Information
Reviewed On: DS
Available On: DS
Players: 1
Rating: G
Genre: Childrens
Developer: Black Lantern Studios
Distributor: 2K Play
Release: 6 March 2008
In Short...
"Want a poorly presented, boring as hell game that lasts for literally 10 minutes? Well, here ya go!"
Dora the Explorer:
Dora Saves the Mermaids
Ola! Welcome to the world of Dora the Explorer, an apparently Spanish young girl who talks with an American accent, except when she’s speaking Spanish. MAKES SENSE RIGHT! Throw your logic out the window and join me for this wild ride of blood, sweat and tears!
D - D - D - Dora!
D - D - D - Dora!
First off, thanks to Matt Williams for sending me this awesome piece of software. Seriously, much appreciated, mate! This is a game where stuff happens. Stuff is going down, and it’s up to Dora to do stuff to aid/destroy this stuff. I seriously have no idea what this game is about. My best guess goes something like this: Dora and her friend (a monkey of some sort), are being GOOD PEOPLE by cleaning up rubbish from the beach, when they find a crown. Now, as anyone would in this situation, they automatically assume it’s a mermaid’s crown and set out to return it to her.
The journey consists of several minigames which you partake in. FOR FUN TIMES. The minigames consist of tapping the touchscreen as fast as you can (seriously, that’s all you do – you don’t even have to do it in a particular spot), moving Dora past obstacles to get to a goal, counting to 9 (it’s harder than it looks...what’s after 7 again?), saying something ridiculous into the mic or tapping rubbish on the touch screen to clean it up.
The minigames are....um.....zany? One sees you helping dancing pirate pigs (they are doing the conga! FOR SOME REASON!) get past palm trees (WITH EYES!) by tapping the touchscreen however you want. Though I swear I just let it sit there (without touching the screen) and I still won. Though those palm trees intrigue me. What is their motivation? Why are they trying to stop the pirate pigs? Did they steal coconuts or something? And why does the conga allow the pigs to get past? Were all the children of the palm trees killed in a conga dancing accident or something, and now they are scared of that particular dance? Another game sees you tapping specific types of fish for no real reason. Cod and barracuda, perhaps? NO IT’S CATFISH, DOGFISH, COWFISH and CHICKENFISH! HOW SILLY OF YOU FOR THINKING OTHERWISE! This area of water must have been close to a nuclear testing site or something. Though I can’t help but wonder how cowfish and chickenfish meat tastes... Yumtastic I bet! Also, according to my Word dictionary, cowfish is a word, but chickenfish isn’t. ARE MICROSOFT CREATING COWFISH IN A LABORATORY SOMEWHERE? Another game sees you stopping an evil octopus who is fishing for mermaids by (you guessed it) tapping the touchscreen. But but but..... why is an octopus fishing? HOW IS HE BREATHING OUT OF THE WATER? But when I stop him, he seems pretty happy about it. DID I FALL RIGHT INTO HIS TRAP? Did he WANT me to do that?
It should be noted that no matter how hard I tried, these minigames were impossible to stuff up and Dora could not die. At all. To this end, I believe the game should be titled Dora the Immortal Spanish Thing. After I turned her into a mermaid, she could breathe underwater, despite the only change occurring being her legs becoming a tail. But maybe there was a system of gills hidden somewhere... (get your mind out of the gutter!).
So 10 minutes after starting playing, I had beaten the game. Apparently, according to Dora, they could not have done it without me! HEAR THAT, MUM! I AM USEFUL! YAY!
OK, so I haven’t been all that serious in this review. Perhaps I am not the target audience of this game, and I haven’t even heard of Dora the Explorer before this. It’s aimed at little kids and fans of the IP, and they might enjoy it, but it only lasts 10 minutes. Literally. Graphics consist of pixelated sprites with barely two frames of animation, and the sound, while it does include a fair amount of speech, is just annoying. I mean, how many times can I hear her say “GARBAGE!” before I’m annoyed? There are better titles for kids out there that will actually be worth your money. I can’t even recommend this to your little sister/daughter – it’s just not worth it. Unless you REALLY need to learn to count to 10 in Spanish.
By watchers_eye
The Verdict
Graphics: F Shockingly pixelated, barely animated spritesSound: D+ Annoying as hell, but at least there’s a decent amount of speech
Gameplay: F Tapping a screen randomly is gameplay now?
Want a poorly presented, boring as hell game that lasts for literally 10 minutes? Well, here ya go!