When I
received this game I didnt know quite what to think. Its based on a
Spumco series (which was responsible for the beautiful Ren and Stimpy
series), but who knows if a Spumco series can spawn a good game? Its
based on an Adult Swim, one of my favorite blocks of programming these
days, but The Oblongs are also on Adult Swim. Whats to say the series
is any good to begin with?Sadly, I discovered the answers to those
questions and found that this is a poor game built upon a poor show.
To bring
our readers who dont stay up until 2 A.M. (Mountain Time) every Sunday
night up to speed on the premise of the show and game, they both follow
the exploits of Rip, Chunk, Slab and Crag, the worlds most manly men.
Sadly, the series doesnt live up to its pedigree and is yawn worthy at
best.
In the
game you control one of the crew and beat anything that moves. And you
collect keys. Yep, beatin and collectin keys: the true superhero
duties. You have to wander the often fairly large levels looking for
that one baddy with the yellow key so that you can open the yellow gate
and repeat the whole process. I havent been forced to do this much
mindless key-finding-in-enemies since Mario is Missing. The boss fights
do offer a little bit of variety though--no keys to find. Im sorry, but
I played enough beat-em-ups after one too many hours and twenty too many
quarters in Die Hard Arcade. Except this isnt Die Hard. Theres no
excitement while fighting. You punch em a couple times, they fall down,
you kick em while theyre down and bam, youre done. Its about as
involving as tapioca.
Its not
a horrid game. It controls decently, not too hard, ok graphics; it just
doesnt have a hook. Nothing interesting. I feel like a zombie while
playing it. I dont have any emotion at all entering my mind, just
methodically trying to get to the next stage in order to get to the next
stage and so on. Just about the only redeeming feature I can think of is
the compass-like thing. If youre somewhat close to an enemy, itll
point to the direction of it. This eliminates a lot of tiring baddy
searching.
There is one thing that really gets on my nerves, though. Its the
music. Its not bad music at all, I rather enjoy most of the songs. Its
just the repetition of the songs, over and over. And then, just when you
think its gone away, over again one more time. The sound effects leave
some room to be desired too. If you ever hear one its just the same
blast or grunt. Not enough variety in my opinion.
The
thing that really is sorely missing from this game is some humor. I just
played a great SNES game, The Last Vikings, where at the end of each
level the characters would each say a horribly cheesy line, but at least
it was something. There should be something funny going on. Maybe a test
joke as mentioned above. Maybe a great slapstick bit. I dont know, but
the humor is not there. While on the subject of show-to-game issues, I
must bring up the visuals. The animation is pretty standard. That would
be fine, if the game wasnt based on a pretty well animated cartoon. I
want to see some principals of animations here. I read an interview with
the creator of the show (and Ren and Stimpy), John Kricfalusi, and one
of the issues he waxed on about was the lack of cartoony
cartoons--cartoons like Scooby Doo that were afraid to admit that they
were animated. He complained that they didnt use animations strengths:
emphasis, exaggeration, style. Its a sad ironic twist that the game
based on one of his series isnt all that hot either.
In conclusion, Id recommend you play some other title than The
Ripping Friends. The monotony of it all is enough to drive you crazy.
There is simply no fun in this title, and isnt that why we play games?