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Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt Review - Xbox

Wakko, Yakko and Dot are back for their latest adventure, the Great Edgar Hunt. The Animaniacs are crazy, and they’ll go to incredible measures to secure the Edgar trophies that are scattered all over the Warner Bros. world. We’ve seen plenty of games similar to this on the Xbox, ranging from The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie to Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2, but the Animaniacs cartoon is a classic, and a game based on it is something fans will definitely enjoy. It’s just that, well basically Animaniacs was cool in 1996, but now nine years later the franchise is slightly worn.

Gameplay

Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt is your basic kiddy adventure game. Control Wakko, Yakko and Dot through different environments, collecting coins, gold, and different items, to ultimately collect all the trophies and kill the boss. Along the way you’re confronted with loads of different enemies though, ranging from cacti that come to life and fire their pricks at you, to snakes that want nothing more than to bite you. There are six different levels to make your way through, each with different tasks and mini-games to pursue, making Animaniacs a game that takes no more than five hours to beat.

Pinky and The Brain play a large part in this game though, which was odd at first. You’ll find them on the screen when you’re entering in your name, and then all throughout the game there are mini-games which they will host, and there are also different environmental features that represent the Pinky and The Brain cartoon as well. The mini-games include such things as using a magnet to get horse shoes, or racing along the top of a good old fashioned train in order to save Dot who is tied to the tracks.

Health is a bit of an issue in the game. You get three apples of health, and the apples slowly get eaten as you lose health. There are plenty of apples around the place though, but if you need to backtrack then you may find that you’ve absorbed all the apples already. If you have full health, the apples should just stay where they are instead of being absorbed by your character pointlessly, but unfortunately they don’t.

Each character has their own moves, but they all follow the same sort of controls in the end. Your weapon is a large hammer, just like what they use in the actual cartoon sometimes, and you have about three or four ways to attack your enemy, including spinning around, just full on whacking them, and even a sit down bomb just like in the late Mario games. The game features a fair bit of comedy, but it’s quite a low level of comedy that children would find amusing. The game is of course targeted at an audience aged anything under twelve, which puts the comedy in its respectful place. Some of the jokes race by so fast though (continued next page)