Videogames are a popular product, with new releases appearing every year, especially around the holiday season. However, not all games live up to the hype, particularly those based on movies.
Today, I'm reviewing the movie tie-in video game for the PS2, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (M2E2A). This platformer-style game is aimed at children and includes numerous mini-games, a multiplayer mode, and unlockable content through coin collection.
Based on the computer-animated movie sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is a 3-D romp through scenes and settings from the film. Young gamers can play as their favorite Madagascar animal, like Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo, and others.
Characters and Gameplay
Your favorite characters from Madagascar return and you can play them all! In addition to Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melman, you also get to play as the crafty penguins, the wacky King Julien and new hippo character Moto Moto! Learn all the moves and choose which character is best for the situation at hand. Each character has his or her own skills.
- Alex the lion: Can roar enemies away and has impeccable balance.
- Marty the zebra: Can run fast.
- Gloria the hippo: Can swim and pound the ground with her butt bounce.
- Melman the giraffe: Uses his spindly legs like propellers to glide after a jump.
The story in Madagascar 2 follows the path laid out by the movie it's based on. Julien, king of not only his fellow lemurs but apparently every other species as well, thinks it is cruel to stay hidden away in Madagascar when the whole world should be lucky enough to make his acquaintance. The penguin-piloted plane carrying Julien and the rest of the animals crashes in Africa, though, far short of their New York City goal.
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Madagascar 2 is a platformer but it’s primarily a bunch of mini-games strung together. The tasks you'll be asked to perform aren't particularly deep, but they're fun in short bursts. For instance, as Alex, you'll attempt to join a herd of wild lions. To prove you're worthy of such a prestigious title, you'll be asked to perform in a variety of seemingly random competitions. Within the span of a half hour, you'll compete in a game of musical chairs, play a variation of Hot Potato that uses the dreaded durian (a type of fruit with gooey, smelly insides), climb walls, avoid vultures, play dodgeball with mangoes, and ride on zip lines.
The breakneck pacing continues throughout most of the game. As Melman, you can ride atop boulders and whack moles intent on stealing suitcases; Marty plays a mean game of soccer and tests his speed in a series of races; the penguins drive around in a truck and build a flying contraption for Julien to ride in; and, of course, there is the quest to cure a herd of giraffes from a nasty outbreak of belly fish.
One of the problems I think with the gameplay is that the controls just feel sluggish at times, it causes the character you’re playing to not do what you want it to do at times. Controlling the game tends to be very erratic. While platforming, doing the exact same thing two separate times will often produce two different results. As one can imagine, this grows extremely frustrating, forcing the player to redo an area multiple times. Awkward camera angles and poor depth perception also dampen the experience.
Despite the many twists this game takes, the controls are tight and responsive no matter which ridiculous activity you're competing in. And the punishment for failure is little more than a slap on the wrist, so younger gamers who have never experienced stealth in a game can get through the spy photography mission without worrying about unforgiving failure.
Experience the characters, settings and situations established in Dreamworks Animation’s new Madagascar movie. Unique new environments include the Watering Hole, a free roaming area that’s been expanded for the game, the volcano and the plane wreck.
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Graphics and Sound
The graphics looks about as close to the movie visuals as possible, and even though they probably didn’t use the celebrity voice actors, the ones they got sound pretty darn close. Quite a bit of the game is cut scenes, so you’ll be doing a lot of watching, but it tells the story of the movie, and without it it might get a bit boring. Despite using different voice actors than the movie, the cutscenes capture the essence of the characters quite well, providing a continual string of well-constructed and downright funny moments.
Graphically, Madagascar 2 leaves quite a bit to be desired. While the animation itself is smooth and transitions well, the graphics themselves are hideous. People often talk about the lack of visual power of the Wii, but there's no excuse here. Pixelated textures, terribly jagged edges, and water that looks like a blue grid are just the beginning. While the visuals never truly interfere with actual gameplay, they are distracting and off-putting, especially considering the source material.
The story is consistently goofy and the frequent cutscenes are pretty amusing. Julien is the star here, spouting jokes fueled by his kingly ego, often at the expense of his meek servant Mort. The other characters play off their own quirks, from Melman's lack of confidence to Claire's search for love, with humorous results. Some of the voice acting, most notably Melman's, feels jarring and out of place, but the new cast is generally quite good. This is a silly game, and the tone stays true throughout the adventure.
Load times were decent, they weren’t long enough that my kids got annoyed or anxious so that’s a good thing.
Replay Value and Multiplayer
There is replay value when you finish the five- to seven-hour main quest. Though some of the events, like musical chairs, are fun only once, there are enough interesting activities to make going back a second time worth it. There are lots of hidden monkeys scattered about and optional side quests to check out. If you feel like decorating, you can buy furniture and other gear for your monkey friends, which provides a quick joke and funny animation.
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Master new and expanded tournament mini-games including twice as much multiplayer action as the first Madagascar! The multiplayer offers some surprising thrills. Most of the activities are plucked straight out of the single-player adventure, which means you can play soccer or hot durian with a few pals. The real draw here is the mini golf. The physics are a little wonky, but the courses are huge and varied, creating a vivid atmosphere for healthy competition. One fancy quirk is being able to put some arc on your shot; if you're daring, you can soar clear over obstacles. When you get three of your friends involved, it makes the games chaotically satisfying.
Suitability for Children
Escape 2 Africa is rated E for Everyone with ESRB descriptors of Cartoon Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Simulated Gambling. The fighting is very cartoony. Players defeat enemies by throwing fruit at them, roaring them away, or the occasional penguin karate chop. But beaten enemies only disappear, run away, or fall asleep. The Mild Suggestive Themes come from a flirtatious male hippo. Simulated gambling comes from a little slot machine mini-game that you’ll miss it if you blink. If you’re OK with your kids watching the movie, they’ll be OK with the game, too.
The game is easy enough that a young gamer should be able to figure out most everything on their own. But there are a few instances where they may need a little help. Like in the dancing music rhythm mini-game, for instance. Some of the goals are also a little unclear and sometimes don’t make any sense whatsoever (who thought a lion’s rite of passage would involve Musical Chairs?). And the part that stumped me at first was where to find the wire cutters at the watering hole so the penguins can cut the fence. Well, I’ll tell you right now, those elusive wire cutters are near where the rhino was before you chased him away with the bees.
I have a 6 and a 7 year old so I handed it over to them to play, and I watched them play to see if they could figure it out without any help from me. For the most part they did just fine, but as I already mentioned some of the games can be frustrating and fairly difficult for little children. Luckily a lot of the games can be replayed over and over until you beat it or complete the task.
It’s a kids game and that’s all it is, and my kids very much enjoy playing it, they think it’s great fun, and I think that’s what counts. We have Madagascar 1 for the PS2, so they were very excited about this game, and for the most part it’s quite similar to the first one in regards to how it works and plays. From an adult point of view, I kind of enjoyed it actually, but I’m like a big kid myself, and I enjoy goofy stuff like this.
So does Madagascar 2 fall into mediocrity like so many other movie based video games do? Or will your kids go wild over it? Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa is definitely one of the better movie based games for kids. And the writing is pretty witty, too. I don’t know if that’s good for the game or bad for the movie, though. At any rate, I bet most kids will have fun with this game and laugh at the funny gags all along the way.
Here's a summary table of the game's ratings:
| Aspect | Rating |
|---|---|
| Graphics | 4.0 |
| Control | 6.0 |
| Gameplay | 7.0 |
| Lastability | 8.0 |
| Final | 6.0 |
The Ultimate "Madagascar 2" Recap Cartoon
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tags: #Africa
