Tom and Jerry Tales
Score: 75% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: Eidos Interactive Developer: Sensory Sweep Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 Genre: Puzzle
Graphics & Sound: Tom and Jerry Tales brings back those classic characters in a series of all new mini-game adventures where you play as Jerry (the mouse, for those of you who don't remember) who is trying to recapture all of his cheese while avoiding the various traps Tom has set around them. Graphically, I was quite impressed with Tales. The characters come off large and very well detailed considering the limited capabilities of the hand held. Each game has a slightly different feel to it, but they all fit into either a side-scrolling or isometric top-down style. Musically, Tom and Jerry Tales isn't all that bad. The tunes are cartoony and full of energy, just like you would expect from the show. As far as sound effects, they weren't bad either. Though not as big a component as the music, they definitely did their part.
Gameplay: Like I said above, Tom and Jerry Tales is a series of mini-games that have you trying to reclaim all of your cheese from Tom. In the middle of the night, Tom has stolen your most prized wheels and placed them throughout the house. Each cheese type is surrounded by various clever traps and Jerry will have to do everything from avoiding Tom on the piano, to throwing fruit to jump over mouse traps, and of course being chased around the house by Tom. I was surprised by the sheer number of mini-games that this title had to offer and while a few of them feel like duplicates, for the most part there was enough variation to keep me interested.
Difficulty: Difficulty is where Tom and Jerry Tales hurts a bit. Some games are really easy to get past, while others will require quite a few replays. This would be fine if they were ordered so that the harder ones occurred later in the game, but the difficult games are scattered throughout and I might go through a few games without any problems only to hit a wall of sorts without any warning. Though I was able to, eventually, get past all of the levels, those times when the game seemed to blindside me were really annoying and occasionally actually caused me to put the GBA down.
Game Mechanics: Like most mini-game titles, Tom and Jerry Tales's controls change for each mission. Typically the B button lets you jump or attack an object while the rest of the buttons (A, R and L) do different things based on the game you are playing. In one game, you might be trying to juggle pool balls or trying to hit Tom with various items and what those other buttons do depends entirely on what the game requires. While Tom and Jerry Tales might be fun one time through, there isn't really any replay value so purchasing this title might not be the best idea. If you have a trip ahead of you, then rent it.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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