Madagascar 3: Europes Most Wanted Reviewed By Ben McCredie

Rating: 60% (Ratings Key/Explanation)

Videogame adaptions of commercially successful films are not a new thing to the virtual entertainment landscape. They've been occurring since the 8-bit days when a balding, cigar-chuffing corporate bigwig with high blood pressure realised that letting the consumer play as their favourite Hollywood character or hero was a cash-cow that could not be ignored.

Such titles often have a sense of foreboding with their release, as their development is usually rushed in an attempt to have a tandom release with the film. Due to this, these games are all-too-often subpar (Transformers 1-3, Avatar, Fantastic Four to name a few). Luckily some avoid this fate and are not only done right, but done well (Spiderman 2, King Kong, Escape from Butcher Bay, X-men Origins).

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is one of the latest movie-to-videogame adaptions to hit shelves, and it necessarily falls somewhere in the "abuse of license/doing the movie justice" spectrum. But where exactly does it fall?
 
Madagascar 3: EMW offers multiple modes of play for up to 2 players cooperatively, the centrepiece being Story mode. Story mode roughly follows the film's plot, with our four protagonists (Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman) now stranded in Europe and looking for a way to their home in New York City Zoo. The logical choice is, of course, to join a travelling circus. After a brief cutscene explaining the backstory, and a mission brief by Skipper the Pengiun, players take control of 2 of the 4 protagonists (which 2 you control is determined by the mission) and proceed to run, jump, roar, hip-bump and sneeze their way through free-roam stages designed as key European cities.

First and foremost a platformer, the game tasks the Player(s) with finding a specific amount of materials for the construction of the circus. The various collection missions are punctuated by timed challenges or races, such as an on-the-rails escape from the film's antagonist, or putting up posters as fast as possible.

Akin to other 3D platformers, such as Donkey Kong 64 (but without the combat), the challenge lies in the specific abilities of the characters, each of them being utilised for the various platforming obstacles you're certain to come across. Wooden doorway blocking your path? Use Gloria's Hip-bump to smash it to pieces. Large distance between two rooftops? Use Alex's double-jump ablity to cross it. As each city is designed to be explored by all 4 characters, you will often find yourself coming across areas that are inaccessible to you until you come back with the appropriate character. Each character also has their own specific collectibles, meaning you'll invariably come across items that cannot be collected at the given moment because they belong to one of the two characters that are unavailable to you.

The players share the environments with the noble (and unashamedly stereotypical) citizens of each city, who roam aimlessly and are all too fond of cowering and screaming "Mama Mia!" at the sight of Alex the lion jaunting past them. As an added layer of danger, citizen distress can attract the animal handlers, who will chase down the player and try to catch them thereby forcing a rather annoying restart on the level. Spotted players must attempt to escape by making the handlers lose sight of them, à la Grand Theft Auto. Luckily, players can easily fool the animal handlers and civilians by pressing the "disguise" button to equip the character with sunglasses and slip by unnoticed (given that the player keeps their distance).

The completion of each city unlocks Mission replay mode, allowing the player to revisit the cities with whichever character they may need to finish their collection. The last mode is "Circus Mode", a party-game style mode that has up to 2 players performing various mini-games as acts in the Circus. One game sees the players competitively printing circus tickets, whilst another sees them controlling the flight path of a character fired from a cannon.

For the most part this game does everything it intends to do, offering a stable platforming experience. It's gameplay lacks substance though, with the collection missions feeling repetitive and stale before you've even finished the first city. Unfortunately the timed challenges, seemingly designed to provide pacing and a breath of fresh air, do little to alleviate this. More often than not they feel tacky rather than refreshing, as they force the player to simply re-run the same level they just explored, but with a clock on the screen.

Furthermore, many of these challenges are unexplained and don't even have a fail scenario. It isn't fun or satisfying to collect as many balloons as possible in under a minute if you're given no concept of risk, only reward, and you're not told why having them is so important. One mission in particular tasked me with collecting a Garden Hose, and quite literally being told "not to worry" about what it was for.

On a technical side, the game is passable. The primary character animations are true to the source material and visually pleasing. The same cannot be said however for most of the other character models, many of which appear flat and without detail, particularly the roaming citizens of each stage. This is painfully evident in the rare cut-scenes depicting King Julian and other side characters which are of animation quality I would've expected from previous generation consoles, not current-gen. Environment textures are less than awe-inspiring, and some are just plain awful. I was however impressed by the lighting effects, overall and in particular the sun-dapple effect on Gloria the hippo whilst underwater.

Another issue is the AI. When playing single-player, the 2nd character is AI-controlled, and abysmally controlled at that. All too often I found myself having to retrace entire sections of platforming because I needed my AI-partners's ability to proceed, and upon switching characters would find they havn't moved since i last controlled them. In the rare case that the AI decided it was in a good mood and would follow you, it became unsurprising to see them grow sick of their miserable virtual existence and roam over the edge of a building. The story mode would definately be a much more enjoyable and fluid experience in a cooperative 2 player environment.

I wouldn't call Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted a bad game, but i wouldn't call it a good game either. With it's lack of innovation and various issues, it becomes necessary to see the game through the eyes of it's target consumers if you wish to garner any enjoyment out of it.

The game places the player in the shoes of their favourite characters from the Madagascar series and allows them to run, jump and collect without any real degree of difficulty. The only real challenges presented unfortunately aren't from gameplay mechanics but from poor design, such as unobvious platforming and poor AI.

Thankfully this title doesn't detract anything from the Madagascar brand, but it sure as hell doesn't add anything either. Definately one for the younger gamers.