SNES Review 137: Toy Story

OK so its back to a Disney game again. I am going to be reviewing Toy Story  on the SNES. So Toy Story is a side-scrolling platform game which was released by Disney Interactive Studios in 1995. The game came out for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, the Nintendo Game Boy, Microsoft Windows and of course the Super Nintendo Entertainment System which is obviously the one I am going to be talking about.

The game might have been released by Disney Interactive Studios but it was actually made by Traveller's Tales, who are a British video game developer which was founded in 1989. Most people will probably know Travellers Tales for there  more recent games in particular there Lego games especially the Lego Starwars games. Travellers Tales still essentially exists it was purchased for an undisclosed amount on the 8th of November 2007 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

Toy Story was a pretty important film really when you stop and think about it, after all it was the film which brought about a new age of 3D animation, it was also to a certain extent the start of the end for Disney’s traditionally animated films. This is not the first time I have talked about Pixar in relation to games strangely that would be Unirally/Uniracer but this is the first time I am talking about a game which was at least to some degree trying to bring the official Pixar experience to a home console to decide whether it succeeds or not I guess one would have to define what Pixar as a studio really stands for, what makes its films different to others and does the game live up to this in any way shape or form?

Toy Story follows the basic plot of the movie, yes it doesn't follow it to the letter but if you have seen the film then you will basically know whats going on.  Most of the time you control Woody the cowboy who controls pretty much like you would expect for a typical platformer, the direction pad controls what direction your going in and then you can jump around and you can use Woody's lasso. I have to give the game credit for the fact that it is mixes things up a bit. There are the standard platforming stages where the idea is the usual leap over this and that avoid taking too much damage and reach the levels end. Then you get stages which can best be described as sort of scavenger hunts where you have to search for toys or other items. Then there are also chase stages and boss battles so you could say things remain pretty varied which can if handled correctly can help to make games like this remain fun for longer.

The standard platform stages suffer though from being formulaic,yes they tick a lot of the boxes decent controls, graphics which look quiet a lot like the source material but there is no real defining attribute to them that you wouldn't find elsewhere. Woody's platformer stages never introduce anything new to the game but I guess the developers felt that they didnt have to do anything much with them because they went to a lot of trouble to break them up with other different game types. For instant you have one stage which requires you to drive the RC car through a maze of toys that cannot be hit. The problem is that its a complete pain in the behind to control, if you have played something like micro machines on the megadrive or super skid marks or powerdrive then you know that driving with this sort of view point can be done a lot better. Then you get to ride on Rex the dinosaur in a scrolling from left to right chase sequence which sounds thrilling but its not really, this kind of thing has been done so much better in other games. I think a lot of effort went into keeping the game varied so as to try and prevent people from getting bored and I need to make special mention of a 3D Doom/Wolfenstein bit where you move around as Woody in a first person view which I thought was pretty cool and not something I expected to see in a Disney based game. The bad side is that the whole game can be done and dusted by a decent player in under an hour and you feel very little need to come back to it.

Thats the thing about the Film Toy Story its a timeless piece of entertainment in my oppinion it is about  fundamental things, it's about jealousy about how to deal with your own sense of insecurity at your place in the world, at how you exist in various social circles and how the introduction of a new person can alter a group dynamic but its also wrapped up in just good honest fun. I don't think this game really stands for anything other than an inevitable law of the 90's if Disney make a film that wracks in the dollar dollar then they will have someone make a game of it. I am not saying that its a bad game I am just saying that its a very forgettable game, something that you will pick up play and then soon forget. This is what makes games like Super Mario World truly special you play them and they grab a hold of you and take up a place in your life

I would give toy story a 6 out of 10, it is a decent enjoyable but ultimately forgettable game, you can get a cart of it for about £10 which if your looking for a decent platformer you could do a lot worse, but you could also do a lot better. Despite receiving mixed reviews back in the day apparently the game did well  but an interesting bit of trivia to note is that there was a lot less copies of the SNES version made apparently due to a Super NES chip shortage which prevented them from producing as many copies as they would have liked to.

