Zapper

""You WILL be happy! Failure to comply will result in immediate cheerful music playing ness""

Introduction

Zapper is a cute-sy platform game that is aimed at children. It's actually aimed ONLY at children - everyone who is not a child will find this boring and repetitive. Yes, it's aimed at young children. I've written this review really for parents or relatives of young children who are scouting for a possible gift, and so on. I seriously cannot imagine this game being even remotely interesting for everyone over the age of 10 (as an absolute maximum, to be honest, and it's suitable for both genders) so I've tailored this review with this group of people in mind.

If you are not looking for a game for a young child, then there's no point in reading any further. On my usual scoring scale, this would get bottom marks. However, they've handled making a children's game pretty well here, so it scores a high average overall for me.

I borrowed this game from my ten year old brother for the purposes of reviewing. He wasn't bothered about lending it out, because as he says, ''It's good but it's too easy and I think it's for younger kids''.

Story

To be absolutely honest, I didn't really notice any story. I know, bad me. There is one I'm sure, but I don't remember it for which I'm sorry.

Graphics - 7/10

Two words spring to mind when assessing the graphics of Zapper, and they are ''aggressively'' and ''cheerful''. You'll be hearing those words a lot in this review. Every bright color in existence is in this game, all put together superbly and with perfect shading and texturing. Everything fits together beautifully and is very clearly illustrated. In short, it's wonderfully composed. My criticism here is that it's a little too bright - in fact, it clashes quite badly in places. Even the brown of the trees is bright and almost red.

In other words, it looks great, but they over-did it somewhat. This is a common feature of children's games. At least it looks happy though... ''aggressively cheerful'', even.

Sound - 6/10

Upbeat music and lashings of sound effects are the key features here. The sound quality overall is very good. There are a couple of criticisms though. Firstly, it's just too loud! The music is loud, so you turn down the volume on the TV. Jump, or perform another action which necessitates a sound effect, and the elderly/infirm or people with heart conditions within a five mile radius are liable to suffer serious health consequences.

My second sound criticism is that the music particularly is simply too aggressively cheerful. It's also very repetitive.

Game Play - 6/10

The premise is that you are a brightly colored grasshopper who needs to collect eggs. Eggs are hidden sometimes, but they're very easy to locate. In fact, all the levels are very linear and easy to work through. They made Zapper easy, since it's aimed at children, but they took it too far. It's too easy, even for young children. You can actually see the hidden areas very clearly - all you have to do is look.

There's an infuriatingly large quantity of in-game advice, which renders the manual completely redundant, but this is good if you don't have the patience to read the manual beforehand. It handles quite well, but it has its flaws (too linear, too easy). Oh, and it's aggressively cheerful.

Controls and Camera - 5/10

The camera is fixed, in fitting with the linear level style (this isn't a truly 3D game except for the graphics). It rarely gets in the way of play, but the angle can be a little awkward occasionally. There's nothing too disruptive though.

Controls in this game gave me a headache. Constantly tapping the directional buttons in order to take one step at a time gets old pretty quickly, and if you jump the wrong way, it's all over. The controls are illogical and annoying, and not at all well thought out.

Replay Value

I honestly can't score this. I didn't actually finish the game yet, and I probably won't complete it myself at all, but then at the age of 23, I'm some fifteen years older than the target audience so there's really no reason for me to finish! It has all the makings of an enjoyable game, once you get past the terrible controls.

The Bottom Line

An aggressively cheerful (there I go again) platform game which has been designed with kids in mind. Whether they'll like it or not is down to the individual, but it's not a bad game. Nothing special, but nothing really bad about it.

Rent or buy... I'd suggest renting, and trying it out first, especially given its complete lack of difficulty.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/13/03, Updated 04/13/03