xbox live indie game reviews

I was really excited when I downloaded Adventurer Pets HD. The box art and screenshots looked slick, and I love a good platformer. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them. There are 4 pet avatars, all with nice animations and good personality--though there's no discernable difference in gameplay between characters (you could imagine the dog & cat being faster while the bunny & frog can jump better or something similar). It's a shame the game doesn't remember which one I prefer between game modes or multiplayer levels, though. Every time you start a new game, you have to choose your character all over again--while this was worth doing the first few times, I quickly got tired of cycling through and just took the first one every time.

Graphically--game displays a nice level of polish... but the core platforming mechanics are downright awful. There are really only a couple of things a platformer needs to do right--running, jumping, and occasionally climbing. The running and climbing work fine, but the jumping feels sluggish and it's downright hard to jump over obstacles.

There are two single-player game modes: "Adventure Mode" and "Time Trial." In adventure mode, you have a limited number of lives as you try to ascend each of the 5 maps to collect a treasure map. Because jumping is so hard, it's too easy to burn through your lives--even when you get the treasure map, it feels more like you've defeated the game's mechanics rather than the level design. The time trial mode is marginally better in that you at least have infinite lives. On the other hand--the fact that you have infinite lives means you're stuck playing it longer. This was most apparent on some of the "harder" levels, which weren't so much hard as they were annoying. In the game-themed level, you have to be spot-on with your timing while ascending a couple of rows of moving platforms or you're reset back to the beginning. For a jumping puzzle to be successful, the developer would've had to absolutely nail the jumping mechanic--and the shortcomings are most apparent in this level.

According to the in-game menus, the game creators go so far as to concede the single-player modes--acknowledging that the game is best when played with friends. After two incredibly lackluster single-player modes I was ready to give up on the game. Figuring I'd at least give the multiplayer a shot, I roped a couple of roommates together and we sat down to play it. Believe it or not, the game actually gets worse! While you do add some powerups (some of which don't make much sense), you now have to take zooming into effect. What's already hard with a zoomed in camera becomes impossible when the camera zooms out to accomodate two or three players on screen at once. Worse, when one player dies and respawns near another, the camera whip-zooms back in. If you're trying to time a jump when the camera zooms in, you might as well put your controller down.

Overall, Aventurer Pets shows off some nice graphics and character designs--but it's in sore need of better game programming and level design. The funny thing is that seems to be the opposite problem for most community games. I hope the artists on this game can move around and find a better team to work with, as its a shame to waste such cute graphics on such an unplayable game. Even at 200 points, this one is not worth the points.