Megadrive Box art, my love of the Japanese art?: World of Illusion

Ok so everyone knows I love looking at Megadrive box art, its also quiet clear that I am a pretty big fan of Disney based games and also that I most often prefer the Japanese case art. There is a good reason I tend to like the Japanese art and its because they usually try to make the case really flashy on the front the back and the sides and as long as it has the right logo's in a few select places they feel free to just go with it. Our games and those released in America seem more to focus on the idea of sticking to a very set format with art on the front and mostly information on the back. Its like they tried to make it so if you had all your games on a shelf they would look uniform and like part of a collection. Sure I can see what they were trying but I prefer to have excellent art no matter the cost.

If you click right here then you will see the earlier post I did on Disney cases showing of cases for Quackshot and Castle of illusion. Ok if you have already seen that post or your simply not intrested in those games then lets get down to business and look at he cover art for World of Illusion

Ok so this is the European version of World of Illusion and I like it a lot, the main front picture is nice and if I have any issues with this cover its less specific stuff and more regular megadrive European case issues the back is so info heavy and I think the title on the side spine could be bigger. I have a very soft spot for this case art though. I recieved this game one christmas from my Mum and Dad and my mum played it with me in two player mode on frequent occasions it was a game we actually completed togther and it was one of her favourate video games, at one stage she even had her own copy so I couldnt get rid of it. The simple truth is kid or not I would have never traded this game away ever time I looked at it on the shelf it was just a little reminder of the fun I had playing it with her and thats something I will never forget, its a memory I cherish and hold close to my heart even more since she passed away.

Ok so in America they used the same main image but just smaller which I think makes it worse, why shrink such a cool piece of art? The side is also pretty much the same but the back well I like the back of the box a lot more the white area, the cartoon Mikey, the big Caution: This Box Conatains Amazing Magic part all of them just jump out at me. Overall I prefer the European version but this one has its good points.

Now I have to say I adore this Japanese case, its part game case part awesome poster, I actually wish I could get a large print of the picture minus the words just to put on my wall, it screams Disney it also screams Wonder and I dont have a single issue with it. I would happily trade my case for this if not for the emotional connection I have to my own regions

I thought I would knock this case front up so I could let you my reader decide if Europe would have been better off with the Japanese art. I know I was a little lazy and only did the front but some of these custom covers take a lot of time and work and without a plain sample of the case art to work on this one in particular would have taken a very long time to cover all of the Japanese language and logo's up with English. I will return soon to look at more case art but till then ''Be Excellent to each other''.

SNES game review 90: Aladdin, and a comparison against its megadrive/Genesis counterpart.

In the days of the SNES and Megadrive you would get cases where a game was released to both systems sometimes with very little difference maybe a tweak here or a tweak there to take advantage of the hardware but occasionally you would get two totally different games with the same name.

I know I only just talked about a Disney release but I couldn’t help myself but talk about this game. I guess in part it was because in doing so I would get the chance to talk a little bit about the Megadrive. Growing up I was one of very few kids who managed to have both a Megadrive and a SNES in a lot of cases people would make a decision between the two and would then live with that choice. Sometimes this would involve swearing that the other machine was utter garbage and that you wouldn’t want anything on that other 16bit piece of trash if somebody paid you to have it. Sometimes however it would just be a simple case of the persons parents didn't think that there child needed two different consoles and just were not willing to listen to the reasons why there kid had asked for a Megadrive one Christmas and then a SNES the next.

The rough split between the machines between my friends was an even fifty fifty split. I however considered myself the lucky one. One Christmas I got a Megadrive after having asked for it and then when the next Christmas drew near my mum sat me down and asked me what I wanted I told her if it wasn’t too much I would like a Super Nintendo. Sure my mother stopped me and asked me why, but she didn’t judge me or refuse to listen she sat there and listened to my explanation. I told her that although the systems were very similar and offered the same sort of power and experience they both had games which were exclusive to that system because of who made them and that unlike my friends who swore blind loyalty to one machine I wanted to be free to get the games I wanted for both machines even if it meant I got less overall.  It was this simple fact of owning both machines that ended up making me sort of the go to guy amongst my group of friends for video game recommendations and argument solving, if it wasn’t for this I don’t think I would be writing video game reviews now.

