This game fits somewhere in between a bad apple and a golden delicious.
I must give this game credit for being able to push through certain barriers. Big Idea has been able to allow Christian programming to break through into the entertainment industry that can be enjoyed by a wide audience, and carefully balance positive messages with fun. This game is no different. It reminds me a lot of the old TV shows from the 80's where the episode itself would be fun to watch, and at the end they take a short time to recap the important message of the day. In the game they do the same. You're not doing any learning during game-play, however at the end they throw an important moral your way. It all revolves around the dangers of temptation, whether that be with candy, toys, movies, and yes, even playing video games. Although God is mentioned a few times, they are able to keep the experience from sounding preachy, and instead focus on values that would be healthy for anyone to follow. It's not the best platformer out there, but it does deserve points for being the best example I've seen to blend the learning of important lessons with fun game-play.
It's not as much of an action platformer as it is a puzzle platformer. Now the puzzles themselves are not all that complicated, but for being based on a branded kids movie they do a good job at making it more than just switch puzzles. You'll have to use your water gun to activate some switches, suction-cup-rope lines to rappel up to higher levels and hit switches, as well as abilities to turn into a heavy metal weight, and a electrically charged form so you can power up various equipment.
There's also a surprisingly large amount of combat depth for this kind of title. You have a spin attack which you can use to hit certain enemies or to deflect shots back at cannons, and other bad guys will need to be led into traps to be stopped. It's nothing revolutionary, but when you consider similar kids titles it does offer more than I expected.
You'll also do a lot of box smashing and exploring if you want to collect and unlock everything, which could included artwork, video clips from the movie or silly songs to listen to (a common staple in the Veggie Tales universe).
There's 5 worlds, each with it's own easily distinguishable visual style. These go from medieval themes, to space stations. One level even tossed a curve ball, and had a brief 2.5D, side-scroller style area.
All the characters that voice the Veggie Tales in the movies and TV shows do the voices here with the same effort and professionalism.
The biggest drawback in the game your character's mobility, but this is kind of a catch-22. I mean, you play as a cucumber, so how agile can you be? You also move just like the character from the series, which is good for keeping true to the source material. The problem is that he hops. He hops well, in the sense that it's not a jerky motion when you move, but it's slow, and imprecise. This makes timing certain jumps and moves harder than it should be. Jumping is slow too. This wouldn't be bad, but if you hold the jump button down Larry goes into Glide mode where he's suddenly moving twice as fast. The sudden change in speed can be distracting. The camera can also make some jumps harder than it needs to be. It would be forgivable if the controls were a little better.
Not really a solid platformer on it's own, but it is a fun adventure for fans of Veggie Tales, and worth playing if you're looking for games with positive messages that aren't sickly overstated throughout the game-play.