Bruce Von Stiers
In what is becoming a growing trend, software companies are pairing up with movie and television studios to produce games based on characters from shows. Disney is enjoying such a relationship with Ubi Soft. There is a new Disney Interactive game that is being distributed by Ubi Soft. This game is based on the Donald Duck characters from Disney. The name of the PlayStation console game is Disney's Donald Duck Goin' Quackers.
The storyline in Goin' Quackers is kind of cute. Daisy Duck is an ace reporter. She is attempting a scoop by presenting viewers with an inside look into the lair of the evil magician Merlock. Just when Daisy is about to reveal all, the video feed is cut off. Now it is up to her boyfriend, Donald Duck, to save her. But Donald has competition from his cousin, Gladstone Gander, who is kind of sweet on Daisy. If Gladstone could save Daisy, she might be his girlfriend and dump old Donald.
In order to rescue Daisy, Donald will have to use the teleporter invented by Gyro Gearloose. But there are things that are needed to make the teleporter work.
There are three main goals in Goin' Quackers. The first is to collect energy balls. An energy ball will open up the warp pad to the Boss summit for each level of the game. When you reach the summit, the Boss will have to be defeated. After this is done, a Gyro-Gamma-Tubal-Teleport weathervane is placed at the top of the summit. When all of these weathervanes are placed, Donald can then be transported into Merlock's lair.
The second goal of the game is to find all of the toys of Donald's nephews. Huey, Louie and Dewey lost their toys due to an evil spell by Merlock. It is up to Donald to rescue the toys and break the spell that Merlock had put them under. If Donald is successful, he will get to go to the Bonus Level.
The third goal is to beat the time of Gladstone. This rival for Daisy's attention issues a challenge. Donald has to beat Gladstone's time in each level. That means that every level has to be replayed, only you (as Donald) will have to beat Gladstone's time each and every time. I won't tell you what happens if you loose, but you can guess.
Not only does Donald have to put up with the wacky Gyro and that cad, Gladstone, there are some real nasties he has to contend with. There is Bernadette The Bird who guards the summit like it was her own. Then there are the Beagle Boys. These bumbling bunch of thieves are always in the way and never seem to be too successful at being criminals. Magica De Spell reigns in as an evil sorceress who hates Donald so much that her spells towards him go wrong. If she would pay more attention to the spells and less attention to her hatred of Donald, she wouldn't be making so many mistakes. And finally, there is Merlock himself. If only Donald could get Daisy out of Merlock's dastardly clutches.
When you strip away all of the Disney cuteness, the game is like most of the adventure games out there. There are puzzles to solve, characters to fight and a girl to rescue. My son compared some of the elements of the game to Crash Bandicoot. The game even has hit points for the fighting sequences.
If you into Donald Duck this game will be great fun. Even if you aren't a Donald fan, this is an enjoyable game. The violence isn't too terrible and the villains are cartoonish (as well they should be).
Disney's Donald Duck Goin' Quackers is now, or soon will be, available wherever PlayStation games are sold. You can get a copy through the Ubi Soft web site as well. The web site is www.ubisoft.com.
© 2001 Bruce E. Von Stiers