Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge

Written by Kyle Williams on August 10, 2001

Full Review: That's it Pooh, you're next!

In these days of "bigger, better, faster, more," it is refreshing to see a game that gets back to basics and is still a lot of fun to play. Sure, games like Gran Turismo 3 are excellent, with all of their realism and boundless features, but somewhere along the line a lot of developers stopped paying attention to the basics. Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge is one exception to that idea. Sure, the story is limited to find your children and defeat the bad guy, but getting there is where all of the fun lies.

The first thing that catches your attention about this game is just how incredible it looks and sounds. The cel-shading used on this title is simply amazing and evokes memories of spending countless Saturday morning hours watching cartoons. Maybe that is why this game is so appealing; it combines the innocence of youth with senseless violence. To help add to the Saturday morning feel are the spot on sound effects and voice-overs. The character accents are hilarious and are just the right combination of being over-the-top and accurate.

Once you get past the superficial elements of sight and sound, you stumble upon the excellent gameplay. Fur Fighters is a wonderful amalgam of the classic platform games of yesteryear and the cutting edge action titles that are coming out today. The controls do take a little bit of time to become accustomed to, but once you do you find yourself gliding, hopping, and climbing your way around the levels. Each of the six Fur Fighters have unique abilities available to them and the levels are designed so that you need to use all of your characters and all of their (many) weapons in tandem to win. You also have several mini-games to find and play through (including one in which you play a flea on the back of Chang, the firefox). You can literally spend hours just trying to find everything that there is to be found.

While the game is, in general, excellent, there are a couple of flaws that exist. The first is that you run across the occasional bout of slowdown when too much is happening on screen. The most common occurrence of this is when you are in rooms with reflective effects (ice, mirrors, etc.). It isn't common, but can be bothersome when encountered. The other noticeable problem is that the level design does happen to get a little tedious at times. There are a few sequences of jumps and maneuvers that must be executed perfectly lest you have to start the whole series over again. On the plus side, the save points are frequent and you rarely have to repeat too much of a level when you do run into this situation.

In general, Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge is a well-blended mix of humor, cartoon style visuals and twisted humor. The pros outweigh the cons significantly in this one and if you give FF:VR a try, you are destined to have a good time playing it.