Animaniacs Splat Ball

Description:

Become the Sultan of Splat Ball with the help of your team - Yakko, Wakko and Dot. Compete against a team with Ralph the Guard, Dr. Scratchansniff and Thaddeus J. Plotz. The objective is to capture their balloon (while guarding your own) and get it back to base enough times to win all 3 leagues - Amateur, Professional and All Star. Race through the Warner Bros. Studios, splat your way to victory and keep an eye on your paint supply!

Pick a team member to control directly - he/she will be the Striker for your team. Assign the other 2 members to Patrol locations. If your Striker gets too splatted, it's off to the Showers and another team member takes over. Try the Training level first, to get used to the game, the pick-ups and the power-ups. Pick-ups are paint buckets and soap. Power-ups range from different types of splatting guns to a laughing gas pellet, a mini-teleporter and an earthquake bomb.

This can be played in single player mode or multiplayer across the net. Multiplayer games can be played cooperatively, competitively or in teams. There is an excellent Training level, which gives step by step instruction on the controls and the rules.

Features:

• Animaniac character voices
• 3 playing fields
• 72 levels
• 3 control styles
• Multiplayer options
• MSN Gaming zone Internet play
• 3 levels of difficulty
• 27 power-ups
• 24 page User Guide in jewel box

Technical Aspects:

There are no auditory instructions in the game. Controls require using the mouse for aiming, shooting and ducking, and the arrow keys for movement. My kids found this awkward as they are more used to using their right hands on the arrow keys. There is also a simple option to use the space bar to move in the direction the Striker is facing. I was surprised that a joystick is not supported.

Report and Conclusions:

They are very keen to find someone else who has the game, so that they can try the multiplayer version, and I like the notion that they would be able to play it cooperatively. I expect that younger kids would enjoy this title as much or even more than my two did.

Animaniacs Splat Ball is hilarious and will keep kids entertained for many hours of ducking and dodging fun. Ready, aim, splat!!