Thanks to Mom Central, we received a free copy of the new Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa game for the Wii to try out. We all enjoyed the movie, and looked forward to trying out the game as a family.
When the game arrived, Alex couldn't wait to try it out. The game features bold, colorful graphics, and some great animation that helps you relive some parts of the movie. The voices are very similar, if not the same, to the actors in the movie. The new character I like best is "Moto Moto" (played by Will.i.am in the movie), who is the animal kingdom's answer to Barry White.
We thought the game would allow us to adopt the avatars of our favorite characters and play against each other, but we couldn't figure out how to do that. This is really a single-player game, but has a some multi-player tournament games where you can compete in carnival-like games based on well-known children's games like hot potato (here, "Stinky Durian") and musical chairs. We enjoyed playing these games against each other. All of them would be suitable for younger children.
I never got the hang of the diving competition game, in which you use the remote to make one of the hippos twist, flip, and turn in the air and get a score from a panel of judges. Alex got good at this one very fast, but he's a lot more familiar with the Wii remote buttons than I am.
The game has 12 levels, and uses various skills of the different characters to kick soccer balls, swim, catch butterflies, and perform other activities. We haven't gotten very far on the levels yet, which is a good thing since Alex tends to abandon games after he's mastered all the levels.
What I liked about this game were the friendly, recognizable characters, the fact that there were some lovely graphics. The game is rated E+10 for 10 years and up, but I thought the tournament games would be suitable for younger children. The rating is based on mild cartoon violence, some suggestive themes (Moto Moto is a, shall we say, "ladies man"), and simulated gambling. I thought this game was fine for 8 year old Alex, and there is nothing worse than what you see in the movie, as far as I could tell. If your kids could handle the action in the movie, they will probably be able to handle the game.
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