Its cartoonish visuals and clever puzzles should entertain while it lasts.
The first thing you should notice as you load up the game is its colourful, claymation-style graphics and cartoonish setting. It almost makes you feel as though you're playing through a Wallace & Gromit film, and it should amuse you as you play through the game.
But greater amusement comes from Woody's mission: to play pranks on your disgusting neighbour as he tries to unwind on a cruise around the world and make his life the hell from whence he came from. You track him around the world, with stages set on the cruiser and three continents around the world, including Asia and South America. You are then dropped into the stage as Woody, with a side-on perspective of the action, and the mischief begins.
Here's how it works: your neighbour roams around the level, doing pretty much whatever he pleases, from the adventurous (water-skiing) to the vile (spitting off a bridge). You have to study the neighbour's routine and plan out some clever pranks for him to fall victim to, referred to as traps. This action is helped by a mind-reader mechanic at the bottom of the screen that shows what the neighbour is thinking, namely what he is about to do next. You then walk around as Woody, setting up these traps mostly with key items he'll need to pick up. Then it's time to sit back and watch the guilty pleasure as your neighbour suffers through his deserved misfortune. For each trap, Woody earns a coin, which he must collect a certain amount of to finish the stage.
It's a bit more complex then this, however, as many factors start to come into play and add a great deal of depth and strategy to trapping. A few guests have come travelling with the neighbour: his "delightful" mother and her dog, and Olga, a tourist whom the neighbour is infatuated with, and her little boy. Woody is able to set up traps that can involve Olga and the mother, leading to a severe beat-down on the neighbour. Likewise, if anything wrong happens to their little burdens, the dog and the boy, they'll be running to the neighbour to show him their definitions of "motherly love".
Another feature is the dexterity tests, in which Woody is able to involve himself in a minigame which allows him to pick locks, work machines and the like, with the aid of a specific item. When he activates a test, a small cursor and target appears on screen, and you must move the cursor so that it stays in the centre of the target. This cursor skitters around randomly, however, and it is part of the test's challenge to keep it in the centre for a certain period of time. Once Woody is successful, he may find a new item or even lay out a new trap.
As the game continues, logic weaves its way in more and more as the puzzles and stages themselves become more creative and challenging. Players will find themselves thinking and planning hard to find every trap in the stage, which earns a prize, and without getting caught by the cantankerous neighbour or his mother. You can even set up the traps in such a sequential way that the neighbour lose control, which is helped along by an anger meter on the side of the screen. If it tops out, so does he and Woody earns himself yet another prize. This seems as though it would give the game a lot of replay value, but the game is still tragically over in a short number of hours. While the rewards do give a reason, albeit slim, to keep playing and scratching your head, you'll still be left disappointed when you see the credits roll.
Another possible shortcoming is the game's sound. The music comprises of only three jazzy tracks, and an additional three that are each stylised for the regions that Woody visits. It's a large lack of variety in the sound as well, as you'll constantly hear the same character grumbles and laughs, and an audience laugh track that plays again and again as Woody pulls off a trap.
But past that is a fairly unique game that puzzle-strategy fans should definitely give a try for its surprising creativity and colourful visuals. But too much like any great holiday, you be quite saddened when it's over so soon.