer-Westwood Studios Genre-Platform Hakuna matata! Well thats all I can think of. Yeah i'm good at opening these. This is based on the movie, so you should know the plot. Well let's get right down to it! GRAPHICS As with the previous Virgin Disney game Aladdin, the graphics here are superb. The colours are vibrant, bright and beautiful. They pop out at you and smack you in the face. Or something. Anyway, you can immedietly tell it's Disney with its cartoon animated style. It's incredibly well done with everything flowing smoothly. It's a treat to see this on a 16-bit system. Simba is drawn and animated extremely well, it's hard to see this kind of level on other games of the time. It's fun to watch and play as Simba, the level of detail gone into his character sprite is simply amazing, pulling you right into the game. Unfortunately you only encounter a few varying enemies in the game, theres only so many bugs and hyenas a guy can take! The game portrays the world of Lion King well, making you feel like your taking part in the movie, especially thanks to the graphics. Most of the environments are well done, with an exception of some of the latter levels, but it's sorta the point of those I think. SOUND There isn't a whole lot going on with the in game sound effects here. You get a few claw swipe sounds and roars, but there isnt that much more to it. Quite dissapointing compared to Aladdin. They are however crystal clear, taking the Genesis's hardware beyond the limits; I couldn't believe my ears how clear everything sounded. Which brings us to the voice overs. HO-LEE-SHIT! The voices blew me away. Usually theyre a garbled mess, but no! They sounded like they were from the movie even! Timon, or Simba's dad.. all great. You can actually tell it's James Earl Jones! Wowee! The music is of course based off of the movie soundtrack. The songs are easily recognizable and catchy if you liked the movie's songs anyway. They enhance the feeling of playing the movie. Like the movie the music starts off happy, and in the latter half of the game they get a bit more sinister. GAMEPLAY The game itself is fairly enjoyable. It feels like Pitfall sometimes, maybe due to the log jumping and jungles. While I say it feels like Pitfall, it's definitely not as fun though. This game becomes frustrating quickly. Right at the second level. Though at the first hard part you get infinite lives, thanks to a respawning 1up nearby. The game is pretty generous with lives and continues, especially on easy mode. But even on easy this game is frustrating as hell. There's a few change ups in the game, with some chase scenes and minigames. It's fairly fun as young Simba, unfortunately it goes wrong with Adult Simba. This is where the game becomes repetative with one of the most horrible game levels I've ever had the displeasure of playing(second last level). Its so mind numbingly frustrating and repetative and maze like.. UGH I could go on. So eventually I gave up, typed in the level select and invincibility codes and got through it. Not too many games make me do that. There were a few bugs/glitches I found, like a hilarious one where I jumped on the Flamingo you ride.. only .. I sorta didn't . Instead of the Flamingo moving on its own I could still control Simba on it, but it moved the Flaminga too... oh I don't know how to explain. Lion King is fairly easy to pick up and play, theres not much of a learning curve.. there's just frustrating levels. The interface itself is very simple and not much there, which gives you a lot of screen space to see the game. It shows what you need to see and thats it. The options screen is high-end standard, being able to change difficulty, the control scheme, play sound effects and so on. Controlling Simba can be tough sometimes, as the controls are a little too sensitive. You'll find yourself slipping off cliffs way too often, or just wanting to take a step but going into a run......of a cliff. The layout is standard, jump(C), attack(B) and roar(A). It seem's roar was sort of useless though throughout the game. Nothing complicated about them at all. Lion King is not a bad game. In fact its a fairly good game, it's just the frustration factor detracts so much to the gameplay it can overshadow the good. Looking past the anger, there is an above average platformer with gorgeous graphics and great sound. It's fun while it lasts, so check it out. Especially if you like the movie. Remember, this is only my opinion, check the game out for yourself and judge!