Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa – PS2 – Review

The first Madagascar movie was a fan
favorite. King Julien and the very hilarious penguins, along with many other
characters, made the movies great. Now after the recent release of Madagascar 2
in theaters, there has been a resurgence in Madagascar mania, and some of you
may want to get your hands on Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa seems to
focus its plot a lot on the movie using platforming and mini-games to progress
you through the game. The game really only takes place in an environment called
The Watering Hole, which isn’t that big of an area. Then there
are sub-levels inside the Watering Hole that you must play and beat to get to
the end of the game.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is an
interesting game to say the least. The game takes aspects from mini-games and platforming to make the experience somewhat original. In the game, your four
main characters are Alex the lion, Melman the giraffe, Gloria the hippo, and
Marty the zebra. In single-player mode or story mode, the game will begin
teaching you the very simple controls for each player. So no worries – you and
your kids will be able to play this without a problem. In single-player mode, you
use each of the characters for different actions depending on what you are
wanting to get accomplished in the game. For example, three of the four characters
can’t swim in water, and the Watering Hole consists of mostly water. So,
knowing this, you must use the character who can swim, which would be Gloria the
hippo. Each character had different actions and things they could do – like Alex can climb trees, Marty can run
fast, and Melman can fly (sort of). You also get to use other characters
randomly during the game. You will get to play as Mort and the penguins as
well. The use of different characters was the best aspect of the game, hands
down. Getting to play as all your favorite Madagascar characters was not only
smart but really enjoyable.

You will have various levels where
the game will set you up to do many different mini-games to progress you through
the level. Most of the mini-games were fun and very
creative. Some of the games Escape 2 Africa brings into the game you may
remember from grade school. There is hot potato, musical chairs, and many
others. But all in all, the developers made the mini games worthwhile.

But not everything is perfect within
this Madagascar world. The graphics, even for the Ps2, struggle to be
consistenly good. It seemed very buggy when trying to go from gameplay to cut-scene video.
It would try and go to the cut scene, and then there would be a mirror image of
the character creating quite a confusing image on the screen. Poor camera
angles sometimes resulted in elements blocking the view of what your character was doing, and this was frustrating
when you were trying to jump from platform to platform. The soundtrack wasn’t
that great either. It didn’t have any variation. This game had a lot of
downfalls, but one thing this game has going for it is it’s absolutely
hilarious. I found myself laughing on multiple occasions, and that’s how I know
a kid would really enjoy this game.

But wait, there’s more…

Multiplayer mode consists of two players, and mini-games. You can play most of the mini-games from the story
mode and a few extras they threw in such as my favorite – chess with the
Madagascar characters. It doesn’t get much better than that. Although Back 2
Africa’s multiplayer is lacking in today’s world of online multiplayer, there
isn’t anything like playing mini-games with a couple of buddies. I’ll even go
as far as to say, Back 2 Africa has a decent multiplayer that your kids will
surely enjoy.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa isn’t
the most perfect game in the world, but overall the game is quite hilarious and
enjoyable if you can get passed the bad aspects of the game.

Gameplay: 7.0
The gameplay of Madagascar:
Escape 2 Africa was something I definitely wasn’t expecting. I was expecting a
decent platformer, and I got a mix of mini-games and a platformer game.
Although it was different, I still give it points for being original and
somewhat fun.

Graphics: 5.5
The graphics weren’t good at
all, even for the PlayStation 2. It was also buggy at times when the game progressed from gameplay
to cut scene.

Sound: 5.0

Nothing in the soundtrack really
stuck out to me. I didn’t even notice the songs or sound most of the time. Voice actors did a decent job, but it definitely hurt the game that it doesn’t
have the original voice actors from the movie.

Difficulty: Medium

Concept: 7.0

This had a decent concept with
the combination of mini-games and platformer aspects, but failed to really bring
it all together for an amazing experience.

Multiplayer: 7.5

Multiplayer is actually the best
thing about this game. I think kids and adults would really enjoy playing some
of the mini-games this title has to offer.

Overall: 6.5
This game was
hilarious, and it was fun to get to control your favorite characters from the
Madagascar movie, but bad graphics, sound, and decent gameplay really took away
from the game, overall.