Looney Tunes: Back in Action - E

Even casual Bugs Bunny fans will grow tired of the unimaginative levels and tedious challenges.

Publisher: Electronic Arts/Maxis Category/Genre: Video Games - Action/Adventure Platform: PlayStation 2 Price: $39.99 Graphics: Environments are nicely rendered. Playability: The game unfolds with linear inevitability that is easy to grasp, but unforgiving camera movement and difficult-to-perceive dimensional depth makes maneuvering a frustrating ordeal. Reading Level: 5+ Release Date: 11/24/2003 ESRB Rating: E

Common Sense Note

The game is closely modeled on the identically-titled film, and Looney Tunes characters appear throughout -- Bugs even mentions the previous movie Space Jam. You may want to discuss how Warner Bros. benefits by releasing this game with its movie.

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Kate Pavao and Aaron Lazenby

Acme Co.'s CEO used the Blue Monkey Diamond to turn citizens into mischievous Munkeys. Bugs and Daffy team up to restore the Munkeys to their original state, and capture the priceless diamond. Players solve challenges, such as rescuing 'toons from boiling cauldrons or saving the Earth from Marvin the Martian, to gain Munkeys. You can swap between Bugs and Daffy, using their special skills (Bugs can burrow underground, for example) as you explore five levels, including the Warner Brothers studio back lot, Las Vegas, Paris' Louvre, mysterious Area 52, and Africa.

Kids might be charmed playing as Bugs and Daffy and interacting with Looney Tunes favorites from Foghorn Leghorn to the Tasmanian Devil. The spirit of the original Warner Brothers' cartoons is alive here: Dialogue captures the wit of the original writing, and the Louvre level features a gallery of notable scenes from Looney Tunes classics.

Unfortunately, gameplay does not live up to the Looney Tunes charm. Environments are nicely rendered, but lack the imagination gamers might expect from a contemporary platform game, especially one with a Looney Tunes tie-in (think of all the Acme contraptions that could have been incorporated!) Some missions are over before you realize you are trying to solve them, and others simply test how fast players can push a single button repeatedly. Collecting boxes of Acme birdseed opens a special challenge on each level, but this challenge is identical all five times.

Additionally, the camera players control to view the environment is severely limited, moving too slowly to allow you to respond to threats, and not free-roaming enough to actually allow you to strategize or explore. And arriving at the final showdown requires players to solve every challenge in the game -- if you have to unlock everything to win, there's no reason to return to the game. That's probably OK -- this mediocre game isn't worth returning to.

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Content		CS	adults	kids
Content
Sexual Content
Violence Some cartoon-y bashing, but no blood and guts.
Language
Message
	Social Behavior General cartoon mayhem saturates the game, but Bugs Bunny is driven to save the world. Representations of annoying Midwestern tourists and primitive natives make for offensive stereotyping. Also, there is some gambling in the Las Vegas portion of the gam
	Commercialism One of the levels plays out on the Warner Brothers studio back lot. The game itself is a tie-in for the recent Looney Tunes movie, and there are other, mostly visual, LT references throughout.
	Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco
	Educational Value Unless you value this as a crash course in the Looney Tunes pantheon, there's little scholarly stuff here.