Aladdin - Review

Author: R8a Date: Jul 26 2007 - 08:58 Score: 25 points

Aladdin, being part of a great recopilation of Arabic tales "1001 Nights", could be easily one of the most told stories ever. A movie, a TV show, a couple of games and maybe to much merchandising out there in the streets about this classic fairy tale shows how beloved is Aladdin.

Maybe 90% soap operas are inspired by the main subject that Aladdin deals with. The lovely match of a boy and a girl that come from a different social/economical/religious/cultural/whatever environment. But somehow the guy manages to be worthy of the girl, meanwhile the bad one executing an evil and nasty plan, there are tears, a fight and at the end, the boy gets the girl, the money and they live happily ever after (adding the tiny fact that there is a genie in a lamp conceding 3 wishes). Not that I don't like the plot (Aladdin is my favourite disney movie, and the tales I've read from "1001 nights" are among my favourite ones too), just that today's soap operas have covered the whole thing from every possible angle!...

But hey, this one is an ancient story, blame today's soap operas for the lack of imagination.

Enough of the story, a good one after all. The game. The PC version, I must say is good. I loved the SNES version, and I think was far better game than the PC port, mainly because of the sword added in the last hehe... graphics in PC were kind of dissapointing, mainly because of those seen in SNES port. I think this game was more related to sega's port of the game at the time, but come on, PC systems were capable of more at the time. A true platform game, this game showed nothing particularly special or new in graphics, but these were correctly drawn and inspired in the disney movie, so they met their purpose.

Sound, was OK. Sound FX again, nothing new, music created sometimes a good atmosphere, even when platformers do not usually have/had great music so there is nothing much to be expected here.

But gameplay was a killer. As in the SNES port, this game was fun to play, from begin to end. Learn curve was about 2 seconds, a good old tested control scheme that did not involved 25+ keystrokes to move Aladdin on screen, and a difficulty setting I think was just the right one. You will never get bored trying the same level again and again and again (I have to say, I'm an average platform player, so maybe, novice players will not share the same opinion about this), and the lenght I think is also good. What I did not like about the PC version, the sword, was because it changed the whole personality of Aladdin. Instead of defending himself as a thief, throwing apples and barrels to escape from his enemies (as in the SNES version) the sword meant Aladdin actually attacks his enemies.

Maybe I'm being a little sensitive with a tiny little thing about the game, but somehow, I don't think Aladdin needs a sword to be the hero we all know.

Because of the gameplay, a 7, could be more but the sword really was not that fun.. try it! and then try the SNES version and share your opinion!...

	Title / Type	Submitter	Date
	Review	R8a	Jul 26 2007

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