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Parents' Guide to

Rango DS

By Christopher Healy, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 9+

Poor controls make an already tough game too hard.

Game Nintendo DS , Nintendo DSi 2011
Rango DS Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this game.

  • Rango DS Game: Screenshot #1
  • Rango DS Game: Screenshot #2
  • Rango DS Game: Screenshot #3

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What’s It About?

RANGO DS tells of the further adventures of Rango, the city-slicker chameleon who becomes sheriff of a Wild West town in his eponymous film. Here, he vows to track down and take out the members of a gang of outlaws in order to bring peace and order back to the town of Dirt. There's a lot of move-along-and-fight action, as well as cave exploration, some animal-riding racing sequences, and a role-playing element that allows you to power up your character.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

Rango DS has the same type of depth and variety that helped make the Rango console game a fun experience, but its incredibly poor control scheme and way-too-high difficulty level make it a far less successful game than its counterpart. The idea of making Rango switch into different "roles" is an interesting one that fits the theme of the movie (since Rango was an actor in the film), but if you're shooting at some bad guys far away, and then they get too close to you and you need to start punching and kicking, you simply don't have time to call up a costume-swapping wheel on screen and pick the one that will allow you to perform melee combat. And it's all the worse that the button combination needed to search that swap wheel is an awkward one for your fingers to pull off. Also, with very tough, very frequent enemies, it would be nice if the game had more than one difficulty level.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the violence in the game. Does it matter less because the characters are animals? Does switching from bullets to "peas" make the shooting less of an issue?

  • Did you want to play this game because you had seen the movie? Would you enjoy the game if you had not already seen the movie? Why do you think games are made that are based on movies?

Game Details

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