You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch...
Thinking about it now, I never would have guessed that when I first saw the Dr. Seuss masterpiece "How the Grinch stole Christmas" that there would be a game based on this. I really enjoy playing this game over and over again simply because of my love for the mean green guy, but I won't let my love for The Grinch make me give this game a 10 because it really isn't that special if you take away my childhood memories.
You play as The Grinch, obviously, and your job is to go from place to place and wreck Christmas (just like in the cartoon), only this time, The Grinch has prepared severely and has an entire book on how to sabotage Christmas as well as numerous gadgets to help him along the way. The only problem is that The Grinch has accidentally lost all of his blueprints for the construction of the gadgets. So now he has to go out and destroy Christmas while collecting the blueprints he lost. There are four levels where the Grinch needs to cause havoc.
Inside The Grinches book there are Grinchy tasks he must complete. Those task vary from smashing all snowmen to hooking the mayors bed to a motor-boat it's pure GENIUS. Most of the tasks really seem like something the Grinch would do if he lived in a modern Whoville. Speaking of Whoville, that is the first level. Standard I'd say. The second one is Who Forest, I guess the forest that is located near Whoville. The Third level is the Dump. The Dump?! Seriously? What can the Grinch do there to prevent Christmas from coming, stash the dump in Whoville? Come to think of it, that would have been kinda cool, but unfortunately the Grinch doesn't do such a thing. Finally, Wholake. Ummm... a frozen lake near whoville, one would say? Well no, there actually isn't any snow there. The Grinch instead causes beach wrecking havoc. So as you can tell, the last two levels don't really fit in the whole Grinch story but they aren't that terrible. Overall the game is faithful to the original story, which is more than I can say about that terrible "The Grinch" movie!
On each of these levels the Grinch has to do 4 tasks in order to advance to the next one.
All levels share one same task, which is destroying presents! This is, in my opinion, the best collection system ever. I mean, Mario needs to collect coins, Sonic collect's rings and the Grinch... doesn't collect anything, instead he says: "To heck with all that", and smashes gifts with his rear end. Pure Genius.
As far as Gadgets are concerned they are mostly optional. Only if you want to beat the game a 100% will you need all the gadgets, but believe me, it is worth it, as you will get a nice special stage for a perfectly completed game. The gadget's vary from First person shooting weapons like the Rotten Egg launcher to gadgets that help you reach places out of bounds like the Octopus climbing device or the Grinch copter. Like I said, you don't need them all in order to beat the game, but you will if you want to do all the tasks and so on...
The Grinches most used weapon is his breath. Which he uses to scare off annoying Whos and melt things. He can also do his pancake stomp which is mostly used to stomp presents. He can also summon his dog Max to scout areas and get into small holes.
The controls work great, especially on the Dreamcast. The game is the same on both PS and the PC but the Dreamcast version is the best, because you don't need to install the game and there are little to no loading screens.
The graphics are OK. They could have been better for the time but I really can't complain. You have a polygon world to explore which isn't that impressive but still not ugly to look at.
The music fits perfectly in the game. Though it's nothing special, it will put you in a good mood.
One thing I have to mention before I wrap this up is the weirdest and stupidest thing in the game. One of the Grinches blueprint can build a submarine! Yes a submarine? Why does the Grinch need a submarine? Well, to destroy underwater presents and to modify it with seaweed so he can scare the three children that are playing near the lake. Wow I can already see how Christmas will be ruined with this stunt: " Mommy, Mommy, there was a big huge thing coming out from the water!" , "OH dear, what can we do, I think we have no choice but to cancel Christmas until this has been investigated!" . The Grinch sure is hardcore at this Christmas sabotaging!
Well, all in all, it's an ok game! It's a great game if you want to clear your mind and have fun wrecking things. Then again, if you are a Grinch fan, like yours truly, or if you are a mean one, like yours truly, you will simply love this game too much that you won't even care about it's flaws.