PETER PAN IN RETURN TO NEVERLAND

A long time ago, Disney used to be big. I mean, really big. Anything that was put out was immediately bought up, including toys, movies, and video games. Today, it's a bit different. Disney is releasing a lot of direct-to-video movies that probably couldn't make it in theaters, and not too many people want to play with Mickey Mouse (besides, how many things are left for Mickey to do?). Kids today would rather play POKEMON or DRAGONBALL Z games. So, with that in mind, what we have here is PETER PAN IN RETURN TO NEVERLAND.

For a Playstation game, the graphics of PETER PAN look surprisingly good. The main characters look great, and Disney Interactive did a good job of making the animation smoothe and crisp. The backgrounds are beautifully rendered also, which adds to the full Disney experience. It's too bad the bad guys aren't animated as well.

But, with good graphics comes bad load times. And this game has possibly the worst load times I've seen on the Playstation yet. In some cases, it takes as long for the game to load as it takes for you to complete the level. That's never a good sign when you're playing a game.

The action is what you'd expect from a normal side-scroller, just run and fly forward, beating up the bad guys that are in your way. Unfortunately, the game plays a bit too slow, and the computer A.I. is terrible. I realize that this game is for kids, but kids could easily breeze through this game. There aren't that many puzzles and the like included, but even if they were, would people want to do them? This game gets boring quickly, and, even though you get to play as Tinkerbell, it doesn't offer much more.

The sound is quite good, especially the music. The music is taken straight from the film, and can be recognize by anyone who has seen it. Surprisingly, the music fits each situation that Pan is thrust in to. Not surprising are the voice-overs for the characters. Peter Pan sounds incredibly bad, although Captain Hook and Smee sound somewhat like the characters they're immitating.

While some of the younger video game players may find this game enjoyable, the majority of them probably will not. As I've said before, Dragonball Z and Pokemon are the rage today, not Peter Pan. Adult gamers should skip over this game, and find something more suitable for their age, and with less load times. It's too bad kids do grow older, unlike in Neverland. If that were true, this game would probably sell.