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Whiplash PS2 Eidos/Crystal Dynamics  Once
upon a time there was a little, fluffy white bunny named Redmond.
Redmond was taken by an evil company named Genron and handcuffed to
a ferret named Spanx. They were on their way to have their genes spliced
together when Spanx decided to escape Genron's clutches by using Redmond
as a flail, ice block, balloon, flaming ball of destruction or any
one of a thousand painful uses. So goes the story of 'Whiplash.' The player controls Spanx, and in turn, Redmond, in this 'Jak And Daxter'/'Ratchet And Clank' clone. The goal is to escape the Genron Company building while freeing all of your trapped little buddies and destroying as much of Genron as possible. Spanx resembles that little weasel from Looney Tunes' Foghorn Leghorn cartoons, but with wires sparking out from his head. He remains comparatively silent throughout the game, especially when the comparison is Redmond who's quite a mouthy little fellow. The game's success lies in its humour and Whiplash has it in spades. Redmond provides much of the comic relief, spouting a wide range of sound barks that rarely get irritating. The gameplay itself is fine, being a relatively standard platformer, stuffed to the gills with laser security grids, floating platforms etc. Unfortunately the game seems to be a little rushed with some fairly major bugs such as physics walls being non-existent and AI problems but these can all be escaped in some way or other. The puzzles and platforms are another story; there are some levels, which require the player to get the timing absolutely perfect before continuing, and this can only be achieved by failing repeatedly. There is one particular aspect of the game that I found to be truly above average and that is the sound. Each environment creates a different ambience through music and sound effects, be it Spanx's little rodent feet slapping against the metal of a ventilation shaft or the psychedelic warping of everything when he's hit by a tranquilliser dart. While not being graphically spectacular, the humour is well above the level of many other similar games. This makes 'Whiplash' definitely one of the better games of the platform genre but its glitches unfortunately hold it back. I look forward to a sequel and pray to the great Gaming Gods that the team at Crystal Dynamics take a bit more care in what they release.  |
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