| Introduction
As an animated movie fan, you can imagine how disappointed
I was when I watched Treasure Planet at the cinema a
few months ago. In my opinion, it was one of Disney's
most uninspired and un-magical full length animated
feature films ever. To be fair, the movie's failure
should have little bearing on the game, although it
would be hard to see Ubi Soft selling as many copies
as they had hoped.
GamePlay
Everything in Treasure Planet is played in an isometric
universe with the action split into two very neat sections
- puzzle/platform and surfing.
The platform sections are a little like the old classic
'Head Over Heels' and you'll constantly be required
to push boxes around to trigger doors and lifts. There
are also fireballs, poisonous flowers and thorns which
will drain your health on contact so remember to watch
out for them.
Another problem you'll encounter is with pirates
or the police, who'll think nothing of throwing you
out off the room on sight, forcing you to start a section
all over again. Law enforcement is surprisingly intelligent
too, so although some might patrol in a set pattern,
others will actively search you out and call for reinforcements
as soon as they've discovered your location.
The surfing sections are completely different and
will test your reflexes and forward thinking. With your
handy laser fitted to the front of your surfer, you
will be challenged to get from point 'A' to point 'B'
intact. You'll discover soon enough how important the
laser is, as you'll need it to destroy boulders and
even open doors by firing at switches repeatedly.
In a departure from the usual platform routine, Treasure
Planet introduces something called 'Morph Moves', which
are special abilities that will help you in your quest.
These, however, will have to be collected before you
can access them.
The first of the 'Morph Moves' is the 'Morph Cam',
which allows you to scroll around a room to get a better
idea of how to solve the current puzzle. There are many
others of course and learning how to use them is the
key to progressing in the game. The 'Morph Glow', for
example, helps you in darkened rooms while the 'Morph
Cool', lets you walk on lava for a few seconds. There
are more but it's best if you discover them for yourself.
Even with all the 'Morph' help, things can still
get a little complicated, which is where your handy
map comes in. Simply pressing the 'select' button brings
this up and lets you see where you've been and your
current location.
Treasure Planet uses a password system to save your
game, a system which I'm glad to say, is actually quite
easy to record and input since it uses words that mean
something. Simplicity, however, has its drawbacks, and
the code only saves your level progress and not your
score, credits and health.
Controls
Not everyone likes or is comfortable with an isometric
view point, as the perspective in such games often make
it difficult to judge and control an object or character's
movement. Fortunately though, the developers have taken
care to implement a control system that makes moving
around the various environments both simple and responsive.
There are still some minor problems though, so until
you get used to it, you might misjudge both the screen
depth and direction and inevitably loose a life when
leaping from platform to platform.
Graphics
The visuals in Treasure Planet are quite pleasing,
thanks to the use of actual locations from the movie
which is an added bonus. The character animation is
also nicely done and reflected perfectly their on screen
personalities. As is usual now with Ubi Soft/Disney
titles, the game is peppered with FMV clips from the
movie to help push the plot along and although relatively
short, they were of high quality and is sure to please
younger gamers and fans of the movie.
Sound & Music
Music wise, Treasure Planet is well above average
and the movie inspired soundtracks that play throughout
the various levels are suitably Disney inspired. Be
warned, the tunes are quite catchy and play on a fairly
short loop, so by the time you finish the game, you'll
probably find it hard to get it out of your head.
The sound effects are also excellent. I particularly
like the various weather sound effects, which when combined
with the corresponding on screen visuals, make for some
pretty impressive and immersive game playing.
Final Comments
I must admit that I was pessimistic about the eventual
outcome of Treasure Planet, given the amount of bad
animated movie type games that I've played over the
years, Well, the good news is that unlike the movie
which was bad, the game is actually quite playable.
All in all, it's a solid and well designed game but
one that lacks enough originality and variety to delay
the inevitable onset of boredom. If you want a really
good Disney platform game then I suggest the brilliant
Lilo and Stitch instead.
|
Hardware
Reviews 
Game
Title
