User Reviews

As one of the most successful theme parks in the world, Universal Studios has a number of locations around the globe that offers guests attractions to ride the movies. One of them is locate in Japan which this Nintendo Game Cube game is set in. Published by Kemco & developed by Nai'a Digital Works, the license video game was supposed to help promote the then new park out of the gate by previewing what rides & shows they showcase there. Yet most of the gameplay is spend on exploring the overworld studios lot farming such as picking up barely noticeable specks of trash and tossing them in rare bins to collect small points. All of this seem it was programmed by their janitors. It makes no sense as the gamer plays as a guest and not an employee. Furthermore, wouldn't the studios get in trouble with child labor laws as the game has us playing as one of six kids? Anyways after picking up garage this is close follow by the player having to cash a certain amount of random points with certain park employees to gain hats just to get into some of these attractions. If you don't do this, you can't get on any of them due to annoying waiting lines of people led by Woody Woodpecker after a limited amount of free entry. Nevertheless, there is still plenty of other things you can do around the overworld like talk to people that has nothing interesting to say, collecting hard to see lettering that spell out 'Universal Studios' and do meet/greets with costume characters to get further points. All repetitive tedious and boring after a while. To make it worst the camera angles are in fixed position and only switches to another angle when you reach a certain point on the screen. Combine that with overlaying crowds, this can make it hard to determine the gamer character is located. Sometime you would find yourself far into the distant background having to make your way back through invisible walls to the foreground without even knowing what's ahead as the camera view radically changes perspective in every new scene. There will be plenty of times where the player would find themselves backtracking and heading in the wrong direction rather than forward. Even if the gamer finds the guy with handing out the map in the beginning; it's still not very useful. It has no clear paths how to get to certain locations. All it does is show the player current general vaguely position in relation to the seven mini games attractions. Unfortunately, not of them are really worth finding despite offering a different playstyle. For example, the ride semi based off the 1975 film 'Jaws' has players on a vessel fighting off shark attacks by throwing barrels as it approaches the boat. Not quite accuracy to the actual ride but good enough. Nonetheless the controls for this game are very stiff. It's difficult to aim projectiles or hit the shark with the precise timing without taking damage. That brings us to the other water-based attraction. The one model after 1993 movie 'Jurassic Park'. This one is far from being accurate to the actual ride as it's more gun rail shooter from a jeep than a boat ride. The targeting system on this mini game is buggy and sometimes doesn't seem to hits the dinosaurs if you aim right with the crosshairs. You have to aim well outside the target to really score points. At least the Wild West shooting gallery sequence has better marksmanship. It's just really hard to beat the A.I without shooting the glowing cans and balloons. There is no room for error. Another game that is really hard is the 1991 'Backdraft' film attraction which let children without protective gear run through a burning building putting out sentient fires to save a random amount of people. It's certainly far being from the accurate of the actual show. Like the overworld, you have no control over the camera, and may not even see a fire until you run into it. It's trial and error. To add onto that the controls for the water hose are very unreliable. As for the ride loosely based off the 'Back to the Future' movies (1985-1990). The top down chasing racing game mimics the short actual ride quite well with players speeding after the antagonist of those films in a DeLorean through time. It was somewhat entertaining. Another experience in the game that was similar to the actual dark ride was 'E.T' based off the 1982 film of the same name. In this game the player takes control of a bicycle to get to the alien home in less than four minutes. The controls are hard to handle as the player will tend to fall off a lot. Like the Atari game, this also isn't much fun. Then there is the stunt show based off 1995 movie 'Waterworld'. It turned out that the game version was nothing but a poor visual experience rendering of the seaplane crashing through the atoll from the show in an empty arena. Nothing more. It's clearly a disappointment that nothing is playable. To add onto that while other games are replayable to gain more points, halfway through the gameplay this attraction will closes without warning and cannot be accessed again until you start over or beat the game. You have to witness it early. Anyways once you get all the fetch quest done. You will gain stamps to play the Movie Trivia sequence with cartoon characters to finish the game. The questions ranging from common knowledge to tough. Even a movie buff would have trouble with this. Overall: While the game consists awful pre-rendered dated backgrounds and blurry texture character models. The licensed music was used well. It's just that the horrible mechanics that makes this game really unplayable both in one and two player modes. One certainly not worth visiting.