Common Sense Media Review
By Christopher Healy
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Subpar controls and tutorials make toy-based game fizzle.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Play
Videos and Photos
Playmobil Top Agents
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's It About?
The city of Playmopolis is under attack by the evil Dr. Wicked. He plans to use a satellite to rain madness-causing Chaos Capsules down upon the people. That's where the Playmobil Top Agents come in. These superspies must use their cars, guns, and gadgets to stop Dr. Wicked and his evil Robo Gang before he can execute his evil plan.
Is It Any Good?
While there's a lot of great-looking stuff crammed into Playmobil Top Agents -- a vast open city to drive around, loads of gadgets to use and upgrade, 85 varied missions to play out -- the execution feels pretty sloppy. For one thing, there's too much to figure out on your own; the tutorials simply don't give you enough information. And learning to play by trial and error is frustrating. The controls can be an annoyance as well. Jumping requires too much precision and driving could use a lot more precision. Add that to a difficulty level that's a tad too high and you've got a game that a lot of kids may give up on before they get to the best parts.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the violence in the game. Ask kids if they would have liked the game better or worse if it only contained the puzzle portions. Does a game like this need fighting parts in order to be good?
Talk to kids about licensed products and marketing tactics. Does playing this game make you want to buy Playmobil toys? Did you buy the game because you already love the toys?
Game Details
- Platform : Nintendo DS
- Skills : Thinking & Reasoning : deduction , logic , solving puzzles
- Pricing structure :
- Available online? : Not available online
- Publisher : Dreamcatcher
- Release date : March 22, 2012
- Genre : Action/Adventure
- ESRB rating :
- Last updated : November 11, 2020
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