Overall: As a huge fan of the first two Infogrames Looney Toons games ("Bugs Bunny Lost In Time" and "Bugs & Taz: Time Busters",) I couldn't wait for Taz Wanted to hit the shelves. While the game was definitely fun, it's hard to say it was worth the wait. I'm still playing the first two games after nearly five years, but I'm debating whether Taz Wanted will stay in my collection for long. Gameplay: Don't let the use of Looney Toons characters fool you... this is not a kids' game. There are three modes of difficulty, which I'll describe as standard, hard and insane. Even the lowest level is needlessly difficult, and you'll be forced to make jumps and strategic moves that would elude most kids (some maneuvers were difficult for me, and I'm a 25-year old experienced gamer!) If you're spotted by a zoo keeper, evasion is nearly impossible as they bring their nets down fast and accurate... it's tough to dispatch them when you have to get in close because you have no time to react if they turn around. My enjoyment of this game diminished for about two hours when I thought I wouldn't be able to complete a mini game because of a bug, but it wasn't a bug. It turns out that even though the game tells you to press B to move (like in all the other mini games where you have to spin to win,) it fails to mention that you need to mash it over and over. Despite the hardships and frustration, you'll find it only takes about 10 hours to beat the game. Replay value is low because of the linearity and the fact that you always have to be on your toes when you're in a level. In the first two games, you could start throwing snowballs or apples at Daffy in the middle of a level, or let an anvil fall on Witch Hazel's head and kick her in the derrière while it was pointed to the sky. It worked brilliantly as stress reduction... but such distractions don't exist in Taz Wanted, and it suffers greatly for it. Graphics: I'm not a big fan of cel shading, but games like this are the reason it was invented! The 2D/3D worlds really enhance the Looney Toons environment. Colorful, imaginative worlds are the only real strongpoint of this game, but I would've liked to have seen more familiar locations from the cartoons. The only one that comes to mind is Wile E. Coyote's den, but it was disappointingly small. Sound: The sound was garbage! The looping songs lasted about a minute and a half, and they start to drive you crazy when it takes over an hour to finish a level. While I'm on the subject of music, let me take this opportunity to say that screeching, wailing guitars do NOT mesh well with Looney Toons!!! I don't like to hear that trash anywhere, but it absolutely ruined some of the levels of this game. The dialog was compressed to pieces... I've heard better quality Real Audio streams on a 56K modem! Perhaps this was done because of the number of spoken languages available. You can choose from English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. But with today's MP3 and WMA technology, you no longer need to trash out the quality of WAV files to make them small enough to fit on a disc... ESPECIALLY a DVD disc. Suggestions: Look to your previous Looney Toons titles and recapture the spirit of those games. Taz Wanted was too short, too difficult and not very funny in comparison. Make the sound comparable to other games on a next-gen system. This is no longer PSX, so it shouldn't sound like it. And please, I IMPLORE you, make the music more like the classic Looney Toons!
Made in Canada