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is no doubt the world would be a more boring place without the
wonderful slapstick capers of the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes
cartoon characters? A world without falling anvils, house bricks
in boxing gloves and uncontrollable ACME catapults that might
just fire you off a stupidly high precipice into the valley
below?
So thank heavens for the likes of Bugs Bunny,
Daffy Duck Taz and their zany activities that have kept us
in merry stitches for decades now. And now, thanks to Infogrames
and co. developer Warthog, the cappers live on through melee
arena battle game, Loons: The Fight For Fame.
The basic storyline is that Yosemite Sam is holding an audition
for his next big movie, which can only have one Looney Tunes
star as the lead. Naturally, four of the most loved characters
in the Looney Tunes universe want the part all to themselves,
with Bugs, Daffy, Taz and Sylvester the cat all eyeing the
main role in Sam's flick. So instead of just hiring Wylie
coyote, the crafty old dog decides that the best way to see
which character has the star quality to be take centre stage
is to put them all in numerous arenas, and make them battle
it out for supremacy.
This means there are a total of 15 levels in which you control
one of the four contestants. The aim of the game is to run
around and whack your foes so that their Star Quality (or
in this case, their health) goes down and yours goes up. By
performing the movie related action tasks given in the form
of movie director calls by Sam, such as reading a script or
capturing an item that gives you the edge in battle, you raise
your Star Quality and gain the power to lower that of the
others. When your power is at a peak and theirs is depleted,
you win the round.
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Along
with your default weapon, you pick up bonus ones around the
arenas that will do anything from zap your opponent, to allowing
you to drop anvils on their heads or put them into deepfreeze
for a few seconds. This usually depends on what sort of setting
the level is based on, as each arena is a tongue-in-cheek
reference to well known films from a ton of genres such as
sci-fi, western and action.
The sound in the game is kind of just how you would expect
it to be although I always believe that sound is one area
TV or Film parody style games tend to excel. This pleasure
is also extended to the vast amount of speech crammed into
the game; with over a gigabyte's worth of Looney banter, all
done by the authentic voice actors from Warner Bros.
If you thought that was all the game offers, you would be
wrong. Seven mini arcade games, based on classics such as
Snake, Space Invaders and even a rhythm action title, are
present to be played either as health boosting sub-activities
in the main game, or separate diversions. Then there are the
extras to unlock, with clips from the Loonytunes cartoons,
behind-the-scenes movies, concept art and more. And yes, there
cameo appearances from other characters to keep an eye out
for in these extras and in-game, to make up for the fact you
can only control the four 'toons.
Providing some fast paced multiplayer frolics that have been
fairly sparse on Xbox so far. It's quite simple, but with
various objectives and challenge-based gameplay modes on top
of a manic but fun multiplayer, makes for an engaging game
so far.
That's all folks
7.5 out of 10
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Loons: The fight for fame Screenshots
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