Developer: Burst Studios
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment Corp
Rrp: £6.99 (Steam), £7.89 (Gog.com)
Released: 31st October 1996 (re-released 15th November 2016)
Available on: Steam, Gog.com
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 10 hours
There was a period in the nineties where point and click adventures were one of the biggest genre’s of video game. Not so much these days of course, most point and click adventure games come from the indie scene, not that there’s anything wrong with that, there are some damned good ones.
Before I begin the review proper I have to say that it seems so strange that the GOG version of this game uses SCUMMVM to run. For those that aren’t in the know SCUMMVM is an emulator that allows you to play many of the old point and click games such as Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. You can download it for free and its not hard to find the ROM’s of those older games online. Obviously laws regarding using this vary from country to country, but here in the UK we can use such programs as long as we only download and play games that we already own and can prove it (same goes for using torrents).
As the preamble may have hinted, Toonstruck is a point and click adventure game from the mid nineties. It was published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment, which is now defunct… probably due to this game. You see, Toonstruck was a commercial flop, an 8 million dollar failure.
You take control of Drew Blanc (played by Christopher Lloyd who was Doc Brown from Back the the Future), an animator that somehow gets transported into the cartoon world he created. So that’s twice Christopher Lloyd has been involved in a project where live action characters interact with cartoon ones.
This game actually has quite a lot of well known stars (in the field of voice acting) voice acting characters, including Dan Castellaneta (Homer Simpson), Tim Curry and Dom DeLuise.
It has to be said that the intro FMV sequence for this game is far too long, although if you do manage to sit through it then you should be fine for the extremely hammy acting that this game is full of (Tim Curry doing some hammy and over the top acting, how original).
It’s strange to think that I can use the same set of descriptors for both the writing and the animation; Stunted, unimaginative and predictable. Every joke you see occur has been done before by the Loony Toons and Tom and Jerry, and they did it better over forty years ago. The animation definitely doesn’t hold up to it’s predecessors or fore bearers. And the story… well ok, it gets a few points for some originality, however it essentially boils down to save the kingdom by defeating the big bad.
Despite what Steam says this game didn’t come out on the 15th of November 2016, it was re-released then. It’s original release date was the 31st of October 1996. It was originally published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment and created by Burst Studios.
Despite all the negative things I have to say on this game, and believe me I was being a bit lenient because of its age, I actually rather enjoyed my time with it. It struck a fine balance between the puzzles being challenging without being frustrating and there was never a moment where I was unsure of what my next task should be.
I’m not saying I recommend this game, I really don’t. There are a great many other games in this genre both new and old that are far superior to this one.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
The Dig
The Deponia Series
The Longest Journey
