ic-games Review - TAK: The Great Juju Challenge - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

ic-games Review - TAK: The Great Juju Challenge - Reviews, Previews and Interviews for PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii ic-games Review - Home - Review, Preview and Interview for PC, Xbox,Xbox 360, PS2, PS3 and Wii

TAK: The Great Juju Challenge

Information
Reviewer: Dave Lancaster
Developer: THQ
Publisher: THQ
Reviewed: PC, PS2 and Xbox
Genre: Platform
UK Release: 03rd Mar 2006
Article Date: 10th Jun 2006
Difficulty: Medium
Retail Price: http://forums.ic-gam
Price Comparison:
0

Score Breakdown

Experience:
Game Play:
Graphics:
Sound:
Overall Score: 85%

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Pros

So very original

Genuinely funny

Great for all the family

The voice of Kronk returns

Cons

Dodgy camera

Slightly, very slightly repetitive

Loading menus – fast but pretty shocking!

Screenshots

3 of 4

In all honesty, when I was sent my stack of games to review, this one had (after I had ciphered through) suspiciously shuffled its way down near the bottom. The Nickelodeon logo might’ve weighed it down… When I eventually got around to playing it, I loved it straight off.

What struck me first about Tak: The Great Juju Challenge (other than its unfortunate title) was its sheer originality. You’re immediately immersed into a fantasy world with well designed characters, flowing effortlessly with brilliant physical animation. It’s a joy to look at. Sure, the graphics aren’t revolutionary but that doesn’t mean that it looks bad. Not bad at all! In fact I should make this point early on: don’t let the appearance of this being a kid’s game put you off. This is the most fun I’ve had whilst wearing my slippers around the house in quite a while.

To get you familiar with the premise, The Great JuJu Challenge revolves around two comical characters: Tak (a short shaman with special powers – the “chosen one” – unfortunately hindered by height) and Loc (a tall tribesman with special needs – the funny one – fortunately helpful with his hands). You’re sent off on a quest for this JuJu thingymajig which blesses and protects those who have it with Moon powers and the like. Trouble is there are rival teams out to get it, so your levels are timed – obviously the faster the better result.

And you’re really eased into it with as-you-go tutorials. Tak and Loc have a nice witty rapport in their banter – usually Tak brightly saying which buttons to press to do what (very easy controls by the way) followed by the not-so-bright Loc repeating them by saying “uhh yeah, square is that. Got it.”. Which brings me to Loc. Amazing Loc. When I was playing this, I thought Loc sounds like a rip off of Kronk from the Emperors New Groove, but I was still pleased because he’s so funny. I was pleasantly surprised to discover it is him! Patrick Warburton is his name in the real world so get those audio-autograph books ready; he is such a talented voice actor. The acting and the writing in Tak: The Great Juju Challenge is exceptional. It might be designed with a younger audience in mind but it’s still top quality material. I can’t praise it enough. Tak and Loc (playing via split screen) will split up as one has what it takes to do one task whilst the other is doing his own thing, and not just for the sake of it. One laugh-out-loud moment involved Tak swimming across a river to find a way of draining it so Loc can get across. And why does he have to do that? It’s not that Loc can’t swim it’s just that “uh, fish and I don’t get along”. Tak persuades Loc to try it, and out of nowhere twenty odd fishes form a mean circle around a terrified Loc. That moment is worth the price-tag alone. For some reason I was reminded of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid whilst playing this, and I think it’s to do with genuinely nice characters put under duress but seeing the funny side whilst developing a genuinely entertaining bond. I assure you, the endings are different.

Kids will love this. And why not? But there’s also something for the older audience. This is the third instalment in the Tak saga, so they say, and this one has a solid gimmick-free but rich in fun addition of the co-operative mode, which strikes me as an excellent idea for a parent/child relationship. One takes one character and the other… well you get the gist. This is definitely one for the family.

Graphics I’ve already touched on. They’re stunningly designed and definitely above average in terms of textures and whatnot. The maps are well thought out, inventive and glitch-free. The whole game has a certain smoothness about it, and the maps don’t seem to repeat themselves. They tend to be grandiose in scale but accommodate nice little touches, particularly in the characters – the animation involved in Loc picking up the smaller Tak and throwing him around brought a genuine smile to my face when I first saw it. In fact the contrast between the small Tak and the big Loc, graphically speaking, is a joy to watch in the true Laurel and Hardy sense.

Audio wise; to cop an awful pun, its pretty sound. Excellent voice acting aside, the effects are well produced and dynamic and don’t become repetitive unless you really listen out for them. The sound quality is clear, and for a game revolving around fantasy, the sound is suitably fantastic and as imaginative as the game’s other components.

The gameplay is fantastic. This game really exceeded my expectations. The Great Juju Challenge becomes more of a challenge as you go along, all the while creating an element of immediacy through the time-trial element of some of the levels. It provides a decent build up of skill making it very suitable for the younger audience and also teaches them the morals of friendship and teamwork and all that jazz. The co-op mode is strongly recommended. It all does get a little bit repetitive in terms of what Tak and Loc have to do to get to the next stage, but I stress only a little bit repetitive.

The originality of the whole game distracts you from the fact that you might’ve seen all this on the previous level, which to the credit of the game’s producers is a job well done. Other games should take heed. The A.I. good; it’s sorta fixed – in that The Great Juju Challenge is more of a puzzle/homage to the old strategy platform games of the past – the badguys, therefore, are somewhat of a sideline.

The only real concern, and unfortunately it really brings the whole thing down, is the camera work. It seems inverted (which I couldn’t change) and gets caught behind things and tends to face the wrong way in annoying scenarios such as near-death. Certainly not enough of a problem to get me to dissuade you from buying it though.

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