Spy Fox: "Operation Ozone"

The Good
What can I expect to say good about this game, not everything is that bad. At least the game still can provide you with a good spy environment. Some of the spy concepts, really match well with a spy story. For example other than the idea of an aerosol can spraying it the idea of toxic gas destroying the Ozone layer and it's effects on the earth really match well.

Some of the spy gadgets, that go far beyond most of the ones I've ever seen. The gadgets really well drafted and planned. Like the Pearl Detector, has not been used as an idea in most Spy stories, before, and as for most of the others they have really specific powers making them more special

The Bad
We are in a new millennium, where television cartoons are becoming terrible to most people due to lack of good art, and lack of serious plots. This is not just happening on television, but also with other entertainment sources. I remember playing Putt Putt goes to the moon for the first time when I was in Kindergarten. Later on in first grade my teacher introduced me and my class to Freddi Fish and Pajama Sam. All those Humongous Entertainment classics were some of the best programs I can remember.

However I'm to old to play those games now, and I surely have no wanting to get made fun of. There is still a chance to play something from Humongous Entertainment meant for all ages. At first I thought it would be fun, after I tried it here is what I thought. Spy Fox: Operation Ozone by Humongous Disappointment! I am totally not joking after enjoying Humongous Entertainments games aimed at younger children, the only series for all ages (7 and up) ends up being a failure, here are the reasons why.

Artwork and Graphics Just as I said before todays cartoons have a big lack of greatness due to lack of good art. That is exactly one of the main factors of this game. Everything: the characters, the backrounds, the items, and character movement are all really poor. In Humongous Entertainments other games everything looks good, not just because of the way they were drawn in a neat fashion, but because they also seemed to fit more with the backround, they stuck out more, and everything looked like it was colored all inside the lines. In this game however their is a very tiny background where almost nothing sticks out, a lot of the same colors are being used in the same place, making the setting look ugly, most colored things in the game are colored like someone with bad experience in art, was hired by a boss who did not really care if the game would look sloppy, and to top it all off, almost every character in the game, has something that makes them look really messed up. The most common mess for most of the characters, is the way they're developed, their body parts are often floating right next to them, below them, or above them. Looking even more stupid would be their body parts on them sticking out pretty far and have strange shape, for example the dog named "Sport", in the bowling ally has a really big square nose for what a dog would really have. Another example is the duck at the Pearl Farm, his beak is largely bent, his wing is awfully small, and both his wing and his body are shaped like triangles. This is also pretty common for the backgrounds, because the top of a pile of rocks, might be floating right off. Character movement is another problem, several times it seems like most characters (mostly Fox), are moving as if only one side of the front is facing that direction, and this should be easy to tell based on the fact that both of the characters eyes are say on the characters left side. Special effects are the last problem with the game art. When you're in Poodles Factory, and you use the Sticky Stun Bun, on the guards in the rocket room, they end up on the ceiling looking the exact same way as they do, when they are guarding the floor.

Setting This game demonstrates poor usage of how to describe a certain area or location. For example when you get to the street area the narrator says "Somewhere in the middle of nowhere", they should say something more specific. For one thing how would they say it as nowhere, if the place is near both Poodles factory, and the Mobile Command Center, then its got to be somewhere Spy Fox knows about. The map in Spy Fox's Spy car is also poor with describing a certain area. The map has four locations for travel on four continents, two of them Asia and Africa take you to the lake, and the desert. The part of the map that takes you to the desert in Africa is relating to the North American desert, and that desert itself has several things that make it rather inaccurate, a sewer system, and the use of a x-ray really mess it up. The lake on the other hand is on the Asian part of the map, but it is not being quite specific about a certain lake in Asia, and the people in the area are not even close to what an Asian is like.

Acting The last thing that makes this game poor is the acting. First thing I noticed about some of the characters was the way they talked. Whenever they talked they were often saying them like they are making echos, and they were not even in an area where it is not easy to make one, this makes everything seem weird. One other thing you may notice is that the characters don't always talk very clear, and you can't understand what they are saying.

The Bottom Line
I can't say the exact same thing about the first Spy Fox game, but I can say that just because a game was made by a certain company, with a name that might attract you to it, you may not expect the same when you play it.

Humongous Entertainment has been really successful, over the years, and I'm not saying it's bad now, but I do hope one thing will not happen. I hope the things that have been happening on television cartoons, will not go so far, and it probably will not. However I'd still be careful with wanting a title like this.