The first thing I noticed when I fired up “LarryBoy and the Bad
Apple” was how LarryBoy just throws super hero conventions to the wind. Not
since Kal-El of Krypton donned a pair of spectacles and starting calling himself
Clark Kent has a disguise been so easy to see through. His real name is Larry
the Cucumber and his super hero name is LarryBoy. Hmmm. Wonder how long it will
take the villains to see through that. Not long apparently because in the first
10 minutes of the game super villain Bad Apple shows up at the LarryCave
violating yet another rule of super heroing. Keep your secret lair secret! When
Bane found the Bat Cave he broke Batman’s back (see Batman #497). In LarryBoy’s
case Bad Apple arrives at the LarryCave with a Whitman’s Sampler. Apparently,
LarryBoy has a problem with overindulging on the chocolate. It’s like his
kryptonite. A little careful prodding from Bad Apple, “Did you know white
chocolate doesn’t have any caffeine,” and LarryBoy is trapped in her web of
temptation.
You start the game trapped in a world modeled after LarryBoy’s
temptation. It’s kind of like Willy Wonka land with chocolate rivers and
platforms made of chocolate chip cookies. LarryBoy bounces around jumping and
double jumping from platform to platform trying to find his way out of
temptation.
To add some spice to the jumping puzzles he’s equipped with a
cape that has several abilities. The first is the ability to glide by holding
the jump button after jumping. There are several areas that require LarryBoy to
make long flights to get to the next area. The next cape feature is the Heavy
Weight Cape. LarryBoy wraps the cape around himself and transmogrifies into
solid metal. Obviously a really heavy solid metal cucumber can’t do a whole lot
of moving around, so this is cape feature used primarily to activate pressure
switches scattered around each level. Lastly, when standing on certain platforms
LarryBoy can activate his Energy Cape to become a radioactive cucumber. Besides
the obvious health drawbacks this creates for anyone who might want to put him
in a salad, it’s also useful for opening doors and activating electronic gizmos
in some levels.
While the cape gets a lot of attention, a good superhero isn’t
complete with just one gadget. In addition to his cape, LarryBoy has plungers
attached to his cowl that he can use as grappling hooks. They also allow him to
activate out of reach switches and buttons. He also sports a water gun filled
with sports drink that has multiple uses ranging from watering seeds that become
new platforms to jump on to blasting objects in boss fights. Both of these
gadgets require switching to a first-person view complete with a FPS-style
reticule in the middle of the screen. I’m one of those gamers that prefers my
controls to be inverted in first-person scenarios so I headed to the menu to see
if that was an option. I’ve been disappointed in the past by kids games that
don’t allow you to invert the Y axis, but LarryBoy and the Bad Apple surprised
me by not only allowing me to adjust the Y axis, but also the X axis and the aim
deadzone. I’ve played FPS games for grown ups that have less options than that.
Way to pay attention to detail!
So you’ve got all the gadgets and gizmos but these aren’t going
to be enough. LarryBoy’s butler, Alfred the Asparagus, pops up in a little
window in the corner and informs LarryBoy that escaping from temptation requires
a help from others. Alfred then proceeds to pop up about every 20 seconds and
give LarryBoy hints on how to tackle the area he’s in. These “hints” range from
just flat out telling you what to do to access the next area to thinly veiled
hints on which gadget is needed to proceed. There’s occasionally some witty
banter between the two, but more often than not Alfred is just here to point you
in the right direction.
While exploring LarryBoy’s temptation world you’ll meet the three
basic enemies in the game and get to try out Larry’s WhirlyBird attack. The
WhirlyBird is as simple as it sounds. LarryBoy twirls around smacking down
everything in his path with the plungers on his head. This takes out the Grunt
enemies easily as they meander around aimlessly. Throwers are a bit tougher.
