Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck

The best way to describe the camera in Duck Dodgers is "herky-jerky" (thanks to Chris Johnston for the term). For some reason, the view in this game is constantly moving, if you turn just a little bit, it quickly swings all the way around your character. And since you're always moving (like in...uh...most games these days), the camera is jumping around all over the place--it makes taking on enemies and judging where the edge of ledges are a real pain in the neck. And get this: If you jump on a rotating platform, the camera rotates with the platform. You have no real bearing on when and where to jump. Strange and annoying. If you look beyond this camera problem, things don't really get any better-Duck Dodgers is average to begin with. It's one of those games that could either be a halfway-decent kid's game, or a terribly average regular 3D action/adven-ture. Although occasionally innovative, most of the puzzles are extremely simple and tedious, and the levels drab and boring. And I haven't even got into the awkward graphics, choppy framerate and terrible music and sound effects. All in all, the game is simply blah. You could play it, but there's no really good reason to. In fact, if you accidentally bought this, take it back and save up your dough for Banjo Tooie. But please do remember: Kids may like running around as Daffy Duck, hearing repetitive noises and stomping on funny cartoon enemies.

Looney Tunes games seem to fall into the nothing great, nothing awful category. And Duck Dodgers is no different. It's a run-of-the-mill 3D platform game with a camera system that swiftly succeeded in giving me a headache. Some of the little touches here are brilliant, like levels that are more like "missions" and music that changes with the speed of your sneaking around. The flat, lightly shaded polygon environments look like the 'toons they're based on, but sometimes also make it difficult to tell where doors are and judge depth. Control is an exercise in frustration, and Daffy's voice gets annoying and repetitive really quickly. Rental at best.

I don't understand how Paradigm (the makers of PilotWings 64, by the way), would bother making such an obviously lame platform game. The minute you turn it on, the blurry, choppy graphics give you an uneasy feeling that picking up the controller is a mistake. The gameplay is decent at times, but that's as good as it gets. The rest of it is as fun as eating week-old beef jerky. The worst part is the white noise they call "music" that drones on relentlessly in the game. The only thing that saved me was that you could turn it off-too bad that's not the default option. Using Looney Tunes in a platform game is a good idea--just not like this.