Yeah, I bet you are surprised to
see me review a game based off one of the famous Peanuts characters. To be
honest, I was surprised also. I mean, how good can a game starring one of the
most famous cartoon dogs be? Besides the Bandai Namco logo on the box, what is
there to know about this game or what it offers? Well, let me tell you how I
found out about this game. The day was November 7th,2012 and I
watched a video of someone talking about this game and I finally saw some footage
of it. It looked cool! It reminded me of games like Skygunner which is an
underrated gem of a flying combat game. I thought about that game because of
the graphical presentation this game boasts. It has a very good cartoon look to
it and that was a surprise to me. Usually license games based off of cartoons
don’t always look that great. I have seen this game on the list of PS2 games on
Gamefly.com, but never wanted to rent it, like other licensed games for the PS2
like Kim Possible: What’s the Switch? Anyway, I decided to rent it from Gamefly
since I had the time, and well, let’s see what this game is all about. I mean,
hey, if this one is good, I’ll check out that Kim Possible one also!
The
story revolves around one of Snoopy’s many dream sequences and probably his
most well-known dream where he is an ace fighter pilot during World War 1. He
goes on missions provided by the Peanuts cast to stop the Red Baron and his
evil army from taking over the world. There really isn’t any deep story here,
it’s simple, and it does have its charm, due to the cast of characters from the
comics in their respective roles within the dream. Fun fact, this is one of the
last Peanuts-related media products that has Snoopy and Woodstock’s original
voice actor, Bill Melendez providing the voice for the two characters for one
of the last times. This game was developed by Smart Bomb Interactive that also
made a downloadable sequel to this game called Snoopy Flying Ace. They also
developed Pac-Man: World Rally and the Wii version of The Bee Movie video game.
The
gameplay for Snoopy vs. the Red Baron is a dogfighting aerial combat game where
you play as Snoopy flying through different levels taking on different missions,
from destroying the enemies, escorting allies, taking down bosses, to sneaking
your way through levels, just to name a few of the mission varieties in the
game. The levels remind me of Super Mario 64, where you get a couple of different
billboards to fly through, and within each billboard there are multiple
missions. The main pull of the game besides it being a surprisingly good
licensed game is the upgrade system that Snoopy can use. Snoopy’s main weapon
is, of course, the machine guns on your plane, but you can gain a huge variety
of side weapons from homing rockets, a flaming boomerang, roman candles, to a
huge electrical blast, just to name a few. Sometimes, you won’t be able to
progress through the game unless you buy that specific sub weapon to use in the
level. You can also upgrade Snoopy’s plane to have stronger machine guns, more
health, and you get the idea. Throughout the levels you will be able to do side
missions like shooting down balloons, shooting letters down, and other side
missions to gain a better medal reward at the end of the level. This game has a
lot to offer, including a dogfighting multiplayer where you can select
different Peanuts characters to play as, and try to shoot the others out of the
sky. Overall, it is a solid package.
The
graphics are strong for a late PS2 title that came out in 2007. It doesn’t look
like a budget title, with the in-game graphics looking really well done. The CG
cut scenes, on the other hand, look a bit outdated, but that could be the fault
of making the Peanuts characters in 3D, and the art style I guess doesn’t
transfer well into full CG cut scenes.
The music, while not fully memorable, fits the situation and can be epic
at times. The voice work is a bit mixed. While Bill Melendez does a good job
with Snoopy and Woodstock, the kids playing the Peanuts gang do okay. They
aren’t good, but I remember the cartoon not having the best voice actors
either.
This
is a good game, but there are some minor complaints. The first complaint is
about the overworld. It is just a baseball field with the billboards to enter
the worlds the missions take place in. I would have liked it if you could have
traveled through the whole Peanuts neighborhood and not be confined into one
area. The game also has a surprising sharp ascent in difficulty when you go
into the third mission of the first world. The game tells you nothing about
upgrading your weapons and health before this mission and you will get
slaughtered if you enter the mission without the upgrades. It gets tough, and
while a challenge isn’t bad since a game can lose its fun factor if it’s way
too easy, I would have liked a small heads-up that I was going to travel into a
trap if I didn’t upgrade first. You also have to unlock characters for
multiplayer by gathering letters and having to use 1000 paw dollars to unlock
them. That is a bit much since it is going to take forever to raise enough
money to purchase said characters. It would have been cooler if you could have
unlocked the characters for more than multiplayer. I also felt like the
controls during the on-rail boss fights weren’t fully polished. They feel stiff
and not as fluid as in the open-ended areas. The bosses on the on-rail segments
also needed a bit of polishing, since sometimes it can be rather tricky to
dodge their attacks due to your stiff controls in this segment. Other than
that, that is all I have to complain about.
If
you like games like Crimson Skies, Rogue Squadron, and Skygunner, you will like
this game. It’s a good game that does well for a rather unusual license choice.
The game didn’t sell well due to 2007 being the focus on Wii, Xbox360, and PS3,
and can be around 25-30 bucks. If you can find it for cheap, I’d recommend it!
There is a sequel to this game for the Xboxlive Arcade for 10 dollars or 800
Microsoft points. This was an interesting experience, and since I liked this
game, I’ll try the Kim Possible game next.
This
game gets a 7 out of 10.
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