Oh sweet mother of holy hamster ****, someone please just kill me.
This is Quest for Zhu for the Nintendo DS.
Part of me wants to just say, “Hey, listen.
There’s running and jumping, and there’s collecting stuff.
This can’t be that bad.”
I mean, most of my favorite games ever made involve those very same gameplay mechanics.
It’s got the same basic gameplay as a Super Mario Bros. or a Yoshi’s Island, so this
game has to be enjoyable in some capacity...if even the most minuscule and microscopic capacity.
And I suppose if you’re ten years old and you like the Zhu Zhu Pets, it probably is.
Please understand, however, that if you’re approaching 30 as I am and you harbor a general
distaste for most things created after the 1960s...man, this is...this is torture.
This is functionally speaking, not a terrible game.
But on a physiological level, I’m having a really hard time handling this.
Fortunately, this game is not for me.
And if you’re old enough to be on YouTube, it’s probably not for you either.
That is, unless you have terrible parents and if that’s the case, they probably wouldn’t
buy you a video game anyway, so not only are you on websites you’re too young for, you’re
also wasting your time.
But for you parents considering this for your kids, you have to ask yourself some important
questions.
One, does you kid like the Zhu Zhu Pets?
Because if not, forget this thing even exists.
If they do, let’s move on.
Two, does your kid like to play platform games?
You know, games in which you walk and jump from left to right.
Because if so, buy them New Super Mario Bros. or Kirby Canvas Curse or Sonic Rush.
They’ll love you for it, and you’ll also be the hip parent.
You want to be the hip parent, don’t you?
Because if so, three...buying this game makes you decidedly unhip.
The problem with a game like Quest For Zhu is that it tries so hard to be nothing more
than palatable, that it ends up having no taste whatsoever.
That is to say, this game has much more invested in being easy, playable and inoffensive for
everyone than being fun for anyone.
It’s like it’s on autopilot, and your kid is just pushing the buttons.
If they’re old enough to play video games, they’re probably too old for this.
Nonetheless, you play as four hamsters.
I’m assuming these are the Zhu Zhu Pets, a reminder that the H is as silent as I was
after playing this game.
You choose whichever hamster you want and you play through the level, running and jumping
from the left to the right and collecting all kinds of coins along the way.
Unfortunately, there’s no flagpole or bricks along the way.
There’s just boring level design and derivative gameplay.
Each character has its own special ability, and if you want to collect everything in a
given level, you’ll have to play through each level with each character.
This, of course, as opposed to having one character who does all these things, but then
you couldn’t artificially extend the replay value.
And that would be a disaster.
Then you’d need more levels, and it seems to me the team was already stretching things
pretty thin.
Quest For Zhu actually isn’t a terrible game.
It’s just so boring and dull, I can’t even imagine its target audience finding it
appealing.
There are just way too many fantastic platformers on the Nintendo DS to waste your time with
one so stinky.