By Stevie Smith Apr 4, 2008, 5:46 GMT
The Nintendo DS is the world’s most popular and best-selling videogames console, so it seems only natural, in a business sense, that developers and publishers would be eager to have the little clamshell wonder play host to their gaming creations.
However, while the likes of Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass rightly stake a claim for consumer attention on the bleeding edge of the console’s technological scope and ability, there are always going to be a wealth of disappointing titles that appear somehow unworthy of their place. Hurry Up Hedgehog is one such offering.
Devoid of the core attraction so often provided by a driving narrative, Hurry Up Hedgehog is a simple top-down two dimensional board game converted into a digital format. The game’s turn-based premise tasks the player to compete with other on-screen hedgehogs in moving from the left side to the right side of various themed and grid-based environments, avoiding obstacles and pitfalls along the way.
The gameplay, what little there is, is restricted to an even pace without any form of gathering tension or excitement provided by either hindrance or penalty as the player gradually moves, shunts and manoeuvres their assigned hedgehogs square-by-square to the blessed safety provided by the right-hand side of the screen.
Presentation in Hurry Up Hedgehog uses the top DS screen to display poorly animated and generic cartoon hedgehogs that convey a degree of representative emotion depending on the player’s progress (or lack thereof). For example, get shunted into a pit and the hedgehog will look sad, outthink the A.I. competition and the hedgehog will look happy, and beat rivals to safety and the hedgehog looks mildly elated. Impressive.
The touch-screen component of the game feels distinctly like a tacked on justification to bring Hurry Up Hedgehog to the Nintendo DS platform. There’s scant little innovation and imagination on show here, with the player simply using the DS stylus to grab and move the characterless hairy blobs depicted as the competing hedgehogs. Plus, nothing else on the game board is interactive, environmental objects and detailing remain flat and immoveable at all times, and hedgehogs are static game pieces that never animate other then to slide from one grid to the next. Bearing that in mind, it’s unlikely to arrive as a much of a surprise to learn that the game’s shoehorned control mechanic is as thoroughly uninspired as the aesthetic delivery.
An attempt at longevity is provided by the inclusion of varied game board themes and slightly different optional gameplay parameters that alter setup incrementally, but all-in-all there’s an overwhelming lack of content in Hurry Up Hedgehog that only serves to illustrate that it simply cannot justify its (already budget) price tag.
Even the inclusion of single-card local and multi-card wireless multiplayer can’t bolster the appeal of Hurry Up Hedgehog, not least because it’s highly unlikely that players will be able to find a friend who’s also bought the game, and they’re certainly going to struggle when it comes to prying wireless gamers away from longstanding multiplayer heavy hitters such as Mario Kart DS.
The upshot of Hurry Up Hedgehog is that placing its shallow gameplay and shoddy design onto a Nintendo DS card was absolutely the wrong call for developer Ivolgamus and publisher Oxygen Games.
Indeed, attempting to squeeze the bulging DS market for a cut of the popularity pie was a poor move (and one that vastly underestimates the intelligence of console gamers), especially because Hurry Up Hedgehog is little more than an unadventurous mobile phone game dressed up to appear like a DS title while carrying a price tag considerably higher than the one it would hold in the mobile phone arena.
It may come in a DS case, it may sit on a DS card, and it may carry the Nintendo license, but its lack of ambition, its lack of challenge, its lack of invention, and its lack of worth all combine to reveal Hurry Up Hedgehog as a gaming charlatan that’s anything but a Nintendo DS game.
Verdict: 30%
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boboJun 4th, 2008 - 00:11:11
Hey artard, unless you can make youre own game i dont feel you can critisize others.
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RoykAug 5th, 2008 - 13:03:15
Hey Bobo, unless you can get a job as a critic, you shouldn't criticize other critics.
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