PC: Toonstruck

[Rowsbette]

You have to feel sorry for the good folk at Virgin Interactive. With a vast array of delightful cartoon landscapes and a cast featuring Dan Castellaneta, Tim Curry and Christopher Lloyd lined up for their 1996 release, they probably thought they couldn’t fail.

Often cited as the twisted spawn of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Toonstruck blends animation with real life, and finds artist Drew Blanc (Christopher Lloyd) trapped in a cartoon world. He must save this world from the evil clutches of his nemesis before he can return home, etc etc. With a heavy reliance on the words "Cutopia" and "Cutifier", the weak plot was perhaps a little too obviously childish for teenage or adult gamers, but they should have been able to pull it off.

Before I launch into a lengthy list of this game’s flaws, let me add this disclaimer: I really did love this release, so much so that I completed it thrice in my youth. It has a lot going for it: a huge array of puzzles; a clean linearity; beautiful cartoon graphics; a vein of dark humour running through. In essence, it should have been great.

Unfortunately it was the little things that spoiled it for me: it’s a shame they were of such a sublimely niggling nature that it ruined an otherwise fine game.

1. In attempting to appeal to adults and children, they’ve missed both brackets. Alongside the wacky cartoon humour that wouldn’t appeal to many under eleven, this game features a sadistic leather-clad cow, a terrifying inflatable clown, and various other less-than-kiddie-friendly characters. Apparently it’s supposed to be a "satirical spoof" but to pull that off effectively they shouldn’t have made it so damn wacky. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a little zaniness, but in this excessive amount it’s just plain annoying. Which brings me to...

2. The dialogue. You can’t click past it (yawn) and there’s a lot of mince in there. I’ve nothing against a wee bit of humour, character background, plot development etc to add depth to the game: you need a bit of padding to disguise the hints you pick up in conversation anyway. Unfortunately the majority of the dialogue in Toonstruck serves only as a vehicle for the creators’ piss-poor attempts at humour: sometimes they really hit the spot, but for the most part it’s dire. Fortunately, the second half of the game sees your character ditch his annoying sidekick and embark on a furtive venture in which he encounters few others. In this instance, isolation is a helluva lot more fun, and I imagine the majority of adventure gamers will favour the solitary, darker atmosphere of Disk 2.

3. When I played this years ago on my Windows 98 system, it would only run through MS DOS. All well and good—except that it crashed frequently. In a fit of enthusiasm I downloaded a few patches to try and run it on my Windows XP system, only to have it freeze during the installation. Even trusty DOSbox seemed to hate this diseased piece of software, and further attempts to run it on my old system were similarly unsuccessful. Makes this review seem somewhat vacuous really, being that it concerns a game that very few can access. Should you choose to attempt this, I can only wish you luck.

Toonstruck will always shine as a perfect example of how a great game can be vastly diminished by ill-advised humour and extremely non-user-friendly software. It’s an enjoyable experience nonetheless. It’s certainly worth the piddling amount one would expect to pay for it nowadays, but is it worth the hours of frustration spent trying to run the damn thing? Well, I’ll leave that for you to decide.

[Densu]

Home Of The Underdogs Here.

[Rowsbette]

Home Of The Underdogs Here.

Aye, I've yet to meet anyone else who's played this one.

[Ghostsuit]

Never even heard of it

[Densu]

Aye, I've yet to meet anyone else who's played this one.

It was in gamestation and I was drooling over it but I didnt get it because I knew it wouldnt work under XP.

I played the demo though.

[MeaningOfLife]

No offense ment, but Rowsbette, you are an idiot (meant in the nicest possible way)

1) When noticed, the wackiness acutally has clever, sometimes ironic, hidden meanings - making it interesting to a lot more adults than you would expect. And luckily the adult concepts - such as the masochistic cow - are merely not understood by the younger users.

2) Even though i disagree & think that some of the dialogue is very clever - if not nessessary to the plot, if one were more observant, they would notice that hitting the space bar will skip ANY piece of dialogue or video in the game - there are no exceptions.

3) WinXP with DOSBox works fine - as long as the PC running XP is 486 or better - LOL.
Oh, and of course as long as ur smart enough to be able to follow instructions written in PLAIN ENGLISH to set up DOSBox.

And for those not lucky enough to play it - you really should - it is nothing short of brilliant

Any more problems?
David Lang

[MeaningOfLife]

PS. The Music is extremely good - especially when critcally analysed by a university level - Music Student (The Music Student is a friend of mine).

