Kim Possible: Kimmunicator
Good “girl games” may be possible, but Kim fails to accomplish this mission.
Tags: Kim Possible: Kimmunicator Categories: GBA Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jan 3rd, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Kim Possible: Kimmunicator (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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It seems most gamers out there tend to think that licensed games are generally the worst videogames out there, but I know otherwise. Why only recently we’ve seen the release of both King Kong from UbiSoft and Buena Vista Interactive’s own Narnia games, both superb titles well worth buying. By contrast, I have never, ever reviewed a great “girl game”. The most I’ve ever seen them accomplish is “Meh” in all the time I’ve been reviewing them, and I’ve reviewed a lot of them. Actually… why do they send them all to me, anyways? Is it my long hair? Hmm…
Anyways, it’s to Kim Possible: Kimmunicator’s credit that I can honestly say, of all the “girl games” I’ve reviewed, this is one of the few that comes close to being great. Unfortunately, a few annoyances in the gameplay drag the game down, and what we end up with a title that looks great and has some nice gameplay mechanics but ultimately isn’t worth the hassle.
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The first thing you’ll probably notice about Kimmunicator is that the graphics are really good. The gameplay is limited to a 2D plane, but the graphics are completely in 3D, stylized to look like the cartoon. In addition, every character in the game animates smoothly and is full of personality. While a few effects are a bit unimpressive (fire coming out of vents looks laughably flat), for the most part this game is very nice to look at.
In addition, Kim’s moves are mostly very fluid and fun to use, making her a pretty flexible game character. Unfortunately, while her moves are individually fluid, they sometimes don’t transition well, often making for a brief pause or even ignoring the controls as you try to do one move right after another, which can make for some frustratingly unnecessary deaths. Also, the hit detection is often pretty bad, too, and since Kim’s attacks are already really short-range, and it takes many of them to bring down most enemies, this means that fighting will often see you taking damage because you either failed to connect or the game ignored the move you were trying to do.
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This frustration extends to the level design, which is often repetitive and sometimes even seems like it was meant to be annoying. When entire sections of level consist of “jump, ledge grab, wait for Kim to pull herself up, jump, ledge grab, wait for Kim to pull herself up…” Kimmunicator becomes less of a game and more of an exercise in tedium. Add to that some annoying stealth levels, boring levels where you control her pet rat (gerbil? Lemur?), and extremely frustrating ones like a level that has you parachuting through a volcanic mountain and using the microphone to blow gusts of wind to push her upwards (I hate that), and what fun is present here is sucked out by all the annoying parts.
I suppose it should be mentioned that the sound is nothing to talk about. Both the music and sound effects are GBA-quality stuff, and considering that even the GBA can use voice clips, to see a DS game that fails to take advantage of this to make further use of the license is disappointing. The entire game’s story is relayed via text, and although I’ve never watched the TV show, I can’t imagine the cartoon’s story being this contrived and boring.
Kim Possible: Kimmunicator has a lot going for it, particularly in the graphics department, but every element of the gameplay needs at least a little tweaking, if not reworking it or just scrapping it outright. As a result, what could have been possibly the first great “girl game” is merely… “Meh”. At least is not pandering to the female demographic.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Great graphics + Kim's movements are very fluid |
7.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Multiple gameplay issues ranging from poor control to bad level design - Unimpressive sound - Great, another stealth level in a platformer - Great, another level where I have to blow into a microphone when I could have just as easily pressed a button |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Kimmunicator has a lot going for it, especially in the graphical department. Unfortunately, gameplay issues sap most of the fun out of the game. | |
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Tags: Kim Possible: Kimmunicator
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jan 3rd, 2006 and is filed under GBA Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
