STUART LITTLE 2


Have fun with your mouse

By JAMES ANTHONY

Stuart Little is probably the world’s cutest mouse and his first celluloid adventures had kids around the globe thoroughly entertained.

They were the stuff of electronic games - being chased by Snowbell, driving the car, escaping through the sewers, dealing with Fake Mom and Fake Dad in the mini-golf house - although we didn’t see a PC or console effort made for the little nose twitcher.

Stuart Little 2 is very different and before the movie has hit the big screens there is a PC game out.

And it is a nice little game too. The graphics are very cute, the sound and voices spot-on, and there are five small games the little ones can play and really enjoy.

Clever four-year-olds can manage it, as can clever seven-year-olds and, it has to be said, exceptionally clever older fogies can as well.

There are five main games in Stuart Little 2 and you can play them via a story and cut scenes or else in Free Play mode. The story is fine first time through, but really the littlies prefer picking and choosing their way to their favourite game. You also get a five picture gallery from SL2.

The games are as follows:

Daredevil Driving: You have to hurtle down a roadway in your nifty red car trying to run over point-scoring fruit, speed-increasing lightning bolts and avoiding solid obstacles and a falcon that drops oil or paint bombs on you. Good fun for littlies as it really only take four directional keys to have them up and racing.

Drain Escape: You have to go through the drains of your apartment building to find your mother’s ring. You get points and health for bits of fruits and things, you need a plunger to free them up from broccoli and watch for ants, bees. Essentially this is a maze to find your way through and is excellent fun. This proved to be the favourite in the Anthony household as the nippers (4 and 7) could each go through and enjoy it at their own levels. A little bit complicated at times, it definitely will keep the interest levels up for some time.

Roof Skate: Take your skateboard and try to get hold of mum’s ring. Very much platform mode - although much prettier - you need to avoid the nasty old falcon as it tries to grab hold of you.

Balloon Jump: Get to top of the building before balloons pop or deflate. You get points for going though fruit. Watch for open windows and bees. To start with this one didn’t rate highly with anyone, however, once the controls were mastered it has become very popular.

Air Dodge: Play Stuart or Margalo (the bird from the new movie) and pilot a plane in similar fashion to the Daredevil Driving. You can, however, now go up and down. You can throw the falcon off (if it grabs you) by waggling your plane’s wings.

All up, Stuart Little 2 has nice graphics and a good help section for each game that gives kids easy access to how to play. Extremely good fun and if you put a pay-per-game machine on your computer you will make a fortune!

ORIGINALITY 85%
SOUND/GRAPHICS 85%
PLAYABILITY 90%
ADDICTION 85%
ENJOYMENT 85%