Gaming Trend Review
Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts!
- Official Site
- Platform: GBA
- Publisher: Activision Blizzard
- Developer: Activision Blizzard
- Release Date: 10/11/06
- Genre: Platform
Pros
Popular movie licenseCons
Generic graphics and audioUninspired gameplay
by Alan Au
Movie tie-in games are a staple of the entertainment industry, so it’s only natural to see a slew of games based on Dreamworks’ popular CG-animated movie Over the Hedge. Games sharing the same title vary from platform to platform. This means that similarly-named games can be customized to take advantage of the capabilities on a particular platform, as with the GBA-specific version of Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts. Of course, this doesn’t always work out so well, as developer Vicarious Visions demonstrates with this underwhelming movie-themed mini-golf variant.
As expected from a licensed game, Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts features several prominent characters from the computer-animated movie. Static pictures of the characters are shown during the story text portions, along with animated characters used during the gameplay sections. As expected, the player is in control of Hammy, the hyperactive squirrel. Disappointingly, the character animation loops are fairly standard, with a quirky little idle animation that makes it look like Hammy has the hiccups.
Hopefully the player is more interested in playing the game than watching the character animations. Sadly, the background art and in-game objects aren’t particularly interesting to look at. In fact, the whole thing reminds me of a Flash game you might find on a promotional website, with the little sprites and the way everything seems to fit neatly into a standard-size square bitmap. The art isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly generic-looking (even for a golf game).
The game features chirpy little tunes, which are adequate for most purposes, but which also become repetitive. The game also includes the standard sound effects for a golf ball bouncing off of various surfaces, and overall the sound and music seem very ordinary. There are definitely games where I get excited about the sound design, but this isn’t one of them.
Screenshots
The controls are fairly straightforward. During the first part of a level, the D-pad controls Hammy’s movement, and the “A” button allows Hammy to manipulate certain game objects. The “R” and “L” shoulder buttons are used to activate different views and gameplay modes. Once the player switches to golf-mode, the D-pad is used to set the direction of the ball, while the “A” button is used to control the power of the shot, just as you would expect from a standard power-meter based mini-golf game. Really there’s nothing particularly noteworthy (good or bad) about the controls.
Now that I’ve gone over the technical aspects of the game, we get to the real core of the Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts (GBA) experience: the gameplay. Although not at all apparent from the game title, the GBA incarnation of this game is really just a mini-golf game with the occasional side-game thrown in for variety. Sure, there’s a story to drive things along, but otherwise, it’s a series of short golf courses set in various themed locations, such as a well-kept backyard or a suburban home.
The game tries to add some variety by allowing the player to manipulate the environment. Hammy can push and pull certain obstacles. Other obstacles can be rotated to help guide the ball. However, in the end, it’s the equivalent of playing mini-golf in a warehouse. Some missions require that the player sink the ball within a specified number of strokes. Other missions require the player to hit a handful of targets scattered across the map. Then there are the minigames, such as the Pong-variant or the pinball-style game, which work well to break up the monotony of endless mini-golf.
Unfortunately, the mini-golf game has a fatal flaw in the form of super-par trophies. I’ll talk more about the trophy system when I discuss replayability, but suffice to say that the goal for the top-level award often requires a hole-in-one. This of course implies that it’s possible to set things up so that the hole-in-one is possible, making it much like a trial-and-error puzzle game to replicate the exact configuration and shot characteristics that the level designer had in mind. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by better golf games like Mario Golf Advance Tour, but a simplified version of “Over the Hedge”-themed mini-golf just isn’t all that compelling from a gameplay standpoint.
Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts (GBA) has a number of different modes, including the traditional story-mode as well as hotseat multiplayer support. The story-mode lets the player go back and replay any completed levels, and there are awards and trophies for completing the mini-golf levels in as few strokes as possible. Along with the awards, the player will earn points that can be traded in to unlock additional characters for multiplayer. However, the story itself is fairly uninteresting, and there are much better golf games available for the GBA, meaning that the movie license is the only thing that really adds much value to the game.
Don’t confuse the GBA version of Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts with the other versions for other gaming platforms; this one is the bitmap-based mini-golf game. From the disappointingly generic artwork to the charming-but-repetitive music, the GBA version of the game comes across as a rather ordinary golf game that relies heavily on its associated movie license. While probably amusing for fans of the movie, the game itself is unspectacular in terms of production values and gameplay, meaning the game probably won’t have much longevity once the novelty wears off.
