40 Winks

"All aboard the sleepy train! To visit mother goose! Ruff's stop is candy cane land, made out of ginger bread..."

Think of a latest, non handheld and Megaman game which is a 2D side scroller platforming game. You can't really think of one. Which leads to no surprise that 40 Winks is yet another 3D roaming platforming game. 40 Winks started out as a Nintendo 64 exclusive, but with most games these days it gets shipped to other consoles, and becomes a lot crapper then it already is. The best way to describe 40 Winks, is to compare Rugrats and Rascle, two games for the Playstation.

40 Winks is like Rascle, because of the control system and the enviroments. The game is like Rugrats because of the childish music and chubby-faced babies. Rascles enviroments, which the area where you choose your levels, is very similar to that of 40 Winks, and the medi-evil and futuristic levels are surprisenly similar.

The story of 40 Winks is a very strange one, which would make a good childrens movie. Basically, two little children, a boy and a girl who share the same bedroom are having some bad dreams. Then set out to defeat the Nightmare professor to bring the good dreams back. Seems very basic, the game doesn't explain it that well. The children have to exolore the mouse, late at night, alone (Bad parents?)! The doors in the house, attics and anywhere possible, will take you to worlds in which you have to complete (Big house?).

The two central characters, Ruff and Tumble have to search their house for entrances to levels. The living room has a sc-fi style level when one of the characters jump in to the television, they are taken to a science fiction world. Walk in to the attic wardrobe and get taken to a creepy nightmare world (Which resembles the haunted house level from Banjo-Kazooie). And even more bizarre, jump inside the TOILET(!!!!!!) and get taken to an underwater place.

You are safe in the house when choosing the levels in 40 Winks. No enemies have escaped levels and roam around your house. But a very obscure, walking and talking alarm cloke called 'Wakey Wakey' is in your house and offers a few hints, which the player should already know. The best way to describe Wakey Wakey is to think of T.T from Diddy Kong Racing.

Each world is full of monsters and items to collect. You have little 'Z' to collect, just like coins in Super Mario and rings in Sonic. You also need to collect some rather cute creatures called 'wanks'. These are not exactly vital to the game. Companies these days need to learn that to have fun, we do not have to collect a lot of items in games!

Ruff and Tumble can turn in to four different versions of themselves. These range from a Ninja, who is very fast, A Monster who is very powerful, A robot who can storm from area's, and finally the immortal status, which speaks for itself. These are a nice treat from the normal characters, but these power ups only appear when vital for a puzzle. I think if the company put these powersin places where we don't exactly need them, but would be a lot more fun, it would not stop this game from getting boring and predictable.

Ruff and Tumble are both fast and easy to control characters. The graphics in the game make the characters stand out, but like most Playstation games which came out over the last few years, they prove a bit blocky and show a few glitches. The music in 40 Winks is very cheesey as well..

Good

- fairly good Gameplay
- Good music
- Great humor

Bad

- Blocky graphics
- Sometimes too hard
- Another platforming game!

Summary:

Graphics - 6/10
Sound - 8/10
Music - 7/10
Gameplay - 7/10
Story - 5/10
Challenge - 8/10
Enjoyment - 4/10
Overall - 7/10

Alternatives: Rascle and Rugrats...

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/15/02, Updated 02/15/02