Curious George – PC – Review

Curious George was released
to the movie theaters a few weeks ago, and has also been simultaneously
released to various console systems and the PC. All of the games seem pretty
similar in design and gameplay. This review is of the PC version.

At first, Curious George
made a good impression because of some great, animated movies in the beginning
of the game. The movies are Disney quality, and really hold the attention
before the game starts. However, once the actual gameplay starts, then
problems arise, mostly due to awkward and frustrating camera controls. But
first, what exactly is George up to?

Curious George’s goal is
to keep up with the Man in the Yellow Hat as he travels through the jungle,
and the game does a good job of keeping players interested in this objective.
Every now and then, cutscenes are played of the Man in the Yellow Hat, and
then George has to traverse more areas of the jungle to keep up with him.
Sometimes this involves automatic segments of gameplay, where players only
control parts of the “ride,” a fun aspect of the game for young players. There
are also plenty of mini-games of simple arcade design or DDR-type games, which
helps add variety. And lastly, there is a shop to buy things with the curious
points and bananas earned during the game.

It’s hard to fully
appreciate much of the gameplay, though, as the controls for the PC are
schizophrenic, with the camera angle decided by the mouse, and other controls
assigned to either the keyboard or the gamepad.  If unlucky enough to play
using a gamepad with only one analog stick, players have to use the mouse for
changing the camera viewpoint, at least as far as I could tell.  If it was
just a case of using two different controls, that would be annoying, but still
doable; however, the mouse control is wonky, to say the least. The viewpoint
refuses to stay where placed, and when the sensitivity is changed in the
options menu, the mouse control slows down to a point where it is useless.
There were several instances where it was almost impossible to move George
forward, because the camera refused to stay put on the view ahead, but kept
swinging around dizzily once our hand left the mouse. But, we didn’t test it
on a PC gamepad with two analog sticks, so the camera may have worked much
better with one of those.

The platforming aspects
are easy and designed for young children in mind, but again, the controls are
bad. Many times the double jumps required to get George up and away were
difficult to accomplish, and timing them just right was crucial. This is too
bad, as the gameplay itself isn’t designed to be hard, but is in reality
because of the twitchy controls.

This is one of those
games that screams potential, but the reality falls a little short. The easy
gameplay design, coupled with the wonderful animation and cute little monkey,
is just right for the target audience, but the awkward controls are
frustrating for young players. If parents do decide to get this game, they may
want to try for a console version over the PC, or at least make sure they have
a good gamepad with two directional sticks.

Review Scoring Details for Curious George

Gameplay: 6.0
While the
gameplay itself is interesting enough for very young players, the actual
experience may be frustrating, due to difficult controls and bad camera
angles. The variety is good, though, and the addition of mini-games and a shop
is nice.

Graphics: 9.0
The graphics are
wonderfully drawn and animated, and really are fun to watch and enjoy.

Sound: 7.0
The sound, music
and voice-acting are all fairly average.

Difficulty: Medium
While the game as
a whole isn’t too difficult, the difficulty at times is very uneven, due to
issues with the controls.

Concept: 7.0
The concept and
initial design is good, but there is a feeling that the game wasn’t tested
like it should have been, before being presented to the computer public.

Overall: 6.5
I wanted to enjoy
this game, and I get tired of reviewers always knocking a game because it’s
designed for children, as if they don’t deserve games, too. However, this game
just misses the mark of its target audience, due to the frustrating moments
caused by the too sensitive controls and other logistic problems. I would
recommend trying a console version over the PC game, if possible, unless
parents have a state-of-the-art gamepad for their PC.