As big of a fan of Jackie Chan, I gotta admit...the man just cannot catch a break when it comes to video games. Apparently, the guy really likes games, but the gaming industry just doesn't like him back. I can't even find all the games that he's done. I know there was a bad fighting game that was in arcades, he had a NES game I played until the jumping parts pissed me off, there was a mediocre Playstation beat 'em up, and a GBA beat 'em up based off his Saturday morning cartoon show, but none of these have been anywhere close to as exceptional or as entertaining as Jackie's classic movies.
Well you can now add a misguided GBA movie marketing crossover to Jackie's list of games. Granted, Around the World in 80 Days isn't one of Jackie's finest cinematic moments. It was gone before even I (someone who willingly went to watch The Tuxedo) could get to see it in a theater. It's long been one of Jackie's dreams to make a nice lighthearted family film; life's too short and too cruel to deny a man his dream, so I've got no problems with him making this movie, even if it is as bad as the critics say.
However, it's one thing to make a movie others don't like because its your dream. It's another thing entirely to try and kick a half-assed licensed game out the door to jack some cash from the unwitting kiddies.
Plot
You're Passepartout, or rather Lau Xing...a Chinese martial artist who's just robbed the Jollie Olde Bank of England (Motto: "We use your extra vowels so they don't collect interest.") and is on the run from the local constables. You wind up in the backyard of a Mr. Phileas Fogg, inventor extraordinaire. His valet has once again quit, and Passepartout "smooth talks" him into hiring him as his new valet.
Fogg's cronies at the Hall of Stuffy Learned People are unimpressed by his latest invention, so he offers up a friendly bet to Kelvin, the head of the British Science Academy: Kelvin's position against Fogg's right to invent and priviledges to the Hall. Fogg accepts the wager and sets out on his quest to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days.
Gameplay
As Passepartout you run around jumping, kicking and punching bad guys. A punches, B jumps, and R kicks. You can do the familiar ledge grabs and wall bounces to jump higher. That's all folks. You have Jackie Chan, essentially as close a thing as there is to a live comic book character, and you distill him down to punch, jump, and kick. I realize Around the World in 80 Days really isn't one of Jackie's white-knuckle action movies and so he probably doesn't fight much...but if that's the case, you probably shouldn't have made a FIGHTING GAME to try and make use of the license, then.
Where this game truly shines is the dialogue. Have you ever seen the episode of Malcolm in the Middle where Francis invites a bunch of people back to his employer's ranch to film a movie, and it turns out they're shooting a porn movie? (Yes, now this page will turn up in searches for "Jackie Chan porn".) The dialogue ends up being eerily similar to the level of writing in the adult film they end up shooting in that episode:
Kelvin: "Nobody cares about your invention, someone's just robbed the Jollie Olde Monetary Repositorium of Englandshire!"
Fogg: "Well, that's because banks are old. Anyway, he's probably halfway to China by now."
Kelvin: "Are you saying you could circumnavigate the globe in 80 days?"
Fogg: "Yes."
Kelvin: "Well, we'll just bet on it then."
Fogg: "Ok, I'll just be on my merry circumnavigatory way now."
While I've taken some obvious liberty with the wording, that's pretty much the way the conversation unfolds, unlikely segue and all. There's lots of moments that are probably supposed to be comedic bits in the movie, but lose all traces of humor when translated to lines of text. If someone just put some effort into EDITING them so they weren't exchanges of dialogue blocks, they could have been worked into something remotely humorous. Alas, that would have required that someone associated with this game have remotely cared about making this game.
Graphics
I realize this is a GBA game, but even the truly awful games like Naruto 2 are still able to take some advantage of visuals. If you aren't going to bother making your game something better than awful, I mean, you gotta at least have some decent visuals, otherwise you're obviously not even trying at that point. The lamest part of the graphics is that the game is so flat visually speaking that you have an utter lack of cues to tell you where you're able to hang, climb, or bounce off of. Whether a building is in the foreground or the background is virtually impossible to discern without running straight into it.
Audio
The auditory portion of the game features the same song for 8 levels, with the same sound effects for 8 levels. This is a travesty, and a sham, and a mockery. The best thing about the audio is that you can turn it off.
Overall
Even at $20, Hip Games is just trying to steal your money. To be fair though, they're probably just trying to get the money back that Saffire stole from them when they agree to publish this train wreck. If you go look at the product descriptions, look at what the company has to say about the game:
"Play as Passepartout using a variety of kicks and punches to dispatch your enemies with signature Jackie Chan flair."
"Take advantage of Passepartout's agility and athletic ability to perform daring acrobatic moves and fight like a master in hand-to-hand combat."
"Use the highly interactive environment to help you progress by climbing buildings, crossing narrow wires, jumping off walls, bouncing off canopies, and sprining from ledge to ledge."
That's 3 different ways to say, "Fight and perform Jackie Chan's signature acrobatic maneuvers." This game is so lacking, they had to describe what they feel is their game's best point 3 different times, so that you really feel like you're getting some actual value out of this. News flash: You're not fooling anyone.
Hip Games could have done a better job with this by just making it a straight up NES Kung Fu ripoff and went for the nostalgia angle. It even starts out that way with the damage numbers appearing over the enemies. I started feelin' it for the first two attackers, and then I realized there wasn't anything else to this game. Lame graphics, action, and audio...there isn't a single thing the devs tried to do to make this game inspired in any way.
Look Jackie, you're WAY too good for this crap! Why do you keep letting people make these horrid, horrid games and stamp your name on the front of them? I know your dream has been to make all these movies, but you gotta decide to withdraw your image from some of these things until they bother to put some effort into it. You demand 100% effort from your stunt people, you should be demanding 100% of the guys that are making you an absolute laughingstock in the video game industry. Hell...let ME design the next game! We're both Chans...hook a distant brother up. You KNOW you'd get something better than this piece of garbage.
This game is absolutely worthless. If you see this game in the trash, don't bother fishing it out. Your life is too short to waste it on this stuff.
