Cartoon Orbit

"Interesting, an interactive commercial."

Geez, everyone is jumping on the ‘collection craze' bandwagon. But it would seem that Cartoon Network has taken a page from the great big book of online-gaming. Why advertise a game, when you can advertise IN a game? Brilliant.

This is your basic ‘point and click' game, with a hefty bonus of ‘drag and drop'. Everyone starts off with a few points (the games currency) and a small assortment G-toons/C-toons (these are card-ish objects that sport screenshots of characters from the various shows on Cartoon Network). Now, a person can collect more of these toons and build a deck out of them, which can then be used for a card battle type game, with fabulous prizes, such as more points and toons. Sadly, these battles are little more than a oversimplified version of Yu-Gi-Oh.

C-toons, however, have a different function. They come in many different forms, such as gold colored and holiday themed. One of the better ideas I've seen in games of this type, the player can collect game-themed toons. That is, clicking on one will open up a small flash game that can only be played if you have the right toon. This actually helps to establish legitimate, tangible goals, something that this right mess needs more of. It's rather sad that the only other innovation the programmers could come up with are toons that act like checklists. That's right, clickable, printable checklists for the various toons sets. Which, when you consider that a number of sets have more crap than the player has storage, a rather pathetic attempt to fabricate substance.

And what kind of half-assed social networking site would be complete without half-assed social networking? Aside from the battling, the player has the ability to create a C-Zone. That is, a place to show off collected toons on brightly colored backdrops. To what end, one might ask. Why, the C-Zone is also an interactive chat room. No, not a chat room, an interactive chat room. In other words, no chatting. Some toons are animated (or something very much like animated). Players can come and play with your toons, and vice-versa. Oh, what a grand old time.

The toons themselves are gained by entering codes that are handed out on a weekly basis (via e-mail, special puzzles and through various Cartoon Network programs) and can also be earned through high scores in the various flash game the site offers. Additionally, the player has the option of sell/buying more toons in an online auction.

Problems? Plenty. Firstly, the whole cycle of ‘wait for code to be released, enter code, sell off the goods in another week' gets really old, really fast. Hell, making points off of the auction is sickeningly easy, as, with a little observation, one will notice that a pattern in pricing emerges with a disgusting amount of predictability. Orbit has nothing like a natural game economy, as prices don't fluctuate randomly or are based on demand.

More so, this just isn't much of a game, more of an (ingenious) mass marketing plot, used to advertise any new cartoons and toys. New Dragon Ball Z episodes? New set of toon cards. New anime on Adult Swim? Brand new card sets. Cartoon Network needs to make more money off innocent children? Enter this code now!

But hey, I'll bet the collection freaks out there like what they are reading thus far. Well read this:

You can't get all the toons.
Again, you can't get all the toons.
One more time, you can't get all the toons.

The game only allows for so much storage, which is equal to around an eighth of the total number of cards. Some sets (like the various Dragon Ball Z sets) have more toons in them than a single player has storage. Getting something new means getting rid of something old, which essentially kills the appeal for the targeted audience.

Surely, Cartoon Network cares about it's customers and goes out of it's way to make sure that the players time is well spent and fun filled. Yeah, hold on to that dream. The game has a number of serious glitches, from pages randomly crashing with resulting missing points, ease password cracking due to a limit in the number of characters per password and the ability to half-way cancel trades. The concept behind the last one was a player could correct a mistake in a trade before finalizing it. However, the system allows for editing of a trade after said trade has been deleted. It's not a glitch, it's a feature.

Lastly, usernames. The players moniker is made by selecting three words from a drop down menu. While this isn't a huge problem, it forces a person to trot around with simply god awful names, such as ‘Mr. Storm Cloud', ‘Super Cat Power‘ or something equally unimpressive. I assume this was implemented to control usage of inappropriate usernames (cause word censors and live moderators don't work, right?).

Now, visually, the game shines, however dull. The toons themselves are high quality screen caps, a few being original designs, such as an animated Masked Dog or Numba Three as a mummy. Unfortunately, this is the stopping point. The site itself, while easily navigable, is simply hideous. Flash animation in every corner, drab colors, log in/password boxes all over the place. If the programmers had all this time to create three tons of flash, you'd think they'd have time to implement better security. And that crap-ton of flash I was just talking about? I'm thinking that's what contributes that hell-spawn lag that plagues the game. Even the mightiest of connections, the most mammoth of RAMs fall before the lag that is Cartoon Orbit.

Still, ignoring the lag and bad layout, this is still a much more attractive and inviting site than the last group of Cartoon Networks ventures. Compared, to the past, this looks almost, dare I say, professional.

Cartoon Orbit is one of those games that has limited potential. Actually, it depends more on the player. There really isn't any more to this than what has been typed. It you happen to be into card collection with clearly defined limits, card battles, pseudo-chat and enough lag to last you a life time, go nuts. However, if you happen to like well drawn cartoons, mildly entertaining animation and an up-to-date schedule of Cartoon Networks programming thrown into your face, please, go nuts.

Unfortunately, if you like well developed, thought out and executed game ideas, mass amounts of crap that can be colleted and traded endlessly, and fully featured chat programs with which to gloat and, well, chat, then this is isn't the place to be. Hardcore collection freaks won't like this and casual collectors will become frustrated fast. I don't feel the need to mention the average gamer, as such a gamer, more than likely, wouldn't even touch this one.

Ultimately, I'd say it would be worth a look, just not a long look. However, Cartoon Orbit went down for good sometime in late 2006, so there really isn't anything to test drive. Still, if you have time, look it up on Wikipedia or hit up a few of the old players on fan forums. If nothing else, the story behind this failure is a fun read.

Score: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/17/05, Updated 09/25/07

Game Release: Cartoon Orbit (US, May 2000)