So when Aladdin was due out there was a choice to be made go for the Megadrive or Super Ninteno version. Usually if a game was multi-platform the easy decision would be to go for the SNES version as I doubt few people would argue with the fact that usually in these cases nine out of ten times the SNES would have slightly better graphics and much cleaner music. The games I enjoyed my megadrive for tended not to be multi-platform titles but were instead games which never saw the light of day on the super Nintendo such as Alien storm, cyborg Justice Road Rash etcetera. Here there was a kind of rare case of same name different game (It did happen from time to time Shadowrun being another example).

Ok so the Megadrive version was a Disney software, Virgin Games co-production and in fact when you look a little closer and read around a bit you’ll find that some of the names that worked on this game are people who would go on to form Shiny Entertainment (Including David Perry)  and bring us the hero known as Earthworm Jim, who was a real funky guy/worm. If you have played the MegaDrive Aladdin and Earth worm Jim games you will definitely see a connection in there style now it has been pointed out to you.

The main gameplay though is what you would expect from a 2D platformer, you jump and climb your way through levels and fight with either your sword or by throwing apples you have collected as a long range form of attack. It’s simple, but fun. This could get boring quiet quickly if not for the fact that the game is an absolute festival of colour with little in jokes hidden, the level design is also great. The game is well polished, the beauty of it is really in the little details here and there one example being if you put the pad down and leave Aladdin to it he will role and an apple along his arm and flipping it up much like he did at one point in the film. So that’s an obvious question for a game based on a movie how close does this game stay to its source material? Close enough would be my simple answer. It doesn’t follow the film action for action, it does however follow the basic plot but what it does do is flesh it out with extra bits which work well for the game. Aladdin might add levels that aren’t directly based on what happened in the movie but it’s easy to see why and in all honesty they are fun and don’t hurt the story, one such example being a level based on the insides of the lamp. I also can’t help but add that there are lots of great megadrive versions of various songs from the film and these really help set the mood, in fact I found myself humming some of them again and again, this left me wanting to watch the film again and in my opinion served as the perfect companion piece. If I was in the process of trying to review 150 megadrive games I would most likely give Aladdin a score of around 8 out of 10 but that’s not what I am doing here at all, I am talking about it in comparison to the Super Nintendo version. Back when these games were released the general opinion from experts who viewed things with as little bias as possible seemed to be that the Megadrive version was the superior one, but is this really true?

So the SNES version of Aladdin is also a 2d  platformer this game however was developed by Capcom and just like with the Megadrive version there was a particularly famous person involved in its creation in this case it is the games designer Shinji Mikami. Yes Resident Evil Shinji Mikami. Both of the games came out in 1993, in the same month in fact.

Aladdin on the SNES is a pretty traditional platformer as far as things go. You can run, duck, jump and once again you can throw apples but one thing this game is lacking is a sword, which seems to have lost it instant cool points when it comes to a lot of peoples opinions. In truth I don’t have an issue with the lack of a sword after all Aladdin really didn’t use one that much in the film did he, after all his introductory song in the movie was basically about being fast and avoiding things ‘’One jump ahead of the hitman’’ and all of that.  The apples you throw stun enemies and you can actually get rid of them in the old familiar platformer way, trying to push their head into their neck with your feet from a vertical position (Jumping on them).

The lack of a sword here and the characters the agility gives it a different feeling to its megadrive counterpart. As Aladdin you can bounce off certain objects and enemies in order to reach places you otherwise wouldn't get to. For me this game feels at its best when you keep up a quick tempo of going from jump to jump moving constantly forwards, it kind of makes you think of some of the scenes in Aladdin and in this way matches there pace.
The graphics are good but I don’t think the animation is equal to its megadrive counter part, but still it’s a nice bright good looking game. It is far too easy and to short though, you will have finished this game and seen all it has to show you while your megadrive playing counterpart is still ploughing there way through there version.

