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Review : Rocky and Bullwinkle for Xbox Live Arcade
Last night I spent 800 MS points or $10 on the Xbox Live Arcade Game Rocky and Bullwinkle. After playing it for an hour and a half I am chronically underwhelmed.
It is a collection of spastic short order minigames for those with short attention span that tries very hard to be like Nintendo's Wario Ware. However while Wario Ware is genuinely amusing and wacky the mini games in Rocky and Bullwinkle came across as cheap, uninspired, and just plain boring. This game does get props for making use of the Xbox Vision Camera as an alternative controller method for some of the game but there was not one mini game that was made easer by use of the camera. I like the vision camera and I am always intrigued by games that make use of it. I got the distinction that the publishers farmed out the development and spent most of the modest budget on getting the likeness rights to the 60s cartoon show. I looked it up and the developers are from Budapest. A former Soviet Bloc developer, Natasha and Boris would have loved that! There is over a hundred minigames but there was only a few that I would call remotely fun and a whole bunch that I found completely frustrating and highly repetitive.
It is a pretty sad fact that pretty much all the kids and teenagers these days will have absolutely no idea who Rocky and Bullwinkle was.
I should be a perfect audience for this game. I like Xbox Arcade Games, I own a vision camera and I have fond memories of watching the old animated shows in rerun syndication in the 80s. The show successfully used limited animation techniques creative comedic writing and a limited budget but the Xbox Live Arcade game came across as cheap and rushed. I wish I tried it before handing over my ten bucks. I am not sure if my assessment of the game is going to change after playing it more but after tonight. There is a big difference between simple minimalist games and crappy unsuccessful games. I really wanted to like this game. I am not sure if this game was the best possible video game outing of "Moose and Squirrel" Comrade.
Jake at April 17, 2008 
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Comments
Thanks for the review Jake. That's 800 points I'll be saving for a better game, like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (assuming it ever comes out!)
Posted by: Lonesome Gus at April 18, 2008 2:59 PM
Well try the demo before you consider buying it.
Ikaruga is awesome and is worth your points.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 18, 2008 4:08 PM
I agree with you about Ikaruga but I still have it on the Cube so I'll probably not blow the points on it either.
Posted by: Lonesome Gus at April 18, 2008 11:42 PM
On XBLA Ikaruga is in HD, has achievements, can save and share replays and has online co-op over Live. That is worth 10 bucks.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 18, 2008 11:55 PM
