Ok, bad pun, but Whiplash was one of my favorite games from this year's E3. Everyone knows animal testing is no laughing matter, so Eidos decided to address this timely issue head-on. In fact, the heroes in Whiplash are two such animals making their great escape from a product testing facility. The game takes a light-hearted approach at a sad subject and will have kids, young and old, rooting for the little guys to make a break for it while putting the smack down on the evil humans subjecting them to these wacky tests.
Spanx and Redmond have joined forces (well, they are chained together) to escape a research facility. How will they do it? Well, it just so happens that Redmond has been the test subject for a certain hair spray which has rendered him impervious to any sort of harm. Because of this, he's a perfect weapon! Spanx totes him around, slinging him at every baddie that jumps in the way, with Redmond grumbling the whole way. Spanx can also light Redmond up and toast enemies, along with several other unusual methods of attacking and outwitting enemies. The demo I played was an absolute blast as I watched a forlorn chimp mentally contemplating doing major damage to the researcher about to give him the old "shock the monkey" treatment. Of course, Spanx and Redmond jumped in to save the day.
This game looks to be a great way to help kids to understand animal testing, albeit in a more light-hearted manner. Yes, animal testing is no laughing matter, but in Whiplash, the animals get a chance to strike back! I applaud Eidos for taking a chance on something so different and I can't wait to get my hands on the final version as what I saw at E3 was great fun.
Look for Whiplash this Fall on PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
