The Lion King Review

If The Lion King is truly an allegory for Hamlet, its mobile incarnation involves a lot more pointless jumping than one may remember there being in Shakespeare's classic. Now available on Verizon Wireless, The Lion King puts you in the role of Simba, the would-be ruler of the animal kingdom.

Obstacle-evasion makes up the majority of Lion King's unchallenging gameplay. You must guide the cute lion-prince past such pitfalls as swarms of bees, sleeping, leaf-pile-like hyenas, and slippery moss. The Lion King is a platformer in the simplest sense of the word.

Audio-visually, The Lion King is decidedly last-gen. The game seems to be rendered in stop motion, so it can only periodically be bothered to actually animate motion. Seriously, this game is jerkier than "snapping into a Slim Jim." As for its sound, The Lion King features only a scant few noises, included to remind you that your ears haven't fallen off. When you die, a five-note ditty loops incessantly to a backdrop of laughing hyenas--who are presumably the ones that look like leaf piles in the game.

Even given its target kiddie audience, The Lion King falls short. Mobile gamers are no longer content with such low production values. The Lion King is sooo 2K2.