Summary
It could be a classic if it didn't try so hard
The Good
There are lots of things that are simply brilliant in "Toonstruck", from its terrific cartoony presentation to its mind-breaking, hilarious puzzles. The game is gorgeous, with bright, colorful graphics, fantastic video sequences, and excellent animation. I particularly liked the original idea of the game and the way it was executed - a
real character, who is represented by a
real actor, suddenly finds himself in the middle of a cartoony world he himself created. It is funny just to see Christopher Lloyd walking on cartoony backgrounds and talking to cartoony characters. There is nothing clumsy or unnatural in the game's animation, although I can imagine how hard it was to match the looks and the movements of a real actor to the crazy cartoony world. Some of the game's animations seem to be taken directly from a Walt Disney movie. I remember a scene (I think it was in Zanyland) where two shop owners were constantly beating each other - it was worth watching just for the sheer zany-ness of their movements. The puzzles are in
Day of the Tentacle style, which means
insane. Getting and combining the most improbable items to use in most improbable situations - a very appropriate puzzle design for such a game. There is, of course, a lot of funny stuff in the game, mostly visual, but also of other kinds. I really liked the names "Cutopia" and "Malevolands", and all those machine ingredients you had to gather, that were all connected to some proverbs.. In addition to all that - surprisingly enough - the story is actually quite good: although the first part of the game is almost static, and the story hardly progresses, a cool plot twist comes totally unexpected in the end of it, and the second part, with its darker atmosphere and concentrated gameplay, is full of genuine suspense.
The Bad
No, there's nothing
bad in "Toonstruck"... it is hard to say what exactly didn't work here, but shortly after I finished the game, I understood it will never have the same importance as comedy classics like "Day of the Tentacle" or
Sam & Max - neither for me, nor for the adventure genre. A lot of stuff feels unnatural in "Toonstruck". It is hilarious, but when I ask myself what purpose did this hilarious stuff serve, I must admit it was there just for the sake of itself. You'll probably say a comedy must be a comedy, and nothing more, so it is fine when the game is funny just to make people laugh. This is true, of course, yet I could never get rid of the feeling something was wrong with the humor in "Toonstruck". Perhaps it was because the humor was mostly visual - funny faces, funny movements, funny names. I prefer verbal humor, - I like jokes and puns, and "Toonstruck", as surprisingly as it might sound, didn't have much of that. Most of the times, the humor centers around the fact cute caracters were so unbearably cute before they became so unbearably nasty. An idyllic cow who became a bondage-fan... I dunno. I laughed, but after laughing, I quickly forgot it. But for sure I won't forget the much more subtle allusions of
Monkey Island or the good old jokes of
Leisure Suit Larry. Even the really creative jokes - like the very witty ingredients of the machine you have to gather in the first part - felt too forced, as if someome invented them after many hours of hard work.
The gameplay also had its problems, mainly because the puzzles, as crazy as they were, weren't original any more. It was the same "click-on-everything-until-something-happens" stuff I have seen million times before. The whole first part (and it is the larger part of the game) contained one sole objective - to find the right ingredients for a machine, so I didn't feel there was any development there. The second part was more straight-to-the point, but there was almost no funny stuff in it anymore. There is a cool plot twist, and the general premise is very good, but I never felt I was the one who influenced the story - especially in the first part. Although I solved so many puzzles, the game moved from its place only when it wanted to, and I didn't really make any changes. Because of that I had a feeling I was cheated. Maybe it sounds stupid, but remember how wonderfully little tasks were presented in "Day of the Tentacle": you almost forgot about the main objective of the game because you had so many little problems to solve. Every time you solved a puzzle, you felt you were coming nearer to the goal. I never had this rewarding feeling when I played "Toonstruck".
The Bottom Line
It is really a brilliant, technically perfect and hilarious comedy adventure. Yet as much as it tried to be a real classic, it failed. It is definitely an amusing experience, but after I have finished it, I never came back to replay it. It came out when everything has already been said and shown in the realm of comedy adventure. It has too much of cartoony zany-ness and not enough real humor. Still, it is one of the best "post-classic" comedy adventures, that I would recommend to hardcore fans of this style.
