Name: The Lion King
Genre: 2D Platformer
Publisher:
Virgin Interactive Developer: Westwood Studios
Review by Swift
Ahh, I remember in my earlier years, this was one of the games I used to own. A lot of people say licensed games
usually turn out to be trash, but occasionally there are gems to be found, and back in those days, Disney games usually turned
out to be pretty good, and this was, in my opinion, the best of the Disney games at the time.
For the most part it
follows the storyline of the movie, where Simba is a young cub enthusiastic about becoming King when he's older, and his evil
uncle Scar is determined to rule himself, even to the point where he eventually kills Simba's father. However there are some
levels in the game which don't appear at all in the movie, such as Be Prepared, which is a lava level that Simba never went
into in the movie.
You play as Simba, starting out as a young cub and later on in the game as an adult lion. The game
is generally a platformer, so running and jumping are more or less the basis for the game. There are enemies, namely hyenas
later on in the game, and as cub Simba you can only really jump on them since he has no attacks and his roar, for the most
part, is useless. Adult Simba however can slash enemies, which comes in handy.
There's also little bonus stages with
Timon and Pumbaa; with Timon you have to get bugs and avoid the spiders, and with Pumbaa, you have to catch all the good bugs
that Timon drops, avoiding the bad ones.
The music seems faithfully composed to the movie, namely where I Can't
Wait To Be King and Hakuna Matata are concerned. The graphics are also very nice.
Overall, this game
is a really excellent little platformer that seems to capture everything that made the movie so great. The game is difficult,
that much cannot be denied, but it's still fantastic and one of the best Disney-related games I have ever played.
RATING:
8/10
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