Coldshadow Review

When he morphs into a ninja, you’d better duck…

It has been a while since we have seen a good platform game for the PC, partly

because the genre is in decline. The Earthworm Jim series

broke some new ground, though no company wanted to follow up. Enter Disney and

Cold Shadow.

Cold Shadow is a game that can be enjoyed by both kids and grown ups. With so many hidden

secrets throughout the game, it offers great variety. Cold Shadow has all the makings of your standard platform game, though it doesn’t offer anything particularly original that would mark this game as revolutionary.

The background of the story begins with the loss of the great mojo idol. The hero

of the game is Maui Mallard, who has the ability to morph into a skillful ninja (by

attaining a certain amount of yin and yang coins). Maui’s mission is to retrieve the idol

and return it to the princess of the Muddrakes, Herneae. Along the way, Maui will face a

wide variety of enemies including Muddrakes, Zombies and Amazon Warriors. Aside from the

enemies, Maui must pass through 23 perilous levels stuffed to the hilt with traps and

secrets.

One of the first things

to jump out is the excellent artwork characteristic of Disney. All of the colors

are sharp, and the animation is fairly smooth as long as you play it on a small

window. If you decide to play it on a full screen, you will experience some

frame loss which might effect some of the gameplay.

Perhaps the strongest quality of this game is the variety. Each level is filled with different enemies, forcing you to constantly be on your toes and adopt new methods of play. For example, stage one only allows you to play as Maui mallard with his gun.In the next level, your gun is completely stripped of its power, and your only option is to play as the ninja. While stage one is mainly a jump and shoot stage, you must employ different techniques in stage two like the “ninja climb” and the teleport. Furthermore,

there are so many hidden passages and items that it is often hard to play the exact same

game twice. Whether or not the stage is easy depends on if you find those many hidden

items. This is the hardest part of the game, but that’s one of the things

that make this game exciting. There are certain points (usually in the more difficult areas)

where you can obtain an extra life and everytime you die, it will still be there

to obtain again. This partially compensates for the game’s difficulty.

Most of the effects are top notch. The music in particular is excellent, setting the tone

for each stage. The game also employs a wide variety of different sound effects, all of which

can compete with just about any other game. The speed and the pace of Cold Shadow is fast, but

there isn’t a time limit to rush the player. The only time constraint is

how long you can stay in ninja form because there’s a time limit for the yin and yang

coins.

There’s also comic relief

during the course of the game. For example, when Maui stands idle for a few

seconds, he will pull out his map and then a chicken ( I have NO idea what

this means – Ed.). Another one occurs when you pause the game. At this point,

Maui’s head icon will be snoozing.

Still, there are a few catches to this game. For one thing, you can only continue if

you find the continue item or if you have the password. This is especially heartbreaking when

you haven’t found all the secrets of a particular stage (which usually means that you’ll have no chance against the boss). One of the more distracting aspects of the game occurs when

the music reloads. When this happens, all action in the game stops. You can be in the middle of jumping over a spike-filled pit, and suddenly you’ve eaten a load of damage from falling. Aside from the lack of continues, once you lose life, you lose all the items obtained during the stage (coins, ammo, etc.).

Overall, Cold Shadow is a very good game with excellent artwork, animation, and

variety. Children will enjoy the graphics and the animation, while adults will appreciate

the pace, artwork, and the music of each stage. Although there isn’t anything especially novel

about this game, Cold Shadow is a very fun game in which one can easily be absorbed.