I left Madagascar the movie impressed with how DreamWorks made yet another cartoon movie that appealed to my whole family. I'm happy to say that when Activision took the movie and turned it into a game, they kept that same appeal. The rated "E" for everyone rating should stand for fun for everyone, not just appropriate for everyone. And while it is obvious while playing the PC version that the game was originally designed as a console game and didn't translate flawlessly to a PC, you don't have to have the fine motor coordination to complete the PC version of the game that you would for many console-turned-PC type games. Add in the special mini-games that you can unlock and challenge other players, and I think Activision has a real hit with Madagascar.
The best way to describe the game play is to say that you're playing the movie. You start out the game as Marty the Zebra with this first day being Marty's birthday just like in the movie and play all the way through to the final battle between Alex and the Foosa Boss. During the introductory chapter you are learning the basics of what each character can do, unlocking the first of their special abilities by passing a particular goal. Marty, for example, learns how to kick his way out of the zoo and crouch down to sneak past guards. Each character has 5 special abilities, though some can only be used after eating a special plant. Learning to master these abilities early on is important because you'll use them over and over again. After breaking out of the zoo and chasing Marty through the streets of Manhattan, the animals are captured and put on board a cargo ship headed toward Kenya.
It is after this that my first favorite level comes - I have two. The "Penguin Mutiny" level has got to be my favorite level to play. It is on this level that the humor of the writers comes through the most, and the penguins themselves are just so darn cute and fun to control that I could, and have, played this level over and over again. It isn't that the level is difficult or anything. It is actually very straight forward, like most of the game. But making the penguins jump, slide, karate-chop, and even slink around under a box, as they take over the ship is one of the best parts of the game. The other level I really enjoyed was "Marty to the Rescue". In it Marty is zooming down a water-slide, and all you have to do is navigate. Again, not much of a challenge. But listening to his "commentary" and just watching a zebra fold up and fly down the waterfall is big fun indeed.
Some of the levels did have moments that left me looking for a hint or tip, or even hoping for a cheat, but not many. Most of the time it was very clear which character had to do what, and often you didn't have any choice. But on some levels, like the Jungle Banquet, you actually did have to switch between characters in order to complete the level. And when you're told to jump up and get the pineapple at the top of the tree, it isn't clear just which of three characters you should do that with. It turns out to be the one I was thinking first, Alex. But getting Alex to do a double jump that is timed just right to have the right distance and height in order to get the pineapple out of the tree took a lot of tries. The "Back to the Beach" level is similar in that it wasn't always clear which character to choose from. A walkthrough in those cases would have been nice, but with a little trial and error I was able to get past them. Thankfully, the game auto-saves often enough that I didn't have to back up too far in order to restart. And it seems that you have a pretty unlimited number of "lives" to try to pass on to the next checkpoint, so it wasn't bad even when I did have to go backwards.
There are 3 mini-games also available. Tiki Mini-Golf, Shuffleboard and Lemur Rave. You have to unlock the map to the games before you can play, and then you must purchase the game from the Zoovenir Shop with the Monkey Money you earned while playing through the various levels. Tiki Mini-golf is too difficult to be much fun. You have to be very precise in your swings, and some of the holes are really strangely designed. You can play it by yourself or with up to six players, and just like in golf you are trying to get the lowest possible score not the highest. If you enjoy mini-golf games in general, then you'll like the challenge of this one. But personally I like Shuffleboard much more than I do the mini-golf game. In Shuffleboard you challenge a friend, or just play two characters yourself, on one of 4 shuffleboards to see who can reach a certain number of points (9, 12 or 15) first. Your characters ride the shuffleboard puck along the board and it's a lot of fun to watch them "surf" their way down the board. You set how hard they throw the puck and aim it, and even can bump your own (or your opponents) pucks to change previous throws. This combines skill with strategy, especially if you can learn to master how hard to throw a puck early on to score the most points per throw. My son and I have played over and over again using the same characters so that we can track our overall wins and losses and the novelty of the game hasn't worn off for either of us yet. The third mini-game, Lemur Rave, was best described by my son. "Its like Dance, Dance Revolution for your fingers." The keyboard becomes your feet, and you have to follow the on screen prompts in time to the music, with your accuracy being judged on each "step" until the song is over and your total score is displayed. You can play in one or two player mode. The music is fun and fits with the Lemur-jungle style, and you can set the challenge level and style, so if you find it too easy to start with you can try a harder setting. But really the mini-games are just a fun diversion from the normal storyline of the game.
