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By Anthony Swinnich on November 20th, 2007
Why can’t developers make simple yet solid games for children? Do developers not realize that they like to play "good" games as much as everyone else? Is making money by exploiting their lack of judgment a solid business strategy? Hell, make the games better if only for parents’ sake. They need to sit through, or possibly participate in, countless sessions of these titles. Although, it’s hard to fault Happy Feet for its simple mechanics; it was purely intended to be a game for kids. It’s not hard to fault it, however, for its monotony as well as lack of polish and originality. Children certainly deserve the chance to play games made for them, but nobody deserves a poorly made rip-off.
"... nobody deserves a poorly made rip-off."
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There are three different styles of play to be found in Happy Feet, and while some are better than others, none are of much quality to begin with. The first game-type rips off Dance Dance Revolution, as players will move the remote in the direction of the scrolling arrows on the screen. The controller is responsive, but the note patterns are uninteresting and dull. Even worse is the fact that players can simply shake the remote like a maraca and hit every note instead of trying to play the right way. Kids will certainly figure this exploit out. Of course, cheating in this way can be likened to stacking the cards during a game of "Candy Land." One would hope parents would discourage this type of behavior, but it shouldn’t be up to them to safeguard their children against broken game design. The next style of play puts your penguin belly-down on an ice hill, and allows you to control the direction he moves in. You’ll be racing another penguin to the bottom, or trying to hit a series of checkpoints in a predetermined amount of time. This is the funnest part of the game. Tilting the controller from side-to-side Sonic and the Secret Rings-style produces a fairly enjoyable experience, mostly because the controls do what they’re supposed to do. You can jump with the 1-button, and swing the controller wildly to perform a trick. The final game-type involves swimming underwater. You’ll hold the controller sideways like you do while racing, but you’ll need to tilt in four directions instead of just two. There are two main objectives during this game: collect everything you can, and avoid obstacles. Sometimes you’ll be chased by an enemy (like a nowhere-near-predictable shark). The controls, sadly, don’t always respond as well as they should, and the later levels are probably far too challenging for children to do well on, which is a shame considering the only way to unlock the short movies included on the disc is to score high enough for gold medal.
"Kids will get more enjoyment from simply watching the movie."
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Every stage in the game will award a gold medal if completed well enough (in a certain amount of time, or having collected a certain percentage of items), but the only way to unlock the aforementioned cinemas is to get a certain amount of gold medals. If your kids are big enough fans of the movie, chances are they probably already own the DVD, so in reality this feature adds little replay value. Happy Feet tries its hardest to follow the beat, but the developers can’t hide the fact that the game has two left feet. Children may find themselves amused for a small amount of time, but they’ll get more enjoyment from simply watching the movie. | 
