Game #1006: Rugrats in Paris - The Movie

 I'm putting the kid gloves... on.

 Rugrats was close to an all-time favorite show of mine, it really was something special. Usually adding new characters into the mix on a long-running series means the series is running out of steam, but I really liked both movies and both new additions, Dil and Kimmy. Rugrats in Paris: The Movie is based on the second movie.... or is it?

 I loved this second movie, I don't remember every single detail, but I do remember the basic premise ... and this game has nothing to do with it. You can play as any of the Rugrats, including Kimmy but sans Dil or Suzy(Does she even count?) but the only thing that changes are the few audio cues your character will endlessly repeat. In the game you are left to your own devices inside a theme park of sorts, and for whatever reason your main enemies are... Ninja. Is it because Kimmy and her mother are Japanese? Isn't that kinda racist? Kinda?

 I think the Rugrats franchise would've lent itself to a platformer. But what we get is baby's first minigame collection. Rugrats is a series about babies, but it's not a show for babies... this game, however, is. You have an overworld that you can walk around in, surprisingly using tank controls, and through there you can access the various minigames. Your main objective is to collect 12 golden tickets, most which are obtained by clearing minigames, in order to unlock the final minigame. You can also collect red tickets throughout the overworld or by performing well in minigames, and these red tickets can be traded for items that either unlock extras(Art galleries), more golden tickets or puzzle minigames.

 I'm not fond of minigame collections, and I recently played the Dexter PS1 game, and here's one key difference that made the Dexter game better... it actually referenced the show. Minigames here are random. A mini-golf course, whack-a-ninja, a shooting gallery, 3 variations on bumper car minigames, a weird bowling minigame and.... A minigame in which you play as Chucky and must ninja kick floating planks and killer woodmen. I don't even. The final minigame is a fight in which you play as Reptar, which was probably the coolest minigame. On the other hand, just like the Dexter game, I felt like minigames went on for way too long. As soon as I saw how many holes the golf mini game had I quit the activity, thankfully, there are more than 12 gold tickets, so you don't need to complete everything to finish the game.

 I hate to say it, but I was left rather disappointed after playing through this game. The minigames aren't fun, and the game doesn't reference either the show or the movie, so it's just a lifeless cash-in. I wish I had at least something good to say about this game, but I really don't, and I feel like the license had so much more to offer in a videogame than this.

 2.0