Inspector Gadget: Gadget's Crazy Maze

"Disorganized, yet serendipitous"

Some of my earliest fits of false nostalgia involved the Inspector Gadget cartoon show. It's decent entertainment, and it took Dangermouse's place well after we moved and no longer had cable, but the theme song was the most memorable part. In high school I'd watch the show I thought I loved in junior high, my excitement rising with the catchy theme song before realizing that the plot is a bit silly even for cartoons. The game, sadly, reflected the show in this respect after I found it in a bargain bin, although the special effects and a few puzzles worked so well that, given some of the hideous features, I feel the game must have been rushed.

Here's the plot of a typical episode: Inspector Gadget gets an exploding message from a hidden Chief Quimby, often throwing it back carelessly. Then he runs around in his grey trenchcoat and uses gadgets(activated by the words 'Go-Go Gadget [gadget!]') like a helicopter or hammer popping out of his hat or springy legs or arms or inflate his coat like a balloon in an effort to defeat Dr. Claw. He always gets it wrong, so his niece Penny and her dog Brain work behind the scenes to foil the bad guy, after which Gadget explains how he solved the crime so Penny can learn a thing or two. After that there's a more general Message for Kids he imparts to Penny, who already knew it anyway. Great idea, as you can never have too many bumbling fictional detectives, but weak script.

Gadget: inept with tools, very professorial...

The game's a bit different, though. You have five different environments(the cover claims forty levels, I've only found twenty-six) where you move about on a grid pushing gems into rows of three or more, picking up the coins produced for points. Right after all gems are gone, you advance to the next level, unless you're on the last in your current world, where you just need to grab a key to rescue Penny and Brain(tackily though, no bonus for clearin the gems.) This doesn't fully play to Gadget's attributes, as he spends much more time walking around than using his attributes, but you can pick up a hammer which pops out of Gadget's hat to bash enemies, and you can use a chopper to vault briefly over walls. There's only the vague assertion here that Gadget is out of it where you see he's got a happy dazed expression in each splash scene.

Gadget, who always seemed professorial, will need to show some semblance of abstract intelligence for all his manual bungling as you go to five different worlds: City World, Circus World, Haunted House, Candy World and the Space Station. Along the way Gadget can kick a gem over a few squares or just push it, and he can move diagonally as well. He's usually faster than all the enemies, but he moves like a king in chess; diagonal movement is twice as efficient as regular, when it's useful.

In keeping with the nonviolent tone of the series, Gadget has no built-in weapon and even the hammers he can pick up(five uses each) get in the way. For instance, if Gadget has a key, he will drop it to pick up the hammer, and he can't kick while he has the hammer. The helicopter power-up he can find wobbles him around in the air on purpose, and he dies if he drops down on a barrier. Gadget also loses a life by running into an enemy agent that wanders around, walking over a square of spikes as they pop up, hitting by a moving gem or running out of allotted time in a level.

Time allotted in a level is also the only difference between easy, normal and hard modes. The CD seems to throw out random numbers for times, but the less you start with, the greater your bonus at the end. There's also a planning process involved in the hard level; the order in which you put the gems in a row can decide if you pass, and often it's not worth it to take a coin.

...and he moonlights in software design consulting for extra cash!

For a simple game, though, there are some incomprehensible features. In the beginning you'll be asked the language you wish to view options in; this works well for the main menu, but when you press start for the in-game options, there is a menu of confusing icons. Add this to the following puzzler, where you have a check next to the PSX's X button to confirm a choice and an X next to the triangle button to turn it down. Two X's? I'm still wrong a third of the time. Localization doesn't help there. What's worse is that all this internationalization makes speaking harder; only Claw's evil laugh comes through, although you do get level names adjusted to your language. I guess this at least leaves out the silly moral at the end, but neither do you hear 'I'll get you next time, Gadget!' You're also prodded to save to your memory card after every game, which is annoying and takes up that much more time.

The only nice feature is that you can reset a level in the middle without any penalty. So if you push some gems into positions where they can't be aligned together, or you had four yellow gems left and made a row of three, or even if you're running low on time in hard mode, you can try again. This doesn't make it unfair in your favor as resetting a level forces you to walk through some risks again--assuming the level is not unfairly(to a person who likes a challenge) easy in the first place.

This game will self-destruct after 40 levels. Oops, 26. Sorry, Chief Quimby!

