Xbox

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie

THQ and Heavy Iron Studios team up once again for The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. The game, based on the upcoming film of the same name, is a decent platformer that follows what I assume is going to be the plot of the movie rather well.

The funkified whimsy behind SpongeBob SquarePants elevated it from standard cartoon status into a pop culture phenomenon. It sits right next to The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on that shelf of screwy cartoons with enough personality and charm to warrant mass production of toys, movies and all the paraphernalia that marketing mavens could conjure.

Did you ever notice that every generation these days seems to have a hit cartoon that no other generation seems to understand? When I was young, we had Ren & Stimpy. After that, came South Park. Nowadays kids, along with some adults, are foaming at the mouth over this Spongebob Squarepants, an innocent yellow sea sponge with an ugly tie and a good heart.

THQ and Heavy Iron Studios attempted to mimic the SpongeBob movie-going experience through a video game that takes players to several locations from the film. Battle For Bikini Bottom lived up to the show – does this game have what it takes to live up to the film?

Kids today just don't realise how lucky they are growing up with such surreal cartoon fineries as Spongebob Squarepants. As an avid watcher of satellite television cartoon channels, I would class it (along with Fairly Odd Parents, Invader Zim and Samurai Jack) as one of the best non-adult specific cartoons ever made. The fact that it came 28th in Channel 4's recent '100 Greatest Cartoons' production suggests that many other people would agree with me - pre-adolescent or otherwise.

On peut reprocher à Bob L'Eponge de ne pas être très inventif et de copier les grandes recettes du jeu de plates-formes, on peut aussi trouver qu'il manque parfois de rythme, mais les fans sauront passer outre. Ils trouveront même un jeu qui peut se montrer agréable avec ses nombreux niveaux et ses différents mini-jeux. Quant aux autres, ils peuvent tranquillement passer leur chemin, il n'y a rien pour eux par ici.