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Sometimes life feeds us a bitter pill that's nearly impossible to swallow. At times like this we may lose faith in mankind, or not look at a sunny sky the same way for weeks at a time. It's a hardship like this which the young explorer Diego must deal with when a rogue wizard begins to screw around with unique attributes which many animals in the African wilderness have. Seeing a zebra without its stripes is one thing, but giraffes with short necks just draw the line-there's hardly a fair way for these animals to function. Fortunately for our hero, Nickelodeon cares enough to release not only a DVD release for the special episode of Go Diego Go! but additionally partnered up with a new division of 2K Games focused on child-friendly games for even more exposure of this extremely important matter. Fortunately, Go Diego Go! Safari Rescue won't be struggling to find an audience on the DS, but how does it fare as an actual game for kids? Well it's hard to say, really. When compared to its Dora the Explorer counterpart, Go Diego Go is actually twice the game that Dora is. There are 48 bits to play through, as opposed to Dora's 24, and the gameplay is more varied and true to the show. Kids will actually be able to take pictures with Diego's camera which is saved into an album for viewing later. Granted, these pictures require no technique to take and merely count as being checked off, having no actual representation of what the shot looks like in-game. Along with this, there's a structure of levels throughout the game which are interspersed with slideshow cutscenes actually featuring voice-overs unlike Dora's romp. To be honest it makes girls look dumb for liking Dora the Explorer and Go Diego's simple gameplay seem like chess to Dora's checkers. Why a similar amount of effort wasn't put into the Dora title is beyond me.
The game isn't terribly long, and is easily broken in most levels in the sense that it's actually impossible to lose. This may be a frustrating concept to parents as there are no consequences for failing, but read into it how you will. Certain levels where a magic drum must be beaten until a meter is filled to completion can actually be finished without tapping the screen more than once, sending the game into a demonstration on what is being asked of the player while simultaneously playing itself in doing so. Other levels where logs must be jumped can't be lost as the characters don't die but continue to run into the object until an action is taken. As a gamer who plays for a challenge, and knowing that folks with children in Go Diego's demographic likely played the same games which I did, I have no idea why this would be a reasonable starting point for anyone actually trying to introduce their children into games. This has nothing to do with my memories, how old I am, or what I grew up playing, but the fact that I lent the game to a friend's children who are a fan of both Nick Jr. shows and watched them not only blow through the game within a half hour but then got the simple feedback in the form of asking if I had any better games to play. These aren't gaming kids, mind you, and only one is a boy. While I'm proud to see developers dedicating resources to games that a very young crowd can play, I certainly hope they don't continue the nasty habit of overpricing games to twice the retail value of the actual DVD release of the episode it was based on. No less, I ask that parents looking to introduce youngsters to games take notes from their own pasts and try to remember the challenges brought on by games like Snake Rattle 'n Roll or Zombies Ate My Neighbors before looking to Go Diego for guidance. Oh, and Mario Bros. probably. Anyone else with cash burning in a hole in their pocket can feel free to blow it on what's turned out to be just another licensed title.
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