KAO the Kangaroo

"Mildly entertaining, if you have nothing else to do"

Kao the Kangaroo is what you would expect from a bargain bin game. Non-existent storyline, decent graphics yet nothing special, linear gameplay, and mediocre music. It all makes for a game you would play, but not if there is something else you could be doing at the moment.

Graphics - 7/10 -

Graphics are pretty decent, but the monotony of it all will get you adjusted to the graphics you will constantly see over and over, and it is nothing special. Your hero Kao is a simple kangaroo with boxing gloves. If you stand there, you get to see a few animations of him skipping rope, reading the paper or pulling out a watch. That gives it a little perk.

Enemies are drawn well for the cartoony style the game is going for, but eventually their looks will begin to annoy you - see why below.

Gameplay - 3/10 -

Forget story, because there isn't any to have a section devoted to it. Simply, Kao is walking along when after getting within two inches of a hunter's gun, he starts running the other direction and a cage mysteriously appears and captures him. At this point he is magically transported to a jungle and he must fight his way back to his home. If you're a geek, don't even bother trying to figure out the logic of this story.

While the game is simple, walk, jump, punch, collect, and the controls are relatively simple, the game lacks enough polish to make things sound as easy as they are.

Kao has a variety of moves and because of all the enemies he will encounter, he will need to be ready to use whatever works. However, if you are hoping to move through levels quickly, don't even think about it being possible until you have gotten well adjusted to the game. Kao's moves have such short range and radius that an enemy right in front of your face will easily go right under your attack and keep running into you, causing damage.

The worst part is you'll constantly hop into the air and cling onto the enemy until you get completely out of its way or somehow manage to hit it, which, even with it right on you, is impossible many times. For example, the flea in the first few levels run and hop, but often times your punches thrown at it will miss and it will keep jumping onto you. On top of that, all enemies must be hit at least two or three times before getting killed - so one punch isn't going to stop your health from depleting like mad.

This in part makes the game extremely tedious, more than it already is. In order to fight enemies, you can't hope to swiftly glide through and deal incoming opponents the blow you need to get them out of the way. You have to stop, wait for the right moment, be patient, and then attack before moving on and doing the same to every enemy in your path. Sometimes even this won't work since enemies move erratically, set to move in a way so that it'll almost always hit you whatever you do.

Worthy of mention, the bosses are tedious with a capital T. They not only have huge life bars, each punch only does a tiny pixel of damage, and every attack will only do so while coming into slight contact with them will cause you to lose health. You either have to find a cheap way to kill them or tediously hit them, run away, dodge, hit them again, run, dodge, and repeat OVER fifty times (that's not an exaggeration). This makes the bosses no fun at all, and if you die, their health goes right back to full and you have to get your ass dragged across the pavement again.

However, you have a move that allows Kao to stomp the ground. Learn to use this move and you can pretty much sweep most things in the game... most of the time.

Also, there are bonus rounds and travel levels. Bonus rounds are obtained by first going through four levels in a stage and finding key pieces then finding a keyhole. This allows you one minute to go around and collect coins, provided you don't get killed in the bonus round - in which case, all that time you spent collecting key parts and losing lives wasn't even worth it to begin with.

Travel levels give you some sort of vehicle or way to move, and puts you in dangerous situations where dying is easy as that, and you collect a bunch of coins as you drag your way through. What is frustrating is literally dying right when the exit is - and prepare yourself for that, and enjoy starting the whole process over.

Tedious. Uninspired. Bland. Annoying. This pretty much sums up how you'll feel about the gameplay. Just remember if you want to play, passwords are easy once you figure out their pattern and that butt stomping is a miracle.

Music - 5/10 -

You'll often hear the same songs over, and the boss song is always the same. Sound effects are few and annoying, it's nothing worth listening to.

Overall - 3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/06