For the first article on 2020, i
pick something very different from other review and that is a game that meant
for young audience: Jim Henson's Bear in
the Big Blue House (2002) on PSX. Another reason why i pick this game is:
it starts with 'J' and there's no game review with alphabet 'J' yet. Simple,
right?
There's the bear in the center of
the group. He's very big guy. You can't miss him. The bear cub is named Ojo.
Why the big bear doesn't get name that more stand out than his specimen, is
beyond me. There's lots of balloons and presents, so they held a birthday
party. But for whom? It's for Ojo the small bear. Not for Bear because they
think it's too obvious, perhaps? You may feel that the green monkey gives vibe
of 'Sesame Street' or 'The Muppet Show'. That's reasonable as (late) Jim Henson
is the creator of those kid shows. Much like everyone, i know them. But i knew
nothing about 'Bear in the Big Blue House' show although it last for 118
episodes which mean it's quite big! Anyway, let's get on with it!
My Goodness! Bear gives me
tutorial before the freaking game started! Also the bloody tutorial is so
goddamn simple and there's button to repeat the instruction! I know. I know.
First, this game is intended for the youngin' that may (or may not) requires
careful step-by-step instruction. Second, this game is based on kid show so i
have to set the swearing to minimum.
Here's the main menu. I assume
adventure is the "meat" of the game so i target it. There's also
option settings but it only contain sound setting, save/load, and credit. So
far, so simple.
Surprise! Surprise! There's
difficulty setting after i hit the 'new game' menu. I know that this is kid's
game but i choose the easy mode as the bear suggests since i'm entirely new to
this game, you see.
More balloon and presents here at
the foyer! As this is Ojo's birthday, i get to control her around which
restricted to left room, right room, or upstairs. I'm going to left first
because that's the "proper" order, right?
Then Loading screen appears. If i
have to see this screen everytime i go to any room then i prefer the 'opening
door' sequence a la Resident Evil.
Good God! The kitchen is infested
by cartoon rats. Horrible! To be fair, Pip and Pop on top game selection are
otters. But otter is rodent too, right? Anyway, i choose to play with them
first even though i'm not into popcorn.
Now this is useful instruction!
It said that i have to catch popcorn to accumulate score and avoid the unpopped
ones for my score will be deducted if i get them. By the way, you can scroll
the instruction at your will so the repeat button is to repeat Bear's guide. He
has soothing and friendly voice, so i won't judge you if you want to hear his
voice over and over again.
I can still see Pip and Pop as
rats there. It's almost like Ratatouille's premise. Oh, right! The gameplay. It's very
simple. You move Ojo left or right by using D-pad, try to make her catch the
said popcorn into her bowl and that's it. As for the popcorn that she can't
catch, they go "through" the bottom of the screen. That mean you
don't need to worry about popcorn mess
that those water mammals cause.
Completing the game, i'm rewarded
with congratulation from the bear himself and a beach ball that's
unrelated with popcorn but i take it. Also i notice how long Bear's neck is.
Sniper_sf13_magic_reac02.wav
Next is Tag with Tutter, the real
mouse. He appears at random drawer while holding a panel of symbol button that
you have to press, in order to gain score. But be careful one of the otter will also do the same thing
and you must not press the button that they show at you. Otherwise the
score will be deducted and you have to play longer than intended and you don't
want that to happen, trust me! Fortunately Tutter is in blue color while the
otters are in purple so you can differentiate them quite easily. But too bad,
purple is my favorite color so i make a couple of mistake on my playthrough
here. The reward for completing this game is: cheese! Who wouldn't guess?
[Maybe Sarcasm]
The right room on foyer is
living room. In there, i get to choose between dancing and painting game. Dancing
with bear sounds impossible to do in real life so i choose that.
This ain't Dance Dance Revolution, for sure. Bear start dancing and button
symbol start to appear while red light lit meaning you can't do input yet.
After Bear dance, then you can press the buttons. To be honest, i hate the
waiting part.
Winning the dance game, gets me a
radio. As someone who often use Android phone for music player, i kind of
baffled with the presence of radio like this. Modern technology changes people,
they said.
As for the painting game, it's
another simple game. A part of the painting flashes red and white and your job
is to choose the right color with the framed part of the living room. You
choose the color from the small boxes on the right of Ojo. I'll be honest, this
game is challenging thanks to the color selection that i can barely recognize
on some of them, or maybe i have minor color blind. For example, blue on most
left and 2nd right look quite the same only different in slight contrast.
Thankfully, with each success painting the selection is decreased one by one. Maybe
it means to be more difficult but to me it's the otherwise. The reward for
completing this game is none other than a paintbrush. What a surprise! [Kid-size
Sarcasm]
Of course, there's more than that.
On the upstairs, there's a bathroom and a bedroom. If you go to bathroom, you
will play either bubbles or making faces. As per usual, i will take on the top
option first.
Unlike other game before, i control Treelo the pervert monkey. I mean
who can take a bath peacefully while some monkey pops the bubble on your bath?
The sick freak. Instead of pumping bubbles around like what Ojo does, i will
immediately call the police (or perhaps animal control) to bring the monkey
into custody. Maybe he just some monkey who lacks sense of privacy, but still
he deserves to be detained. As for the gameplay, you move/turn the monkey left
and right using D-Pad. Pressing 'X' button will make him thrusting his point
finger to pop bubbles. The hit detection of his finger is quite small and his
whole hand isn't accounted for so this game requires pixel perfect poking.
Keep that in mind!
I got a toy boat? Not rubber
duck? Whatever.
Making Faces game is almost like
Dance Dance Revolution. But instead of dancing, Bear makes funny faces. Also
there's demonstration phase before you can do the input buttons. Care to guess
what's the reward for finishing this game?
