Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return

If you can get past the silliness of Tomba! 2 (you know, the pink hair, strange mini-quests and whacked-out characters), then you'll have yourself a great time. Because underneath its typical save-your-girlfriend-type story line and some ridiculously lame voice-overs, lies some serious--though tedious in some respects and not particularly challenging-pseudo 3D gameplay. But what Tomba! 2 lacks in difficulty in many of the tasks, it makes up in quantity. There are more than 150 tasks to complete (apparently some later tasks must be opened up through secret means), several mini-games to play and an array of items to acquire. You'll get wings, become mouse-sized, turn invisible, wash dirty birds, eat some fruit and grapple from acorns, among a slew of other activities. Yeah, that's Tomba. Strange thing is, there's only four main areas to explore, each of which is broken up into a couple of smaller sections. But the areas are absolutely jam-packed with stuff to do and collect -and you'll have to work your way back to earlier areas to finish tasks. Unfortunately, the main bosses provided no challenge whatsoever. It was almost like they should've been more difficult, since they give you powerful magic. Oh well. Luckily, the main part of the game is extremely entertaining, and looks and sounds good to boot.

Tomba! 2 is the kind of game you'll keep wanting to play, because you want to see what neato gameplay ideas will pop up in the next stage. This game is bright, colorful, solid, entertaining, unique and addicting. The multi-branching paths may drive some of you a little nuts, especially if you're looking for a more traditional 2.5O game (if there's such a thing). Still, there's so much to see and do in Tomba! 2, it's well worth the bucks.

Luckily, very little ofTomba! 2 involves Tomba running around in full 3D. Nothing wrong with 3D games, but I'll take my platformers in pseudo-3D if possible, thanks. Even though developers Whoopee Camp have added lots more to the sub-quests this time around, some of them still suffer from the same sort of tedium from the first game. However, the game is full of charm and has more than enough challenges to keep both young and mature gamers busy.

Whoopee Camp has the strangest sense of humor of any game developer out there. But they sure know how to crank out a good platform game. I much prefer a smaller area with lots of things to do (and different things) than a huge overworld with lots of wandering around wondering where to go next. It feels like an old-school 2D game trapped in a three-dimensional world. A tad bit on the easy side, but is an enjoyable adventure for platform fans.