Despite Garfield's worldwide success as a cartoon character, he hasn't made a smash in the game world unfortunately.
1. Boring story with no sense of danger and/or mission.
2. Short levels that leave no room for creativity or leisure exploration.
3. The game is so simple, it would make a perfect website game.
4. Again, watch a clip of the game-play on YouTube instead of playing it yourself.
So, if you want the lowdown on the story in the game, read GameSpot's review. But here's what happens for game-play and why I was disappointed with the overall experience:
The graphics are, firstly, very well done for a 2D DS game. There are different layers, which presents a great deal of depth. Garfield and Odie look great like their comic book counterparts. But besides that, the rest of the game is 'blah!' As Garfield, you walk around certain levels and collect food and specific items in order to move on to the next level. The thing that gets me is the fact that Garfield's health, or energy meter, constantly drains like a bucket of water with holes punched out on the bottom. And so for players to replenish that meter, they must walk and jump to where the food is and gobble it up before Garfield falls asleep. If he falls asleep, as he will the first few times you play, you then take control of Odie, who has to find one of the many alarm clocks scattered around the level. After retrieving one of the clocks, you then bring it back to Garfield to wake him up and thus fill his energy meter to the max, only to see it drain again.
Now, Garfield can claw enemies, which are spiders, birds, dogs, rats, and mailmen. If the pudgy puss happens upon a cup of coffee, he'll temporarily become invincible and crazed for awhile, thrashing about like a wild cat (ahem). And as Odie, you can slurp and stun enemies with his large tongue. Garfield can also ride on Odie for short distances, enabling the two to jump long gaps. There are levels where you only ride Odie the whole time, collecting toy balls and, yes, more food. A couple of hang-gliding levels are pleasing to look at, but again, very dull and boring.
So, the story is obviously based off of the TV show, or one of the episodes. I prefer the comic books and the old Garfield cartoons over this or any Garfield video game. So be wary, unless the price is under $5. This game is not worthy of a DS title. It's too bad, though, because so much could be done with Garfield, but sadly, the right people haven't gotten their hands on the tubby tabby to give him a game worthy of his fame.
So that's it. I think it's great that Garfield has his own video games, but they just don't bring the punches as they should, especially this game. Thanks for reading.