Speaking of challenges, each level seems to have its own. It's rarely too intense, however, and often you'll see a neat idea in one level that isn't repeated. For instance, the manual refers to big cats as enemies, but I only ran across one in the game. But from obvious ways to put gems together the game slowly moves into strange tricks. You may get trapped later in a small area with an enemy, or you may even want to fake him out and trap him in a corner with garbage cans you can move. There may be a need to leave one coin to block a path.

Later on you'll either have to notice a semi-hidden square(the view is half-overhead) or deduce there is an item behind a tall barrier such as a bookcase, but triggers are what bring some variety to the gem-pushing. If you step on one, or put an obstacle on one, a door may open somewhere else(might not stay open,) or an arrow square may shoot a gem in one direction. Flying gems can be good(run into other gems of the same color) or bad(run into you.) You can block one by placing a gem in its path, and the chain reactions that occur when arrow squares and triggers are linked are amusing and challenging. Sometimes one trigger will affect something far away. You may also need to navigate squares that only you or the monsters can cross, and later agents will chase you more intently. Some good ones may even look like the clueless goons from the first level.

Yet although many levels seem intimidating to start, you often just have to push one gem in the right direction, and everything else magically falls into place without you seeing what happens. There's also a roller skating level that gave me a tough time(Gadget is faster but more unwieldy if you pick them up) until I just floored the controller to the right from the start. These gee-whiz solutions parallel with Inspector Gadget as a cartoon, but they rip off any serious gamers.

One caveat here: is that I went straight through on easy mode with no hints at the end and also saw no mention in the manual about secret levels, only seeing twenty-six when the back of the CD case mentioned forty. I even worked through most of the hard ones, so I assume the producers are either being misleading or too obscure. It adds to my perception of the game as unfinished. I could be wrong, but even if I am, I wasn't adequately clued in by peripheral resources.

Ooh ooh! Go, Gadget, Go!

The sound and graphics I experienced from this game left me wanting more. You never hear the official theme song, but there are a few remixes of it. The introductory music is particularly successful, and tunes change for each world. I've paused the game to get something to eat and never considered turning the TV off to kill the soundtrack. Sadly the main animation effects and voices can be spelled out in short order. You have the level intro, Gadget falling and groaning as Claw laughs, and the final scene for the longer animations. None is as entertaining as the splash screen for each world. Besides the general punch-up noises you have Penny screaming and Brain crying on the final level in a world, which are rather good. Why wasn't there more?

Aside from the gems the level layouts are quite attractive as well. You have six gem types; white, red, green, yellow, blue and multi-colored, which has a cool lava lamp effect. However the yellow gem looks like a hay bale, and the green gem looks like cabbage. Fortunately there are clever icons elsewhere, with trash cans by houses that project porches well even in the overhead view. And the creativity of some worlds makes up for the occasional lazy level. Circus world has all manner of weird caravans and tents, and heck, Candy World was surprisingly easy for the second-last one, but with the sugar wafer borders, gift boxes to push and candy canes blocking your way, it was at least fun to watch.

Gadget makes out well too. His vacant smile as he lazily kicks at a gem or pulls out the hammer-hat, or the punch-up scene if he encounters a crook, are funny as long as the game isn't hanging in the balance. He also swings helplessly from his helicopter as you wobble about, but he doesn't say a word, and that's disappointing.

Go Go Gadget Eject Button!

Getting through the game on easy level is not bad, although you'll make enough mistakes that you probably won't crack the high score list. After that your mission, should you choose to accept it(whoops, wrong intelligence spoof there) is to work efficiently through the hard levels, which you've really already done, but you just need to make no mistakes. Few people enjoy this technical work, and you can't start on hard without the frustration of several immediate losses before you get your bearings, so you will be shelving this game earlier than you'd hoped. Sometimes it may feel unfair you can't really crack the high score list, and it's certainly not nice of the game to put zeros in front of your score as if it were still the early eighties. I haven't even gotten a thousand points yet, probably more due to carelessness and impatience than lack of technique.

At its best, though, the game offers up some clever puzzles, and when I'm in the right mood it's fun to chip away at the shortest path through; this can be done due to the game's grid-based nature. But I haven't come back to it much after solving it. I just hope next time Claw tries a bit harder even though he didn't make the vow to. Because despite its obvious faults the game is nice enough to look at, and some of the puzzles are creative. It almost seems to stumble on some clever puzzles and nuances, much like the man himself. It leaves you feeling that, with enough care and the right special effects, an Inspector Gadget game would be very entertaining.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/04/02, Updated 09/04/02