Dreamcast

Kao the Kangaroo

All in all, Kao surprised us. A few goofy enemies and dumb boss level fights serve as the game's only potholes...which are, of course, very easily hopped over.

Au final, Kao réalise une bonne performance dans un secteur où il n'est pas évident d'innover. Sans être révolutionnaire, ce soft s'avère très sympathique et plein de fraîcheur. Il fera certainement le bonheur des jeunes joueurs alors que les grands resteront plus difficiles à persuader. Kao est donc un titre que l'on peut mettre entre toutes les mains même si la durée de vie qu'il propose risque de laisser sur leur faim les experts de la catégorie.

KAO The Kangaroo represents Titus' attempt to break into the 3D action-platform genre. KAO has been kidnapped from his native Australia, and it's up to you to help him punch, hop, and snowboard his way home. Despite a plethora of design and gameplay issues, it's hard not to enjoy the cute and varied experience contained within the game's 30 areas.

If this were a PlayStation game, I’d probably tell you to spend your money elsewhere. However, given recent developments, this might be one of the last decent games of this type to be released for the Dreamcast, save Sonic Adventure 2. Besides, you could count the number of decent DC platform games on one hand and still have enough left over to pick your nose.

As delightful as our cartoony kangaroo is, Kao The Kangaroo just wasn't exciting enough for me mainly because I've played this type of game so many times already. If the gameplay was solid, then perhaps I could look past that, but with awkward controls and an unfinished feel, Kao The Kangaroo tries to leap just past the standard but falls short of making the jump to the next platform.

Eines gleich vorweg: Die Ansätze sind gut. Vor allem die Idee, dass ihr Checkpoints selbst in den Leveln setzen könnt, gefällt mir - auch, wenn man dieses Feature eigentlich immer verwenden sollte, sobald man ein Checkpoint-Item findet, oder sich sonst unglaublich ärgert, wenn man es schlicht und einfach mal vergisst. Auch fein versteckte Bonus-Stages und das manchmal bedingt frei begehbare Areal machen kurzfristig Laune. Doch all dies rettet Kao nicht vor dem Abstieg in eine der unteren Klassen. Wie schon im Haupttext angesprochen, sind es vor allem die Kameraführung und die oft unfairen Feinde, die schnell für Frust sorgen. Der Dreamcast hat wahrlich Besseres verdient.

Not a bad platformer here, but it's a little too hard for a younger player – who this game is best suited for – and a little too boring for an older player. The create-your-own checkpoints is a great idea, but I doubt this game will be remembered as much of anything when you look back at the Dreamcast. If you absolutely, positively must play every platformer out there, Kao isn’t a bad two-day rental, but I certainly wouldn’t buy it.

Like the hundreds of shallow, empty side-scrollers that came out back in the NES days, Kao is just another pothole in the video game road. The game is obscenely generic, wildly frustrating and simply not worth the time. Kids will throw tantrums and adults will pull out their hair. I fear Kao is headed straight for the video game character wasteland, populated by such notables as Aero the Acrobat, Bubsy and Michael Jackson. Perhaps time will pave this over and allow us to get back to our otherwise happy lives...or maybe Mario and Sonic will steal Kao's lunch money and pants. Beats the Krappo out of me.

Inexplicably, the controls don't adjust to compensate for the new angle, which is just confusing as hell. In addition to the unintuitive controls and awful graphics, Kao's clownish music provides the final nails in its cheaply fabricated coffin. Much of the music sounds as if it was generated by a Casio keyboard - it's revolting! I had always wondered why I heard so little about Kao the Kangaroo, but now I understand completely. Garbage like this gives the Dreamcast a bad name.