Disney's Peter Pan in Return to Neverland

"The Horror, the horror"

Deep inside the jungles of Cambodia, Col Kurtz stares into the eyes of the man sent to kill him. He can only whisper....''the horror, the horror.''

Deep inside the Philadelphia suburbs, Snowcrash sits in his study staring into the screen of his GBA advance, on which he is playing Peter Pan - Return to Neverland. Snowcrash can only mumble...''the horror...the horror....''

A bit melodramatic maybe, but those two words sum up my experience with this game. I'd love to be able to say that this game is a diamond in the rough, or a hidden treasure that most people will not understand, but it is neither of those two things. Rather, Peter Pan - Return to Neverland (PPRTN from now on) is a rather bland platformer that is a poorly constructed tie in to the new Peter Pan movie. When a software company (and Disney for that matter) attempt to pass of this type of garbage on the gaming public, it is very upsetting, especially since this game is clearly marketed towards small children. I guess since the intended audience can't complain in the same way as adults, the company thought they could pass off this half hearted attempt on the youth of America.

Enough ranting, more reviewing....

I think I should be clear right off the bat, I actually was not able to finish this game. After clearing the first ''level'' after getting to Neverland (more on this later), the absolutely boring repetitive gameplay kept repeating and I finally turned it off in complete submission to the awful power of this game.

The Okay
Rather than say anything about the ''good'' parts of this game, I have to just go with the ''okay'' parts of this game. The premise behind this game is pretty cool. Who wouldn't want to be a boy-hero who can fly and fight pirates? Actually, the flying in the game is okay, and it is done from two different perspectives. First is the flying you do in the side scrolling levels (not in all of them). This is regulated by a ''flight'' meter that slowly decreases as you fly. In order to stay in the air, you have to pick up cannisters of pixie dust. The second type of flying is done between areas where you take on a first person perspective and fly in ''mode 7'' mode. This was cool, but I was almost immediately hit by a cannonball, and then that stage ended.

The character animation is also quite good. The pirates get a special nod because their movement and shading look especially nice.

There are also opportunities to find movie icons that unlock small bits of animation from the movie. The animation looks okay

I really wish there was more to put into this section, but I guess it is time to move on to the bulk of the game:

The Bad
In an attempt to not beat a dead horse, I'm just going to give a list of what I perceived as problems:

- The control while flying is frustrating. For a character who has the freedom to fly, it should be easy to control. It isn't.

- Throwing your knife. In order to attack enemies, you have the option of throwing your knife. This does not work well, and when hitting an enemies, they invariably walk into you, costing you health as well.

- What can you stand on? This game suffers from the same problem as many other platformers in that it is difficult to determine what you can stand on and what you will fall through.

- Uninspired and repetitive level design. Aside from some different graphics, there are no unique goals in any of the levels other than reaching the end of the level. This gets real boring real quick.

- Unintuitive game elements. This is a bit more difficult to explain, but there are parts in this game that are needlessly difficult because there are no clues as to what to do. The flight to Neverland is a great example. You have to fly with the Darling children to Neverland, but it is unclear how far away from the children you can be before the level starts over (but surprisingly you do not lose a life).

The Final Word
Unless you absolutely have to own everything with a Disney name on it, I'd suggest that you stay far away from this game. Far, far away.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 03/01/02, Updated 03/01/02