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Activision pumps out another quality Dreamworks-based game. The company’s previous effort, the Luxoflux-developed Shrek 2 was a solid game and though clearly aimed at kids, provided reasonably good gameplay. Shark Tale follows a similar set-up as the game provides fun if a tad simple gameplay that will surely please fans of the film. Instead of a linear adventure, the game mixes different styles of gameplay into unrelated missions and while strange on paper, the gameplay works surprisingly well.
In Shark Tale you control Oscar who senses the opportunity to make a name for himself by claiming credit for something he did not do. He is met with approval and much fame from fellow buddies for his courageous action. All is well until the lies start to become more apparent. Oscar is then involved with the underwater mob and must get himself out of harm’s way quickly before something terrible happens to him.
Most missions in the game have you swimming about in a side-scrolling level as Oscar as you try to complete your goals (and optional side goals) while making sure you arrive at the destination. Along the way you’ll be collecting various pearls and avoiding enemies including guards and paparazzi. The game mixes these swimming missions with old-school racing levels (which have you running at the screen, trying to outrun opponents, while avoiding objectives like crates and buildings) and more traditional racing missions.
While swimming around and even the racing missions would be typical for a game like Shark Tale, Edge of Reality decided to mix things up by implementing boxing-style fighting missions and um… dance missions. In the fighting missions, you’ll have a Punch-Out!-esque perspective and you’ll need to fight your opponent to make sure you survive. The dancing missions bear more than a slight resemblance to Dance Dance Revolution. You’ll be given directional commands and you’ll need to follow them, as quickly and accurately as you possibly can. Watching Oscar do his thing is quite amusing to say the least. The dance missions are particularly fun if you own a DDR dancepad or a dancepad of some sort to play them on.
The game’s visuals are good much like the movie it is based on. The environments in the game are vast and full of detail, and genuinely convince you that you are, in fact, underwater. The game’s character models are also very impressive and certainly look like their film-based counterparts. Otherwise, you’ll find many bright colors particularly in the dancing segments with further bring the game to life. All in all it is a great effort by the guys at Edge of Reality.
The game’s audio is pretty good, as well. The background music is made up of many licensed tracks which range from Outkast’s The Way You Move and Fat Boys’ Wipeout to Sean Paul’s Three Little Birds all the way to MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This; all in all you’ll hear twelve licensed tracks throughout the game but they are most noteworthy in the dance missions. Elsewhere in the audio, you’ll find sound-alikes for Will Smith, Jack Black, Robert DeNiro and others. While not the real thing, they sound reasonably authentic. Sound effects are used sparingly in the game and as such don’t have much impact on the audio. The sound is blasted through Dolby Pro Logic II support.
Shark Tale has technically-solid, fun gameplay despite it clearly being developed for younger audiences which is likely to comprised of fans of the film. Like Shrek 2 before it, your overall enjoyment of the game will have much to do with your willingness to accept its target audience but at the very least you will find that Shark Tale simply isn’t a rushed, sure-money title. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Oct 1, 2004
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