40 Winks

"A platform game with horrible controls"

Gameplay

This game plays like many other platformers. The object of the game consist of collecting stuff in 3-D levels. In this game, you must collect Dreamkeys, Cogs and other stuff. The main goal is to collect the 40 Winks. There are a few of them in every level. There are six worlds. There are three levels in each world. There is also a boss at the end of each world.

The character has some basic moves, like punching and a long-range attack. There are different costumes throughout the levels. These costumes give the player special abilities. These costumes are : Prehistoric Man, Super-Hero, Jester and Ninja.

In every level, there are many doors that require a certain number of Cogs to open. These things are all over the level. You also need to find all the Dream Keys that lead to the bosses. Sometimes the keys or Winks are hard to find so you can easily get stuck.

Graphics

The graphics in this game are slightly above average, but they are nothing special. Platform games usually have good graphics anyway. The FMVs on the other hand, are amazing. These FMVs have a Hollywood quality in them. They look like animated films.

Music

The music is nothing special. It is not bad at all. The music is good in the FMVs tough.

Controls

Here is the main problem of the game. The controls are simply horrible. After you perform a normal attack or a running attack, your character becomes immobile for a split-second. It is very annoying and it greatly lowers the enjoyment of the game. Even by playing hours upon hours, any experienced player will still struggle with the controls. This often result by being hurt and losing lifes.

Difficulty

There are three difficulty settings for this game. They make a big difference. For example, ''easy'' is actually easy. But if you try ''normal'', the game becomes a lot harder. And at ''hard'', the game is extremely hard. By playing on the difficulty level ''easy'', anyone with minimum talent can go very far in the game without much trouble.

Monsters

Monsters are a very good point in that game. There are many species of them and they are nicely drawn. They range from skeletons, dinosaurs, zombies, pirates, ghosts, fishes, bees, spiders, dragons, aliens, robots, etc. There is almost a new specie of monster in every level. The enemy I hate the most are little green bugs. They are extremely common and they are very annoying.

Levels

The levels in that game are short for this type of game. That is a good thing. I remember similar games with levels that were way too long (like Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo-Kazooie on the Nintendo 64). As for the originality, there is not much of it in that game. The levels are simply what you will see in countless other similar games.

Fun factor

The fun factor is kinda average. While doing the levels, nothing really stand out to become a memorable experience. You just collect Cogs and Keys, kill some monsters, open doors... But in the same time, nothing is excessively boring.

Length

This game is pretty long. Collecting all the Winks takes a long time. For me, it is bad because I was tired at that game from an early point. I just wished I could finish it faster.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/21/02, Updated 08/21/02