Toonstruck

Toonstruck, Virgin's beautifully drawn new PC game, plunges you into a wacky, colorful cartoon world in the style of the movie Cool World. Christopher Lloyd of Back to the Future fame stars as animator Drew Blanc, who's sucked into the universe of his own comics. With the help of his bud Flux Wildly, Drew must wade through zany puzzles and booby traps to defeat Count Nefarious. The puzzle-oriented gameplay fills three CDs with brain busters and slapstick laughs as you interact with more than 40 characters on the way home.

Gorgeous hand-drawn graphics are blended with live-action video to create the feel of humans in a cartoon world, and a star-studded lineup of voice actors-Dan Castallan-etta, Dom DeLuise, and Tim Curry-backs up the action with high-quality voice-overs. Not one to miss!

A takeoff on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Toonstruck includes the voices of Tim Curry, Dan Castal-laneta, Dom DeLuise, and David Ogden Stiers, as well as real-action video starring Christopher Lloyd.

Lloyd stars as Drew Blanc, a jaded animator whose years of work on the Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show have left him cynical. When Drew's transported into a cartoon world, anything goes. The game's raucous plot is adventure gameplay filled with wacky gags, puzzles, more than 100 hand-painted scenes to explore, and dozens of characters to meet.

Toonstruck is an enjoyable point and-click adventure filled with perplexing puzzles, great graphics, personality, and humor. Although it lags at times, it contains an excellent blend of puzzle-solving and cartoon animation. It's like an interactive Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Trapped In Toonland

In Toonstruck, you play an overworked cartoonist, aptly named Drew Blanc (played by Christopher Lloyd), who becomes trapped in his own cartoon world. Together with his buddy Flux, another of his cartoon creations, Drew must not only find a way back to Earth, but he must save the cartoon world he created.

Flawless controls help you execute every movement nicely and are perfect for the simpie point-and-click play engine. As you move Drew and Flux around the cartoon world, gathering clues and collecting objects, the pointer changes shape whenever you pass over a useful interactive object. However, you don't have to just rely only on Drew to solve puzzles and beat tough situations. Flux also has useful skills, such as squeezing through small doorways and reaching inaccessible areas, to name a few.

Toon Graphics

Excellent graphics flesh out the plot and bring the animated world to life. All the cartoon animation moves fluidly and the integration of Blanc's live action video into the animated world is, for the most part, seamless. The only exceptions are the long cinemas that look a bit grainy and the close-ups of Drew, which suffer from pixelization.

Whimsical themes that play like they came out of a Saturday morning cartoon compose the sound. The voices (by a variety of stars including Tim Curry and Dorn DeLuise) are clear and audible.

Yap, Yap, Yap

If there is anything that detracts from Toonstruck, it's the dialogue. The game tends to get bogged down with too much talking. There are self-indulgent speeches, bad puns, and jokes that are repeatedly pounded into your head. The chatter becomes tedious, but because most of the clues are gathered by talking to various characters, you may miss important clues if you bypass the dialogue. How much this detracts from the game probably depends on how patient you are.

Even though it talks too much, Toonstruck provides hours of puzzles and fun. You'll be struck by this unique blend of animation and live action.