Throughout the town of Whoville, all the happy Whos were snug in their beds. Not a creature was stirring, that is, except the Grinch. Similar to its PlayStation cousin, the Dreamcast version of The Grinch is a 3D action game that aims to re-create the motion picture experience. As the Grinch, your job is to use your dastardly inventions to undo the Whos' holiday preparations. Unfortunately, your blueprints blew away, so in your quest to perform devilish deeds, you'll also need to reacquire these handy documents.
The overarching goal of the game is to wander the land in search of blueprints in order to rebuild the Grinch's twisted inventions, while simultaneously ruining Whoville's Christmas celebration. There are four huge environments--Whoville, Whoforest, the Dumps, and Wholake--each with its own distinct features and goals. For example, while acquiring the pieces to the Grinch's octopus climbing device in the dump, you'll also short-circuit the electrical system and poison the mayor's house with toxic gas. In all, there are 24 missions to complete, 3000 presents to destroy, and 68 blueprint pieces to collect. You can play as either the Grinch or his faithful dog, Max, swapping between the two with a quick tap of the D-pad. As the Grinch, you can run, jump, expel your rotten breath, and make use of an ever increasing gadget collection that includes a rotten egg launcher, a Grinch copter, and even a submarine. Just don't let the Whos catch you, or you'll begin to fill up the Grinch's exhaust-o-meter. Lose consciousness and you'll find yourself back at the beginning of the level, but you won't lose any of the progress you've made. Since you can't ultimately fail, the game is somewhat trivial, but the challenge level is well within the range of fun-loving youngsters.
As the scores attest, The Grinch is by no means a perfect game, mostly due to an overwhelming reliance on exploration. By requiring you to destroy presents, sabotage ski vacations, and otherwise disrupt Whoville's Christmas celebration, The Grinch faithfully adheres to Dr. Seuss' vision of the character, but since you're never really given any directions on how to accomplish the mission goals, the vision can easily become frustrating. In the meantime, you'll spend the majority of your time smashing presents, searching for tools, and hunting down blueprint segments--all of which are scattered about willy-nilly, as if no thought whatsoever went into designing the game's levels. In small doses, terrorizing the Whos and fulfilling mission objectives is fun, but there's no way anyone has enough patience to complete all 24 missions within a comfortable time frame. This isn't a recipe for greatness, but there is a children's game in here somewhere.
The real downfall of the PlayStation version of The Grinch is its visuals, but the Dreamcast game isn't susceptible to similar problems. On Sega's 128-bit machine, The Grinch is a pleasant winter wonderland that remains faithful to the setting of the story. Smoke-filled chimneys, lightly falling snow, and transparent water create a realistic rendition of the far-fetched land of Whoville. Slowdown is minimal, clipping is rare, and the majority of each level fills the screen no matter where you look. The trees, buildings, and windows don't disappear in the distance as they do in the PlayStation version of the game. There are times when the game's textures are overly blurry, but overall, seeing Whoville brought to life is heartwarming.
The game's music and voice acting have also been improved since the PlayStation version. The soundtrack has better sound depth, meaning you can better feel the bass and treble underlying each dreary piece. There isn't any actual music from the movie, but the game's sound engineers have done a decent job of mimicking the motion picture's soundtrack. The voice acting is good, with the interactions between the Whos and the Grinch greatly advancing the game's mischievous plot. It's pretty clear that it isn't Jim Carrey portraying the Grinch in the video game, but the auditory resemblance to the movie character is uncanny. The sound effects, while lacking in variety, are crisp. Furthermore, unlike the PlayStation version, the game's audio doesn't sound as if it was sampled in a cave.
Thanks to a number of improvements, the Dreamcast version of The Grinch is actually an enjoyable game--provided you're part of its intended audience. Die-hard action-game players will find the game far too easy and much too tedious to be of any real value, but children and Dr. Seuss fans should be well satisfied.
