Gaming Target - Game Boy: Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Written by Mariadele Arcuri on February 08, 2002

Review: Insert crappy, happy strap line here

Quite some time has passed by since Disney had the unfortunate idea of translating their latest cartoons into low quality, low budget video games. Sometimes I find myself wondering why nobody has yet managed to stop themЕ

Apart from my nasty comments about games that are surely not suitable for my age, I would like to introduce to you the newly published Atlantis the Lost Empire. Before you read this review, please be sure to acknowledge that this is not a game for you. You are surely not younger than 10, and that, in my opinion, is the only possible target age of this title.

Atlantis TLE is inspired by the homonymous Disney movie. I myself haven't yet proceeded to see it, but never mind. How do I know that ATLE is heavily inspired by ATLE the movie? Easy: I just saw that the storyline of the videogame followed the typical lines of a Disney movie and therefore I deduced it must have been that way. To those who can successfully challenge my hypothesis I will make sure to offer a pizza.

In this adventure of epic proportions you take on the role of Milo, a young lanky scientist whose late father had discovered the exact location of AtlantisЕ Following in his footsteps, you are bound to travel deep into the ocean with a bunch of other crazy researchers. You can run with the directional pad (Milo only runs, as his life is a never-ending adventure!), jump with the A button, use or throw items with the B button and crawl around like a cockroach by pressing down (once for a dignified style of crawl, twice for real cockroach crawling) on the D-pad. You are also able to scroll the screen slightly up and down by pressing the two shoulder-buttons L and R respectively. You might have understood it from the control list, but I will spell it out for those of you who are less blessed by Mother Nature: ATLE is an action-platform game, as they specify it nowadays. That is, you are supposed to progress in the game by continuously leaping across tiny platforms while at the same time fighting off enemies and retrieving pointless items. You won't just race to the end of the stage, as in the old golden days of Super Mario Bros., but you will have to figure out the stage in order to get out of it.

I was tempted to leave this part out to let you discover it on your own, but I suddenly remembered that this information is given in the manual as well! Milo's adventure is divided into 10 stages, each of them having different mission goals. I must remind my dear readers that for an action-platform title it is of primary importance to differentiate the stages both in background and in tasks. ATLE surely does not fail in this! The missions you are assigned are well varied and quite interesting, if it wasn't for the ease with which an experienced player Цlike I expect you all to be Ц can accomplish them. The graphics are very Disney style, very colourful but also very simple. They lack realism, simply. But then, which kid would actually blame the internal architecture of a submarine for not being Уrealistic?Ф

Too bad that the developer team had to throw in so trite options and so poor animations. Not to mention the control system! But let's not get carried away with grief. With order and calm, I will now point out the major obstacles that a player will encounter when trying to enjoy this video game.

As I said, the options are insipid and unintelligent: Music, Sound and a mysterious Swap Buttons (I guess it lets you swap A with B, but to which purpose?) are not enough to satisfy me. I want to at least choose between two difficulty settings and to see high scores, and I don't think I am asking much. Plus, remember those accursed saving passwords? Aye aye sir, they are back in the game! Don't ask me why, I don't want to know. I'm no less disappointed with the precision of the commands and the quality of the animation.

But enough with negativity! What is good then about this game? Again, it is surely a good present for younger gamers to whom it'd give plenty of challenge. Those of them who loved the movie will surely adore the game! The soundtrack is varied and beautiful, thus creating just the perfect atmosphere for a place like Atlantis.