[Rowsbette]

No offense ment, but Rowsbette, you are an idiot (meant in the nicest possible way)

1) When noticed, the wackiness acutally has clever, sometimes ironic, hidden meanings - making it interesting to a lot more adults than you would expect. And luckily the adult concepts - such as the masochistic cow - are merely not understood by the younger users.

2) Even though i disagree & think that some of the dialogue is very clever - if not nessessary to the plot, if one were more observant, they would notice that hitting the space bar will skip ANY piece of dialogue or video in the game - there are no exceptions.

3) WinXP with DOSBox works fine - as long as the PC running XP is 486 or better - LOL.
Oh, and of course as long as ur smart enough to be able to follow instructions written in PLAIN ENGLISH to set up DOSBox.

And for those not lucky enough to play it - you really should - it is nothing short of brilliant

Any more problems?
David Lang

Did you register on AltNation just to slag my review? Loving it. I should probably say something about scathing about idiocy having more in common with intolerance than it does with personal taste in computer games... but I won't.

As for the Toonstruck running fine on XP, do a quick Google and I think you'll see that's mince. I've had DOSBOX installed for a while now, and have used it for a number of games... it just *really* didn't like Toonstruck.

I see little point in arguing about this, as it's been around four years since I've even played the game, but I'm genuinely curious. What are these "hidden meanings" of which you speak?

[Elfaba]

personally ive never heard of it and ive never really been into playing PC games and the likes

however, just because you or your friend are educated does not make your opinion(s) right and that those who do not agree are idiots. That, quite possibly, is my greatest pet peeve of modern "educated" society - it repulses me in fact and displays one of the most stark outrageous forms of idiocy in people that one could ever come across in my opinion.

the writer of this article expressed an honest unbiased review of this game and although it didnt pussy foot around the problems one might find with the game, it was balanced - and she did make a conscious effort to highlight the things that she liked about it too. This was her review and opinion - she did not claim it to be fact or right in any way or say it was "shite" or "idiotic".

fair enough the article did not outwardly try to sell the game - but like i say in my opinion it was honest and balanced and didn't sugar coat flaws with the game unnecessarily. I don't believe personally in reading it that it was biased - and the writer DID make a point of saying it was good in many ways too and that she liked it in her younger years and that also we should decide for ourselves. If anything that provoked a spark of curiosity and interest in me.

meant "in the nicest possible way" or not, that was uncalled for - no offence ""

[Shannow]

PS. The Music is extremely good - especially when critcally analysed by a university level - Music Student (The Music Student is a friend of mine).

No offense ment, but Rowsbette, you are an idiot (meant in the nicest possible way)

1) When noticed, the wackiness acutally has clever, sometimes ironic, hidden meanings - making it interesting to a lot more adults than you would expect. And luckily the adult concepts - such as the masochistic cow - are merely not understood by the younger users.

2) Even though i disagree & think that some of the dialogue is very clever - if not nessessary to the plot, if one were more observant, they would notice that hitting the space bar will skip ANY piece of dialogue or video in the game - there are no exceptions.

3) WinXP with DOSBox works fine - as long as the PC running XP is 486 or better - LOL.
Oh, and of course as long as ur smart enough to be able to follow instructions written in PLAIN ENGLISH to set up DOSBox.

And for those not lucky enough to play it - you really should - it is nothing short of brilliant

Any more problems?
David Lang

Tjis is the single best example of how education =! intelligence i have ever seen.

[TheFallenAngel]

I remember this in a pc magazine at time it was due for release.
I however never played it but I remember it.

[TheFallenAngel]

Anyone remember the Pepperami game?

[Rev Scapegoat]

No offence meant, MeaningOfLife, but you're an ignorant twat.

You're an idiot too. If you're going to call someone stupid, at least spell your insult properly! How you managed to mis-spell something as simple as "meant" is beyond me. So, you have problems with politeness, and spelling. Any more problems?

[Potatojunkie]

How you managed to mis-spell something as simple as "meant" is beyond me.

Given that he's managed to spell it correctly seven words further down the sentence, I think that it can safely be assumed to be a typo. The same goes for "acutally".

"Nessessary" is cute, though. And "ur" being used in place of "you're" in the same sentence as the words "PLAIN ENGLISH" is just, well, it's downright cheeky.

Perhaps there is a clever, even ironic hidden meaning that we're missing out on.

[GoddamnElectric]

Is it not possible, nay probable, that an existing user has created this sockpuppet for the express purpose of slagging this review anonymously?