Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo

"'Cutesy car rescues lost zoo animals.' Indeed, a better premise than 'cutesy car runs over lost zoo animals.'"

Putt-Putt, an enthusiastic purple car with big white eyes for headlights and the ability to throw out a sort of fishing line at any moment, isn't quite up with Pajama Sam and Spy Fox as a character for Humongous Games's point-and-click efforts. Given that Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo was created so much earlier than the others and was also directed at younger age groups, I suspect it was an introductory effort before the games started getting complicated. It has the usual gadgets in a Humongous game, a cute premise, easy control, and friendly and varied characters to talk to, but it's a very short game, and unlike ones published after it, you face the same puzzles every time. Still, it's an amusing story of a little car trying to make it in a big world of bigger automobiles that may still get better miles per gallon than he does.

After a couple of brief introductory puzzles(i.e. find the one item to click on) where you have Putt-Putt bring the Zoo Chow from Baldini's Grocery to Outback Al, Al tells you that he has so many tasks to do not even counting rescuing the six baby animals that escaped; I guess that is part of the risk an owner of a zoo with no cages takes. You offer to help him, after which you must go out back to the wild areas and track down and rescue the stranded animals.

There are three areas each with about six locations each: Arcticland, the Grasslands, and Jungle Land. Each one has a simple puzzle barring you immediate entry, but once you're in you'll be able to see lonely families and lost baby animals. Of course there are many sights to see but the most gratifying may be when you return to the parents after rescuing the kids. The rescue puzzles range from just clicking on the right item you found to shape identification to the complex ones in Jungle Land where you can't pick up the animals on first seeing them. It's never clear how they got there but they are all so sad that you want to rescue them, even if you're an overbearing aggressive type who will do it just to stop them whining. The game even drops hints with Putt-Putt saying, 'Boy, if only I could...' but even if a child is still stumped the help file gives an easy solution. On solving the game you are congratulated, and although it would be nice to allow a player freedom to roam after winning, you can always just start the game again.

As a classic text adventure this would be a very simplistic game indeed, but the cartoon characters and various gadgets irrelevant to solving the game add the main part of the entertainment. You have an ice hockey game that plays like air hockey and even adjusts to your skill level, and there's even a colorful rare wildlife spotting game. If you just want to learn about certain animals, you can click on loudspeakers by the adults for different information each time. And Humongous always allows the child-friendly irrelevant objects to click which do bizarre things(rare animals even run away) and return to normal. With all the games where the grown-up character reminds you that there's nothing he can really do over there, it's a relief to have a game where you can poke around for fun. This may in fact be the best reason to play the game over again, although children will also enjoy being free of the usual 'don't touch' rules. Heck, stuff in the distant background, which you couldn't touch in real life, can even give results.

But what may be best for children is that while they have all these things to play with, the characters around them are always helpful. Grieving parents never seem bitter. If you have Putt-Putt try to take more than one of an item he already has from the concession store, he mentions not taking more than you need, and adults avoid this sort of message entirely. If you go back to see Outback Al in the middle of the adventure there is a conversation about what you've found, and he says he's sure you're able to win. Of course adults, who don't need encouragement, can just hit the escape key through this(the game is so convenient to skip through, taking at most ten minutes for veterans,) but the running conversation between Putt-Putt, the upset parents, the lost children, and later the reunited families can leave a young player feeling as though he actually helped out. The voices may be a bit melodramatic and Putt-Putt says silly things such as 'Brr-itos' sometimes, but given that animals ask for your help and thank you several different ways, it could leave a young child feeling quite good. Even Arcticland, although it can't achieve the color of the other two areas even with stretched cartoon limits of surreality, has dancing penguins and seals and that ice hockey game.

Putt-Putt himself is a bit overenthusiastic with his constant rocking and his tongue sticking out of his mouth to show extra effort, but he's about as believable as a cartoon car could be. He has a dog companion called Pep who is mostly just visible in the inventory box in the bottom right and doesn't do much more than bark when you click him or to agree with Putt-Putt in a movie scene. He's a carry-over from other Humongous games so kids who've played them may have been sad to see him go, but he's an odd addition if this is your first Putt-Putt game. You also have other standard car controls to play with(the horn is fun but predictably poor versus its common real world use.) You can also get a camera to take pictures of animals for printing later or even paint Putt-Putt many different colors and it's funny to see him perch on something with his front wheels, but those eyebrows in the air ahead of the front windshield are disconcerting.

For a long play there are clearly better Humongous games to go with, but any of their point-and-click efforts is good for some wandering around and tinkering with little doubt you'll get stuck when you want to solve the game. Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo is also more in earnest than Spy Fox or Pajama Sam, geared more towards manners and helping others than problem solving, but it has the usual distractions and gadgets that may take more time and fun than taking route one through the game.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/02, Updated 07/20/02