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Anyone
who has had the unpleasant experience of playing Spongebob
Squarepants: Lights, Camera, Pants!
on the Game Boy Advance will know what a soul crushing,
mind-destroying experience it is. It is not as if the Game Boy
Advance can’t do Mini-Games - a large part of Spongebob
Squarepants: Lights, Camera, Pants! - simply because the WarioWare
series is a great example of how to do the genre well.  Franchise
tie-ins rarely make a great game but they are usually decent
playable renditions of the subject matter, however Spongebob
Squarepants: Lights, Camera, Pants! did not even seem to try to
be fun. The development of the title was obviously rushed so it
could be launched at the same time as it’s home console
counterparts, but in light of the hash made of the Game Boy Advance
version, what hope does the PlayStation2 version have?
Despite
the Game Boy Advance incarnation of Spongebob Squarepants:
Lights, Camera, Pants! being almost the worst game the Electronic
Articles has reviewed, the PlayStation2 version does deserve a
free-trial -and as soon as you start the game it is evident this is
where the development cash went. The presentation of the Menu
Screens, the cut-scenes and the in-game footage is refined and
professional. The game revolves around the making of a new film
featuring two of the franchises characters called Mermaidman and
Barnacleboy, which you may or may not care about; depending on your
view of the sprightly yellow sponge. Where as the Game Boy Advance
version had a limited selection of poorly executed Mini-Games, the
PlayStation2 version features thirty well thought out and genuinely
fun Mini-Games designed for four players. These games include a
simple Mario Kart-esque
 driving game, a Tony Hawk’s inspired
style BMX trick challenge, a Waiting Game, a burger flipping game
and loads more. Although these games are hardly as groundbreaking or
as refined as the games they are obviously influenced by, they do
make great Mini-Games that are entertaining in the Single-Player
Mode and a great deal of fun when played against friends.
Although
Spongebob Squarepants: Lights, Camera, Pants! is directed
more toward Multi-Player gaming, the game still works well in
Single-Player. The player selects one of the many Spongebob
Squarepants characters and three AI players and starts the game
on the Bronze setting. Each Mini-Game awards points based on the
players performance in that game. Each round includes three games
and at the end of the round the player that has enough points to
fill the quota wins the audition and is given the part. If two
players meet the quota, the game uses the classic Rock, Scissor,
Paper system to assign a winner, while if no one reaches the quota,
any of the games may be replayed until someone does, with the newer
score  replacing the previous. The Single-Player is generally good
for a such a Multi-Player oriented title, however, after the first
couple of rounds, the computer on the Normal setting very rarely
achieves the quota, even after several retries, making the game a
little one sided.
Not
all of the Mini-Games are available immediately and must be unlocked
by beating the game on the Bronze, Silver and Gold settings - a
perfectly acceptable way of giving the player an incentive to play
through the story more than once. Spongebob Squarepants: Lights,
Camera, Pants! also features all the unlockables you would
expect; concept art, promo videos etc., attained by completing the
games with High Scores.
The
title has a pre-rendered FMV Sequence for each of the characters, in
each of the Rounds - another example of the far greater amount of
work put into this title than it’s handheld counterpart. All of
the characters are animated well as are the FMV Sequences. The
in-game graphics faithfully recreate the Spongebob Squarepants
universe and really could not have been that much more detailed, and
although never really pushing the hardware, the game does look nice
and the graphics fulfil their job well. The sound on Spongebob
Squarepants: Lights, Camera, Pants! is another great point. All
of the Spongebob Squarepants colloquialisms are so accurately
depicted and brought to life by the game’s bouncy tunes and
interesting sound effects. Spongebob Squarepants: Lights, Camera,
Pants! also features a huge amount of voice-acting, as all of
the games many characters have individually rendered and recorded
cut-scenes as well as a variety of in-game quips.
The
three difficulty settings and huge variety of the Mini-Games mean
that in Single-Player this game has tons of replayability, however,
in Multi-Player Spongebob Squarepants: Lights, Camera, Pants!
really comes into its own. As a party game, the title shines with
hours of fun to be had playing against friends. With all this in
mind, it would seem THQ have almost redeemed themselves for the
tragedy that is the Game Boy Advance version of Spongebob
Squarepants: Lights, Camera, Pants! and, given their past
performance this year with titles such as Juiced and Destroy
All Humans!, it might be enough for us to forgive them… Well,
almost.
 
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