Even though the Snes version of Aladdin has its good points I just feel that the MegaDrive one is a better game, mostly because of the length and not the sword (who really thinks a game is better just for being able to stab people?). Thankfully though we don’t live in an either world where you have to choose one or the other. Fanboy logic is stupid at the end of the day all systems and all games have their strengths and weaknesses and if you limit yourself from sampling more things because they are on a certain machine or were made by a certain company then ultimately all you are going to do is hurt yourself. I give SNES Aladdin a happy 7 out of 10, it fails to get more mostly because it has a lack of lasting power, it however kicks the heck out of the other Disney games I have reviewed in the recent past Pinocchio and beauty and the beast.

If you want to sample this game then due to the license surrounding it you’re going to have to go for a Cart really, most of the ones I have seen for sale have gone for around £12 to £15 with boxed copies fetching a little more. A boxed copy of the MegaDrive version will set you back £10 to £15 roughly, in all honesty if you have both machines I would start there but if you can afford both or see both going cheap then you can’t really go wrong with either of them they are both darn fine games… On a side note this really makes me think once more that I wish Nintendo had adopted Sega style plastic games cases it would make the collectors life much easier.

SNES game review 89: Pinocchio

Ok so it feels like time for a little bit of Disney Magic so I figured I would give Pinocchio a try. Pinocchio was developed by Virgin Studios London with assistance from Walt Disney Feature Animation it was also a pretty late game being released in 1996 near the end of the Super Nintendo’s lifespan. I remember the game getting reviews back in the day with a crazy range of anywhere from 40% to 80% I never got to play it back then as I didn’t know anyone who got it, I guess they were put off by the wild range of review scores and decided to settle on something a little more of a solid bet, either that or they had moved on to the PlayStation.

Obviously it’s based on the classic Disney cartoon of the same name and well it’s easy to tell that as soon as you put the cart in the machine and turn it on.  After the usual logos you would expect you are met with a picture of a book with Pinocchio written on it and a cool midi rendition of the song ‘’when you wish upon a stat’’. You can tell that Disney had its hands in the making of this game as Pinocchio is a very good looking game, featuring plenty of colours, lots of sprites and beautiful animation the game moves like a dream, it is about as close looks wise to a cartoon as you could imagine a game would be at the time. Pinocchio's music is basically composed of midi versions of songs from the film it’s very basic but also sounds good and really fits the mood, there are also voice clips and sound effects.

For me though it is the gameplay where Pinocchio begins to fall on its ass a bit. Basically it is a platformer. You run and you jump and you try not die. Now nothing in the controls feels horribly wrong but nothing feels brilliant either it comes across as a very by the numbers sort of thing. The game does sod all when it comes to explaining anything to you, it just leaves you to guess and hope. For example nothing tells you that you have to press up to enter arches or that you need to use sign posts to fling yourself in to the air.

This also extends to the mini games there is a Simon says style mini dancing game where you copy what the computer does so you see the things you’re supposed to copy wave the left hand then right foot and you work out which button will make you do the same but with some of the animations you click on straight away and go oh it’s the lower left limb so I will press left and down but then the dancers your copying spin in place and your left wondering what the heck to press to copy them, this then descends in to a trial and error process of trying to press anything or nothing until you do what it wants you to, this is not fun.

The game would be easy if it wasn't for it plain just not giving you any idea of where you’re supposed to go. It made me Jiminy cricket and put me on a platform in the middle of nowhere with no explanation and after falling off a few times and wondering what the heck I was doing I just decided to murder any and all insect life that flew near to my platform with a few lamps on and this turned out to be the answer, this is what it wanted me to do, it wanted me to become the cricket serial killer, thanks for the heads up on that one game.

This game is basically a pretty but dull game, if it was on another system it might have got an easy pass but look at the machine we are talking about here the Super Nintendo. The SNES was released alongside one of the best 2D Platformers of all time. I think this game gets a 5 out of 10, it is though a dull game, it’s so neither good nor bad that it is in some ways totally boring, is it better than the last Disney Game I reviewed beauty and the beast yes, is it more frustrating though because it feels like it could have been more? Hell Yes. Give this game a miss and just watch the film. If you are burning with a desire to own it though a cart only pal version tends to go for between £6 to £10, sure you will see some rip of merchants trying to get more for it but you shouldn’t have any issues finding it in that price range, again though there are much better uses of your cash.