They shoot balls of temptation at you that Larry has to toss back by timing his
WhirlyBird attack just right. The last enemy class is the Seekers. These guys
are too strong for LarryBoy to take out so he has to get close enough to get
their attention then lure them to a nearby air vent. The seekers get sucked into
the vent solving Larry’s problem. When you reach the end of the temptation world
you’ll be greeted by a boss fight with Bad Apple herself. These are really more
like puzzles than boss fights and require a little bit of creative jumping and
attacking to finish.
Of course, Bad Apple’s plan to ensnare Bumblyburg in her web of
temptation doesn’t stop with LarryBoy. She’s also locked other prominent
Bumblyburg citizens in their very own worlds of temptations. After successfully
escaping his chocolate nightmare, with Alfred’s help of course, it’s now
LarryBoy’s turn to help the citizens of Bumblyburg escape their temptations.
Each new world is based on that individual’s temptation. TV reporter Petunia
Rhubarb’s world is a TRON-like world based on video games while Fire Marshall
Grape’s world is based on his obsession with toy collecting. Each world is a new
experience and utilizes LarryBoy’s powers in different ways. It’s a great way to
keep the game from becoming just another stale platformer.
In each world you’ll have the chance to unlock various bonus
items by collecting musical notes and sheets of music. These unlock movie clips,
songs, images, and mini games. The first few are self explanatory so I’ll focus
on the mini games. You’ll be able to compete against a friend in Tic Tac Toe, a
Memory-style game, and Darts. Each of these has a slight twist that involves the
use of LarryBoy’s powers or LarryBoy himself in the darts game. They won’t any
awards for sure, but it’s a nice addition to the main game.
Review Scoring Details for Veggie Tales: LarryBoy and the Bad Apple |
Gameplay: 7.5
The
gameplay in LarryBoy and the Bad Apple is what you would expect from your
average platform game. The one oddity is the fact that LarryBoy has no legs. He
hops around via short little bounces. Until you get the hand of his peculiar
method of locomotion you might move a little closer to a ledge than you had
intended and fall off. The various gadgets are fun, but their uses are so
obvious that it’s rare that even the youngest of children will be unsure how to
proceed. If they do get stumped, Alfred will spell out the solution for them
anyway.
Graphics: 8.0
There’s
an exception to every rule and this game is the exception to the “kid’s game
have lousy graphics” rule. The graphics do a great job of bringing the Veggie
Tales characters to life. The levels are meticulously crafted and each
temptation world is more interesting than the last. Character animations are
well done and I only had one or two minor camera issue the entire time I was
playing.
Sound: 8.0
Veggie
Tales is known for its singing and dancing cast and the game doesn’t cut any
corners. The voice work is superb and the sound effects all have that cartoony
feel to them.
Difficulty: Easy
LarryBoy and the Bad Apple is a children’s game so I expect it to be a tad easy
for me. What I don’t expect is for the game to hold the player’s hand through
every single part of the game. Alfred constantly pops up telling you which way
to go and what to do. When I was a kid, I didn’t need a talking stalk of
asparagus to tell me when to make Mario jump. I’m sure kids these days can
figure out what they are supposed to make LarryBoy do without being told every
time.
Concept: 6.0
You’ll travel to various
thematic worlds that draw their inspiration from each characters temptation.
It’s a novel approach to platforming that… Hey, wait a second. Didn’t I play
this game last year when it was called Psychonauts?. I hope the Veggie Tales
crew has the Chewbacce defense ready for when Tim Schafer comes a-suing.
Multiplayer: 6.0
Three of the mini games, Tic
Tac Toe, Memory and Darts provide a little bit of same screen multiplayer
action. None of them will keep your interest for long but they provide a good
opportunity for parents to play alongside their kids.
Overall: 7.2
LarryBoy and the Bad Apple is a game I can recommend to any parent. Not only
does the game feature a good lesson in moderation it also is a pretty decent
game. Fans of the show will absolutely love it and even kids that don’t watch
the show should enjoy the action. On top of all that the game even stays true to
the moderation theme by including a built in timer that parents can use to
monitor their kids play time. It’s good clean righteous fun. What else could you
ask for in a kids game?
