Sail away on the Muppets Party Cruise (Muppet Party Cruise (PS2))

Member Name: duskmaiden

Product:	Muppet Party Cruise (PS2)
Date:	10/07/04 (272 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: actual muppet voices, nice loomking, fun in small doses

Disadvantages: short lifespan, can be boring and repetitive

Do you fancy sailing away on a special cruise with the Muppets. Imagine swapping beauty tips in the salon with Piggy, relaxing on deck whilst Rowlf tickles the ivories or eating at the captain?s table with Kermit. Well you can sort of do this now as TDK (who I thought manufactured videos and cassettes) have developed a game called Muppet Party Cruise for the Play station 2.


The Premise

The Muppets are off to party the night away on a cruise liner. Unfortunately their tickets are first deck rather than first class so start their party all the way down in the engine room. Nice. This game can be played with up to four players with a multi tap and revolves around 30 short party games. The fun part is that you can selects any one of six Muppet characters,(Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Gonzo, Pepe, and Animal. .

The game can be played in two modes. There?s the short cruise mode where you just select one of the party games and have a go. This is good if you have five minutes to fill or want to become a real demon at them!! The only problem is that only half of the games are available at the start of play. To unlock more of the games you are going to have to play the main game entitled a long cruise.

The Long Cruise

This is basically a 3d digital board game that is a cross between snakes and ladders and Cluedo. The aim is to collect a certain number of same coloured party favours. These can be won by bidding on an auction, picking them up on the board or winning one in one of the mini games.

You start your turn by playing a mini pinball machine to decide how many squares you can move. Do not jog it too much or else all the numbers will turn to one. I liked this idea as it was much more novel than boring old dice or a spinning device. Walking around the board is easy. You just use the X button and the direction keys. You can use the camera to zoom in and out. There are numerous squares to aim for and also avoid along
the route. Ultimately you are aiming for the coloured doors to enter the mini games.


The special squares are very much a mixed bag. Coined squares give you extra squares on your turn alongside credits for gambling on games and party favours, A ship or quicksand slows your progress by making you miss a turn, There are extra turns and portholes ready to take you straight to a coloured door to play a game. There are also fun things such as the ATM, The Automatic Trouble Machine. This square contains a number of different options such as trade places with other players; buy a party favour or other lovely things. Another innovative square was the hypno disc. Here you could choose another player and control them in their turn so you can use dastardly strategy on an opponent who is a real threat to you. The best things about the special squares are the Muppet ones. A number of Muppets including Rowlf, Rizzo, Swedish Chef and Statler and Waldorf wander around with secret potions, curses and extra money. Choose carefully who you want to bump into.

The Mini Games


The min focus of the game is really the mini games. The 30 games cover a wide variety of all those little games you used to have on much simpler games consoles. Each game is hosted by a Muppet so that is an added bonus to have the voice of the Newsman or Janice! It really makes a Muppet fan?s day!! I liked the games I had great fun ducking tomatoes in the Swedish Chef?s game and Space Invaders in a little tank being observed by Bunsen is cool. There were a few driving and flying games for those of you who like Micro machines. I like the idea of them but am terrible at them. Pac man freaks will adore rolling around on balls hunting stinky cheese!! My personal favourites were the very silly crazy games such as Muppet Pinball and loony unicycles (running round a curved surface after green balls!) There was one game Piggy Party which was a bit bong. All you had to do was count the nu
mber of pigs coming in and out of the room. It was a pain if twenty pigs all entered at the same time

I liked the level of thought that went into the games to theme them in with either the cruise ship setting (shuffle board) or the particular Muppet The cannon game for Gonzo was apt as was Rizzo?s cheese game and Animal?s rhythm game) however with thirty games there would not always be a particularly apt theme. I did not understand what airplanes had to do with Janice for example. I also thought some were easier than others. Piggy?s tug of war game and Animal?s drumming game were in theory the same game as they were both press the right button when it flashes ala Para rapper the rapper. However I could get first place in the tug of war but found the drums nigh on impossible Alpmgisde the four player games there are also gambling games where you play individually to gain more credits. .


One thing I did like was the bidding for extra points at the beginning of each mini game. This meant you had an advantage especially if you are quite poor at that game.

The end of the main game when one player gets the required number of same coloured party favours. This was easy on the first levels but by the time we were getting to the last levels the games went on forever as we had to replay games to try and get that last party favour. i found myself getting very bored which is unlike me getting annoyed with anything Muppet related.

After this there are extra credits awarded for the number of games, favour and credits won and lost. These are totalled up and can be used to unlock new games. There is another treat in store when you open up a new mini game as a short video clip of the Muppets is revealed. Some of them were originally shown on the Oddesy channel but others are exclusive to the game. These were funny and a real added bonus.

Graphically the game looked fantastic. I was especially impressed with the Muppets. They did not
look too cartoony although some of them were a little blocky due to the polygons used. However I did find that in the mini games it was sometimes difficult to find yourself. I had particular problems when both Pepe and Animal were used in the same game as they are both pink.


The other thing that really made the game attractive was the actual Muppet performers being used. It was great to hear the Muppet?s voices rather than other actors trying to do them. Their little comments were cute and quite funny but extensive playing made them jarring and sometimes annoying .as was the music used when selecting games.




This game was enjoyable but it does have a number of flaws. The first big one is the life span. I hired it from Blockbuster for 3.75 for two nights. This timespan was perfectly adequate for us. We had completed all but one of the levels and had unlocked almost all of the games. If you had a four player game you could quite easily unlock all of them. By this time I was getting a little bit bored of the game. The short cruise option is also not a long term viable option as the individual games are very short and would lose their novelty pretty easily. I doubt I would have paid 20 pouind (the normal price or even the special price at Amazon 17 pound. This really is a game for hiring or playing occasionally when friends come round to have a good laugh and reminisce about watching the Muppet when you were little. It is not one for serious gamers at all.

Some would say it is a kid?s game. Yes the games would be easy enough for children but I am not sure the Muppet characters would appeal to the younger generation at all. I would guess parents would buy it for the nostalgia value. My other little quibble was with the number of playable characters. I think it would be better if other characters could be unlocked as you advance up the games. I feel six is too small a number to choose from.


This is a lovely ga
me to look at and listen to. It is great that you have the Muppet performers voicing the game. However this game has a very short lifespan. Unless you are a complete Muppet freak (even more so than me) I would suggest you either hire the game for a fun couple of nights or if at the right price buy second hand

(p.s this was my first attempt at a video games review)

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