Features

• Spend a day at Universal Studios and enjoy the rides
• Play as one of six different characters
• More than eight different rides to choose from
• Receive hints and guidance from cartoon character Woody Woodpecker
• Answer hundreds of trivia questions
• Solve special puzzles
• Collect stamps to unlock new areas
• One and two-player games

Gameplay and Impressions
Universal Studios Park Adventure is clearly targeted to a younger audience. The game has no real story. Players simply choose a character, each presumably from different ethnic origin judging by appearance, and they're off. The adventure begins shortly after gamers meet up with Woody Woodpecker at the center of the park. He explains, in an all-too-goofy voice, the basics of the title and which rides are immediately accessible. The goal of players is to earn stamps, which are rewarded for rides completed, trivia answered and puzzles solved. The stamps, once collected, unlock new areas that can then be explored and played through, whereupon the process repeats itself.

There are roughly eight different modes of play separated by the theme park overworld that players manipulate. The different modes, characterized as rides, include Jurassic Park; Back to the Future; Jaws; Backdraft; Wild, Wild, Wild West Stunt Show; E.T. Adventure; and Animated Celebration. There are also trivia and puzzle mini-games.

Players take to a four-wheel jeep and burn rubber over a bumpy road in the dinosaur-infested park. But they quickly encounter a hungry T-Rex that aims to have them as dinner. A chase right out of the movie ensues. Gamers must shoot the T-Rex with a mountain gun on the back of the jeep and press the right button during triggered events (see: "Hold L to dodge"). It's a very simple process -- an on-screen target is manipulated with the analog stick and two types of gunfire can be shot -- and obviously intended for a young crowd of enthusiasts.

Biff Tannen has escaped with Doc's DeLorean and traveled into the depths of time. Players must hop into the spare DeLorean and chase after him. The pursuit leads gamers through a city environment, an icy tunnel and lava filled worlds, to name just a few. Again, it's immediately clear that the play is designed for novice gamers, as the speed of the cars feels decidedly slow moving, and the roads are exceptionally wide so as to not crash into walls. The goal of this ride is to crash into Biff's DeLorean and render it useless.

Players find themselves on a deserted boat out in the middle of the ocean, but they're not alone. The waters are infested with the famous killer-shark from the theme park and he's definitely hungry. The only way to stop the determined shark from tearing the boat and gamers apart is to pick up crates located on the ship and throw them at him when he approaches. The process, like all of the other mini-games in the title, isn't terribly difficult.

Ron Howard's feature-film is born to life again as a videogame. A building is one fire and players must guide their character through it to rescue helpless, stranded victims and put out fires. Here gamers control the character with the analog stick and manipulate them through the burning buildings with a scheme similar to that of the Resident Evil series. Pre-rendered environments and switching camera angles occasionally prove problematic as the control changes with the camera angle. Hopefully Kemco can correct this oversight before launch.

Similar to Virtua Cop in play control, except in the Wild, Wild (Wild) West. Gamers move a target up, down, left and right and shoot at various cardboard cutout figures. A computer-controlled player competes against them for the best score. Two human players may also compete against one-another. When a group of targets is blown away in one area, the camera pans to the left or right and new enemies emerge.

In the E.T. Adventure, which is not pictured, players ride a bike with the extraterrestrial on the handlebars. The task is an easy one -- guide him to the end of a city street. Like the classic game Paper Boy, there are number of obstacles that stand in the way of competing the mini-game, including parked and moving cars, for example. In Quiz Mode, meanwhile, players are asked to answer more than 500 different movie-related questions from "What is the sequel to Silence of the Lambs?" to "What kind of animal is Babe?" Finally, a puzzle mode featured in the game mixes up pictures of characters or scenes and asks gamers to correctly arrange the titles to complete the puzzle.

All of the modes come together for an enjoyable enough experience. But none of them play with a complexity or depth typical of many next-generation products. With very little challenge and simplified control schemes, adult gamers will quickly grow bored.

Graphics, Technology and Sound
Universal Studios uses a combination of pre-rendered and real-time environments to re-create the Osaka, Japan-based park in videogame form. The look of the game's overworld is static, somewhat colorful and cartoony, but realistic enough. Polygonal computer-controlled characters walk aimlessly through the environments to add a level of life. The sub-levels feature simplistic visuals, low polygon models and are sometimes hampered by incredibly poor and low-resolution background textures. Animation is robotic, but in one or two areas -- the Backdraft stage, for example, we noticed some impressively executed real-time character shadows that cast and morphed onto walls. All of the levels featured movie orchestrated music that sounds great. It's definitely an advantage of GameCube's optical discs and gamers learned in Nintendo 64 audio samples will immediately hear the difference.

Outlook
Kemco has taken some commendable steps to inject variety into this unique theme park adventure, but the title's lack of any gameplay depth and simplistic, almost primitive look is bound to turn older players away from it. On the other hand, parents may find the colorful and cartoony mini-games charming -- particularly the Backdraft and Back to the Future levels.