As someone who isn’t going to rush to a theatre to watch Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa under the pretense that the movie is a zany, child-oriented, animal adventure cashing in on celebrity voice acting, I started playing the Madagascar 2 game with that same notion. Turns out I was half right. Chris Rock decided to opt out of participating in this babysitter-stand-in-game.

Gameplay:

I’m not going to try to be overly cute or cynical or smarmy here, I’m just going to be straightforward. Madagascar 2 wasn’t developed from the ground up to be a deep, engrossing adventure with intuitive combat and RPG elements. It’s a kids game designed around kid-friendly gameplay. The game centers, not surprisingly, around Alex, Gloria, Melman and Marty. Occasionally the game will switch to the penguins or to another minor character, but it usually isn’t for long. Alex handles the action platform aspects of the games, Gloria handles the swimming segments, Melman handles the aerial parts (which makes absolutely zero sense to me since Melman is a giraffe!), and Marty handles…well, everything else. There are a few deviations where you’ll see Gloria on land, for example, but otherwise that’s the law of the land. Everything is pretty standard fare here. There are coins to collect, items to gather and power-ups to use, and the exploration parts are divided up by Insomniac-inspired mini-games (although Ratchet & Clank, this isn’t). You’re pretty much guided from point to point, and even in the larger level hubs it’s difficult to miss the next mission. Despite the gameplay having these subdivisions, everything part of the game is played with only the four face buttons and the left stick, making gameplay very, very, very simple. I can’t give a high score to the gameplay for pretty obvious reasons, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a gameplay abortion on the same level of something like, say, Drake (and if you don’t get this reference, please consider yourself very, very fortunate).

Madagascar 2 accomplishes what it sets out to do: make the game very accessible for young children. The only real contention I have with the gameplay is that the back of the box reads that the game is intended for ages 10 and up. I’ve not met a 10 year old that wouldn’t laugh at the simplicity of this game. I would recommend to anyone buying this to only do so for a child than is 8 and under. If they are old enough to pick up and operate an Xbox 360 controller independently, they are old enough to figure out how to play this game.

Graphics:

The graphics are actually pretty nice because of some attractive fur shading and, surprising, some very pretty water. The rocks do a good job of looking like rocks (whether or not it’s GOOD that I was noticing a well rendered rock is debatable). The Savannah, trees and really everything in general just looks very nice, crisp, and bright, feeling very appropriate for the title and its intended audience. While the aforementioned fur shading looks great on Alex and some of the other fuzzy characters, Gloria and Moto Moto have well rendered, leathery skin. The ironic part about the graphics, though, is that while the animations and movements look good (with a few exceptions), they can’t even come close to competing with the movie the game comes from. It isn’t a really big surprise since the Dreamworks film has a higher priority placed on its animation, but it is humorously ironic.

Sound:

I can summarize the sound with three sentences: There are no celebrity voice actors reprising their movie roles, only celebrity sound-a-likes standing in. If you like the humor and dialogue in the film, you’ll like the humor and dialogue in the game. The music sounds somewhat repetitive, but is largely an afterthought. Three sentences. Moving on.

Longevity:

I’m going to go middle-of-the-road with the longevity score. There are 12 levels total and a multiplayer “party game” mode that allows for up to four people to play simultaneously in case you need a babysitter for two to four kids instead of just the one. Parents, if your child has any experience as a gamer at all, don’t expect this title to last longer than two or three days tops, so this is definitely a rental unless you want to just go crazy with Madagascar 2 merchandise. It’s difficult for me to put a timestamp on the length of time it’ll take to finish this game. I simply can’t use my experience as an adult to make an accurate judgment on the length of time it will take a child to play through the entire game, and I don’t have any children of my own to test this out on, either. I’m firmly sticking with my rental judgment.

Overall:

There isn’t much left to say about Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. It’s a kids-only game in my book, but a decent kid-friendly game that shouldn’t frustrate the young player. It’ll help sate your children if they just can’t get enough of those crazy animals in the feature film, but it offers zero challenge at all and is really for a 6 year old audience (give or take a few years, depending on the child). I know that my 4- and 6-year-old cousins would be distracted by it, but ultimately finish it quickly and move on.