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So the little mouse is at it again, Stuart Little, the friendly
mouse first seen in the hit film Stuart Little, is back in
another action-packed game. The first adventures of Stuart
Little; The Game, was well received from most of the media, as
was his second Adventure, Stuart Little 2 which expanded on
the first game’s very standard Platform/Adventure structure, and
added a large selection of Mini-Games. Stuart Little 3: Big Photo
Adventure,
following the release of the movie Stuart Little 3, is
looking to surpass them all.
The story of the game follows a slightly different track
to the film: following a small mishap, involving Stuart, his plane,
a lot of water and his brother George’s Photography Coursework,
Stuart decided it would be best if he offered to go out and re-take
all the photo’s he ruined to help George pass school. So start the
biggest adventure our little friend has ever been on, starting from
his very own back garden and going right through to the Big Apple
where George took some of his most impressive photos.
The first thing you’ll noticed about the game is the
very open structure of the Levels, it’s done very much like
Super
Mario64 DS on the NintendoDS; the entire Level is loaded at once
and you can choose freely where to roam in that Level. To help you
in your roaming there’s various costumes you can put on, a Fireman,
a Red Indian, a Skateboarder or a Raincoat with a Flashlight, these
aid your travelling by giving
 their
own special abilities which are all fairly self explanatory for
example, the Raincoat with Flashlight enables you to see in dark
places and the Red Indian costume gives you the ability to fire
arrows. There’s also a garage on every Level which has a good
selection of vehicles to choose from, ranging from a Tank to that
tiny red car he’s famous for, there’s also flying vehicles like
Blimps and Aeroplanes to let you fly around and view the arena at
your leisure.
The object of the game, as mentioned before, is to take
all of George’s picture again for him, the problem is that George
put a lot of effort into taking these photos and managed to do quite
a few things that the average mouse couldn’t, so before you can
start taking these pictures you need to complete a few tasks, they
start off very simple at first like turning on a hose to get a
picture of a rainbow in front of some flowers but soon you’ll be
performing tricks in skate ramps, racing remote controlled buggy’s
around dirt tracks and doing other pretty nifty stuff to obtain
these pictures.
The gameplay on the whole is really enjoyable, plus if
you ever get stuck there’s always a useful person or place to get
information on where another picture is. The Levels are nicely
self-contained and the Free-Roaming
aspect of them really makes the game, but there’s one small thing
that lets the show down, and makes what would be an amazing game
just a little annoying at times: to take every picture, you need to
collect Flash for it - portrayed as small glowing blue and white
items dotted around the arena. To take one picture, you need to find
a small truck load of it, and there’s around twenty pictures on each
Level. It’s a common occurrence to find yourself running around not
looking for picture spots or any of the many Mini-Games available in
the Level, but for little tiny glowing dots only visible when you’re
four feet and front of you, and, think about it; these are mice
feet.
This though is a small quibble on the scale of the whole
game, which is a good sound product, it looks and sounds good, the
graphics don’t really push the boundaries of the imagination but
they do the job well and mange to keep it bright and interesting at
the same time, a definite plus point for a game aimed at kids. The
sound is
 unusually
good for a game of this type, with superbly impressive water noises
as you’re Surfboarding and engine noises realistically fashioned for
each vehicle, even the skateboard sounds are as good as any Tony
Hawk’s release.
Stuart Little 3: Big Photo Adventure, works well
as a children’s game. It’s not overly complex and it manages to
bring all the features of good selling “adult” games into one easily
accessible environment. Every fan of Stuart Little will enjoy
this game and so will those that can’t quite grab the concept of
some bigger games. Not a game for those looking for the next
God
Of War or
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, though I would be
surprised if you completed this before your son or little brother
whilst waiting for that game to come out! |