One of the hardest parts of the PC game was remembering which key did what. The in-game prompts are still set to what they would be for a PS2 game, and while you can customize the keyboard to whatever configuration you want, remembering what you set to where is more than half the battle. You can't check the keyboard configuration without quitting completely out of the game and restarting, either. So if you're in the middle of a level and forget what key you had bound to be the "X button", for example, you either have to experiment or quit out and lose whatever progress you'd made. A keyboard is also not as compact as a console game controller, so I sometimes had difficulty performing more complicated keystrokes quickly enough to pass a particular part of the game. And my fingers did get tired after a while from having to repeatedly press the game button over and over again in hopes that I would move fast enough. The hardest character by far for me to control was Gloria, especially when she'd eaten a pepper and was moving in super fast mode. I'm not sure if it was just a delay in response time on my part or on the games, but the levels where I had to be Gloria took the most time to master. The easiest is Marty, all his special abilities seem to have a better layout than some of the other characters and he's more responsive somehow than some of the others.
I don't know how much replayability the game will have now that I've played it all the way through once, but I also don't plan to uninstall it and never play again either. Just playing the mini-games with my son is enough fun that we want to go back again and again. And because we all liked the movie so much, his younger siblings enjoy just watching whoever is playing, offering words of advice along the way of course, just to see the storyline unfold again. You have to repeatedly hit certain controls during the game too quickly for my 7-year old daughter to play the game, but this is probably more because she's not used to this type of game than that the difficulty level is too high. The game rating does say it is for everyone 10 and up, but if you took your son or daughter to see Madagascar the movie and didn't have a problem with the humor, then the game will be just fine.
Quite simply, we all agree that if you liked the movie, then you'll love the game. It's hours of fun, not too difficult to master, and has mini-games that are a fun diversion from playing through the storyline. Madagascar the game is well worth it, especially if you need something to get you through until the movie comes out on DVD.
I’ve played computer games since college, addicted first to story type games like Might and Magic. I have 3 children who also love computer games. My oldest son is a typical kid who loves the challenge of pressing the right combination of buttons and levers on a joystick in just the right way to make something happens, and frequently gets frustrated with mom’s slow fingers. ;) We use computers for both education and entertainment, and sometimes even bribery for good behavior.
The “glory days” of computer gaming for me were when games like Spectre Supreme, Pirate’s Gold, the Might and Magic series, the original Prince of Persia… those sorts of games were coming out on a regular basis. Back then I owned a Macintosh and was a die hard Mac fan. I was one of the first in my area to buy an iMac and on it learned the joy of playing games on the internet like daily crossword puzzle and “mind bender” type puzzles. My first online RPG was given to me for Christmas the year EQ was released, and I was hooked from day one. I played EQ for about a year. I started playing DaoC during late alpha testing, and was hooked on it.. well, to be honest I still am. I’ve tried pretty much every MMORPG I can get my hands on, from big names like EQ, to more obscure ones such as Underlight. I’ve been writing for IMGS since the first DaoC guide, and find I love the challenge of learning a game and presenting what I’ve learned (and sometimes my opinions), to other players.
I’m not a very strong player as far as learning PvE or quick reaction times, so I tend to stay away from games where I’m pitted against someone else in a way that requires physical (rather than mental) response. I still enjoy story and puzzle games, and in a way that’s how I still approach online games. I would much rather spend hours working through a quest than 5 minutes in combat against another player. I still get lost in simulation type games, obsessing over them until I’ve gotten them beaten. And I like being able to sit down at the computer when I’ve got less than half an hour and playing through a few levels of a puzzle game. I tend not to like first-person shooter type games, or anything with person to person violence, so I steer away from them unless they are fantasy based settings. All in all, I enjoy computer gaming so much that my life feels incomplete somehow when my computer is down.
