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Published
by SEGA
Developed by Team Sonic
Release Date: Out Now
Price: £29.99
Before
the release of the GameCube few could have predicted how
important SEGA would have been to Nintendo. The once mighty
rivals are now the best of friends and SEGA have bought
some innovative and very enjoyable games to Nintendo's console.
I still rate the Super Monkey Ball games as some of the
best on the GameCube and when you factor in Skies of Arcadia
Legends and the Sonic games it's fair to say that SEGA have
done Nintendo proud. Today sees the release of the Nintendo
DS handheld console and once again those creative geniuses
at SEGA have created a title that not only takes full advantage
of the new console but is also quite unlike anything we've
seen before.
Project
Rub (known as Feel the Magic XY XX in the US) offers a simple
story of boy meets girl and feels he has absolutely no chance
of being her boyfriend due to her being not only beautiful
but also very intelligent and with him being just an ordinary
boy, who no one in their right mind would give a second
glance. All is not lost though as our confidence challenged
hero is about to receive some assistance. The leader of
the Rub Rabbits has given our young man a chance to win
the affection of this seemingly perfect girl. He'll have
to do all manner of things to win her heart and you're going
to help him in his bid for love.
Project
Rub offers a Story mode and a Memories mode which essentially
allows you to replay the games you've already encountered
in Story mode. There is also a Maniac mode where you can
change the appearance of the girl. You can collect parts
by touching the Hidden Rabbits that sometimes appear in
the main game. Having certain SEGA GBA games in the GBA
slot of your DS when you begin the game will also unlock
numerous items. What you'll have to do in Story mode of
course is to win the girl's affections. You'll do this by
completing mini-games. Completing mini-games will not only
make the game in question available in the Memories mode
but will also earn you Love Points. Love Points are important
and when you accumulate 100 of them the story will progress.
Should you fail at a mini-game though, you'll lose Love
Points which will mean more games have to be played to earn
the necessary 100 total.
The
game is all about mini-games and in Project Rub you'll be
playing mini-games you would have never thought possible.
You'll have to rub goldfish out of a member of the Rub Rabbits
stomach, blow on the touch screen to put out candles, touch
stampeding bulls to prevent them hurting your desired lady
and hit numbers on the virtual keypad to make a parachutist's
parachute open in time and much, much more. The games have
several stages which become progressively more difficult
although most should not take more than a few attempts to
master them. Surprisingly speech is needed in a game called
Microphone. However this is not as awkward as you might
think (more on that later).
Visually
Project Rub is a striking game. The graphics have a certain
simplicity about them but it's stylish rather than basic
and works really well. The characters are silhouette-like
in appearance with physical characteristics kept to a minimum.
The presentation of the game is very impressive and it's
obvious a lot of thought has gone into the look and layout
of the game. What is worthy of a mention is the effective
use the game makes of the dual-screens. Some DS games aren't
really making a great use of the two screens with one screen
simply providing information. Project Rub actually needs
you to look at both screens virtually all of the time and
it's very impressive. Team Sonic really have managed excellent
use of the DS, which is impressive given that the game is
a launch title.
We
mentioned in our review of Zoo Keeper how the Nintendo DS
might cause deaf gamers a few problems because of the included
microphone which allows developers to create games that
can take advantage of verbal inputs from the gamer. Zoo
Keeper doesn't require any kind of verbal input but Project
Rub does. Earlier in this review we mentioned a game called
Microphone that needs you to grab the girl's attention by
calling her by talking loudly into the microphone on your
DS. Obviously this might be an issue for certain deaf gamers.
Fortunately though you can blow into the microphone and
it works just as well (I prefer it to be honest). In every
other way though, the game is absolutely fine for deaf gamers.
There's also another game, called Dance, where you have
to respond to audible directions from the girl. This could
be a problem but thankfully the directions are shown too
so you'll be able to play the game without any problems.
The story is relayed through text only so you'll be able
to follow it. The game has occasional snippets of speech
when a mini-game begins but it's nothing important. Project
Rub includes the ability to record your voice for 1.5 seconds
and this recording will then loop on the main screen with
the game music. Obviously this isn't going to be of interest
to deaf gamers but it's not an important feature anyway.
Out
of all of the launch titles I don't think any game can claim
to utilise the Nintendo DS functions as comprehensively
as Project Rub. SEGA have created a game that manages to
showcase ever feature that's on offer with the exception
of the wireless multiplayer capabilities. The only downside
is that the game isn't going to take that long to finish.
That said though the innovation and creativity that Team
Sonic have shown in Project Rub make it a great game to
pick up for your new Nintendo DS and it will certainly make
you appreciate just how different this new handheld console
is.
Overall
Game Rating: 8.3/10
A new platform needs games that showcase not only the console
but also the developers' talent to fully exploit it and
that's exactly what Project Rub is. The game is on the short
side but there's so much creative thinking gone into the
game it's impossible not to appreciate the creative genius
of it.
Deaf
Gamers Classification:
(Click
the letter or here
for details)
There aren't any problems for
deaf gamers. Although one game needs you to talk into the
microphone, thankfully you can get around this by simply
blowing into it.
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