It's a festival mask! I don't
know about you but i think the mask is really creepy. Just saying.
Onto the bedroom, there's only
one game and it's with that miserable monkey again. What's this feather game,
anyway?
It's like popcorn catching game
but you have to catch feathers with a pillow this time. Treelo happily makes a
mess around and i really hate his troublesome antics. You know what else you
can do with pillow? That's right! A pillow fight! I will gladly smack his face
left and right with pillow full of iron sand. Once again, i feel baffled. This
time about pillow filled with feather as i'm accustomed to the foam pillow. But
it is what it is.
Finally, a reward that i like to
have! Whether it's filled with either feathers or foam, i don't care. It looks
very comfortable and i would like to have it for real.
But it's not over yet as there's
attic to explore. I forget to mention about the control on each "hub"
stages although there's not much to it. As you can imagine that d-pad to move
Ojo around and when she's on one of doors or stairs, you press 'X' button to
confirm her to go to designated game rooms or hub.
Like in other "hub",
attic houses 2 game stages. Also i notice that there's real mouse on wooden
frame at right top part of the screen. Is it Tutter's friend? I don't know.
On the left of the attic is a
Balcony which contain only 1 game: Clouds Across the Moon. The name is so
poetic. Spy_cheers02.wav
Bear wants to say to Luna the
moon about how mischievous Pip, Pop, Tutter, and Treelo are fun Ojo's
birthday party is but unfortunately tonight is so cloudy that Luna is about to
be covered by clouds anytime soon. How can i help him?
By controlling him to sweep away
the clouds, of course. On top of that, he uses small electric fan to do so.
It's ludicrous. I mean he should use huge fan that they use on movie industry
instead. It's more powerful and i believe Bear can carries it with no problem.
He looks strong enough to do so. I mean look at him! He's very big chap! You
press left or right button to adjust Bear's aim and you press 'X' button to
blow away the clouds. Sounds simple, right? But, get this. The clouds will come
back after being blown a bit so you have to push them all the way to the
corners. It's like arcade game Tapper but instead of serving thirsty hooligans
drinks, you blow away clouds. Not to mention, mashing the 'X' button seems
mandatory to win this game. It's aggravating, just a bit though. I get a
Crystal Star for the trouble. I hope i can sell it to local pawn shop for hefty
sums of money.
Here's the last game selection. I
have no idea about Picture game if it's completely different than the painting
game while i assume Memory Game is like Pair/Match Memory game, i think.
The objective of this game: to
choose a part on left panel that matches with flashing part of the picture on
right. This picture game is easier than the painting game as the parts are
clearly identifiable. By the way, since when clown become horror subject? I acknowledge
it as silly/funny bastard that sometimes mischievous. But again, i seldom
watching horror movie.
My reward this time is a picture
frame. Wait! The picture moves! It's framed GIF, then.
On to Memory Games. It's not
Pair/Match Memory game like what i expected. The chests open by themselves [Creepy!]
and later you guide Ojo to open the chests with the order that they show first.
You do so by pressing the corresponding button with the symbol on chest but you
have to wait for Ojo to come back to the center of attic everytime she open a
chest before you can press next button. It's slogging but working quite fine.
Now we're talking! I love me some
doubloons and gems! Har! Harr! This will be the greatest reward for my
birthday, for real. Sadly, it's not real. ;C
I think that's all the game to
offer. Therefore i try the hard mode. I don't think the gameplay changes much
except there's timer this time (on top-left corner) and you can lose the game (by time out) as
oppose to in easy mode where you can always win whether in shorter time or
longer time. But the dancing game become very challenging as the timer keep
going when in demonstration phase! As result, you got very tight time limit to
the point i thought the game is completely unwinnable. After several tries, i
manage to win it with 2 seconds to sparse. It was very intense...for kid's
game. I also can see clip where Bear says "So close!" everytime i
lose. So the hard mode isn't complete waste.
After fiddling with main menu, i
found another game! I was wrong. My bad! Expecting a boss battle in Kid's puzzle
game, sounds impossible but i expect something really grand for this ultimate final
game. Soldier_battlecry01.wav
Turns out, all i need to do for
the "grand" final game is choose the appropriate gift that i got from
throughout the game, with the flashing figure on center of the screen. I know
that putting really high expectation for this final game, is foolish of me but
come one! I need something that really exciting going on here! Pyro_jeers01.wav
The final reward is this short video
of congratulation. That's it! Speaking of reward, i assume all those present
boxes that scatter all around the house are empty and serve only for decoration.
Otherwise, Ojo should be seen busy unwrapping them and that's slightly exciting
to see. Instead she just carries a teapot while looking humble. I wish the next
thing that happen in outtake of this scene is: she chugs the whole tea on the teapot
while other cheers her. Now, that's interesting thing that happens in this
boring birthday party. I can make further pessimistic comment on anyone else in
this screen except Bear but i choose not to because i'm lazy and not because i
try to be more kid friendly, mind you.
Jim Henson's
Bear in the Big Blue House (2002) is puzzle game made for children. I
can't say anything beyond the gameplay is simple and not-so exciting which fits
to kids of 10 y.o. or so. I know that i'm not the proper demographic for this
game (FYI i'm 33 y.o.) but even 10 y.o. me feels that the game is too boring
for him. He prefers playing Ultimate Doom or Jurassic Park Rampage Edition on Sega Genesis over and over again. In
other word, we love violence on our video games. The music is sadly not catchy enough
in my memory. The graphic is cheerful but lack of contrast. I clearly feel that
when playing the Painting game. The game can be finished under an hour. By 33
y.o. guy and in easy mode, mind you.
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