#7: Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue (PS1)
After Pixar took us to infinity with Toy Story in 1995, they took us beyond with the release of Toy Story 2 in 1999, for which Disney
Interactive and Traveller’s Tales produced a tie-in video-game for the
PlayStation console. The game sees the player control Buzz Lightyear on a quest
to find his lost pal, sheriff doll Woody, who’s been toynapped by corpulent culprit
– the ‘Al’ of Al’s Toy Barn. Suspecting the chicken suit-wearing assailant of
fowl play (sorry, I couldn’t resist), the toys are soon hot on his trail. While
the film didn’t disappoint, the game, though decent, left a lot to be desired.
Part of what made the film so appealing, at least to me, was
a sense of familial responsibility that provided an emotional backstory,
developing on Buzz and the other toys’ relationships with Woody as they travel
a great distance to locate their estranged friend. There’s no such drive felt
in the game, and therefore no sense of purpose. In short, what I’m trying to
say is, there’s no sense of it being an adventure.
The levels are loosely bridged together by a collection of vaguely relevant
movie clips, providing the only sense of continuity and progress. Otherwise,
each individual level merely feels, well, ‘individual’.
On first glance, it seems as though Toy Story 2 adheres to the very same structure as the previous
year’s A Bug’s Life. This should come
as no surprise, of course, since it is developed by the same companies. Yet,
while for A Bug’s Life this structure
worked in its favour (at least for the most part), for Toy Story 2 it fails miserably. As with the aforementioned game,
there are five zones, split into three levels each, with every third level
containing a boss. While this worked for A
Bug’s Life, there just aren’t enough antagonists in this game for that to
work, so naturally they seem to have invented some random bosses just for the
sake of it. These include a bomber plane and a slime monster in a trashcan. Not
that it isn’t fun, but it doesn’t feel like it follows the film. Rather, it
feels more like a spin-off, or as though the game wasn’t long enough, so they
needed filler material.
Furthermore, unlike A
Bug’s Life, your goal is not to search high and low for the level exit, but
to obtain five pizza planet tokens in each level. These can be gained by
performing tasks, such as collecting 50 coins for Hamm, defeating a mini-boss,
finding 5 items, or completing a race. The more tokens you obtain, the further
you progress, and if you manage to get all of them, you are awarded a movie
clip (whoopee!). Although this is creative and, at times, fairly challenging,
it slows the game down considerably. Sure, the levels take longer to complete
this way, but the message of the movie is lost. You’re supposed to be searching
for Woody, not finding Bo Peep’s sheep! It’s fun, no doubt, but the game is
devoid of purpose and consequently feels as though it’s lacking something.
That being said, this isn’t really a bad game at all, but I
personally see it more as a standalone game as opposed to a movie tie-in. The
gameplay is nothing short of enjoyable, with the ability to fire and charge a
laser, and some pretty decent close combat moves, such as the spin attack
(well, it’s an improvement on the ‘kick’ feature in A Bug’s Life, that’s for sure). You also have the ability to use a
crosshair to target nearby enemies. One thing they truly nail, however, is the
environments. The first level takes place in Andy’s house, and is a completely
believable and detailed representation; it actually feels like you’re exploring
a location of the movie. Al’s Toy Barn and the elevator shaft are also
particularly well done.
Overall, this game is enjoyable, to say the least. The
characters are all there, and the environments (those that are actually in the
film at least) are well-constructed and detailed. The tasks are fun and not too
taxing, but the plot takes too many by-ways to make this game a true movie
tie-in classic.
7/10
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