I know that I've made similar comparisons before to the oldschool MECC educational computer games with certain DS titles, but that would be insinuating that the game is good. Who remembers the old cheap knockoff titles that were more or less nothing more than an animated textbook, and therefore not very fun? Yeah... That's pretty much what you're getting here. Which is disappointing.
90% of this game will be spent reading factual information about big cats, their habitats, and the way they live. (Just like when you were in elementary school earth science class.) There's quite a few lovely photos to accompany this information, but facts are facts....and as such, all you're doing here is memorizing facts. Every so many 'pages' that you read, you'll be challenged to a sudden pop quiz. Oh, joy! Make this even more like school! (Way to rope in some of that good ol' fashioned test anxiety.) You don't really earn much of anything for getting the answers right, except maybe a pat on the back...from yourself. There's a couple of other mini games as well, if you'd call them that...a slider puzzle, a 'guess this animal' picture from a snippet of a photograph, and a race to see which big cat is the quickest... That's about it. Literally.
The graphics in this game are also a throwback to the old days of computer gaming; the sort of stuff you'd see on the old Macintosh computers in the computer lab where you'd typically play nothing above the ranks of Kid Pix, The Treehouse, and Word Munchers. Given the times... this just adds to how low budget and cheaply made this game must be to look like that. It also reminds me a tiny bit of those old "Really Wild Animals" videos that National Geographic put out in the late 80's/early 90's. ...Except without Dudley Moore as the awesome talking globe. And less fun.
If you're getting this through a rom for your kids to play, knock yourself out, but I can't think of any legitimate reason why anyone in their right mind would pay good cash money for this title. Rating it a 2 out of 10 jaguar cubs.
This is another of those games that I played the PC version of first looooong before I even discovered there was a DS version of it. Unlike Diner Dash (despite being made by the exact same people and even having Flo as a secondary character), the PC and DS versions are actually quite similar.
The premise of the game is more or less the same thing as Diner Dash. Except that instead of running a diner this time, in this game, you're playing the part of a wedding planner. You must accomdate your patrons every demands; both from the way they want their wedding arranged (the type of cake, the honeymoon, the food, etc), but you have to take into account who want to sit next to who....and who they don't want to sit anywhere near as well. It's not a problem at first, but once you get into the higher levels, it becomes more and more of a challenge. Throw in other random outbursts such as catfights on the dance floor, the DJ booth getting unplugged, random swarms of bees, the cake falling over, the kitchen catching on fire, the groom's dog getting loose, Uncle Ernie getting trashed, Aunt Agnes getting weepy, and Bridezilla outbursts... It'll keep you busy in between trying to deliver each meal to each person and bringing their wedding gifts to the bride and groom's table. Also worth noting is that different types of patrons have different patience levels - some will be fine to wait a bit for their food whereas others, if you don't address them IMMEDIATELY, will throw a temper tantrum and cost you points over the ordeal.
I like very much the way in which this game plays out. It plays like both a puzzler and a simulation game at the same time, with a hint of action. Especially up in the higher levels, if you make one wrong move, you'll quite possibly throw the entire round and have to do it again...and possibly again after that. Strategy is key here.
The one thing I don't like about the game, although it's not the game itself's fault - this would probably work better on the DS XL, is that because of the size of the screen, the people on it are SO tiny and hard to move around as accurately as one would like. Same with picking up the right food trays. But it's not impossible, and not really *that* hard; it's just a minor setback. The one other thing I wish for this game is that it were longer...but perhaps this leaves the game open for a sequel? (Hint hint?)
Overall though, I liked it a lot, and I'm going to rate this one a 8 out of 10 wedding planners.
I know that I've made similar comparisons before to the oldschool MECC educational computer games with certain DS titles, but that would be insinuating that the game is good. Who remembers the old cheap knockoff titles that were more or less nothing more than an animated textbook, and therefore not very fun? Yeah... That's pretty much what you're getting here. Which is disappointing.
