Gigantosaurus: The Game Review

Bright colours, repetition and no more than a suggestion of structure. That’s the formula for low-effort children’s entertainment, and it’s a formula that anybody over the age of six should find intolerable. In adapting the short-lived (and incorrectly spelt) kid’s TV show Gigantosaurus, developer WildSphere has—for better or worse—perfectly captured the mind-numbing aimlessness that pervades such programming and created a game that’s unstructured, half-baked and needlessly tedious.

The 3D platforming hubs that the four young dinosaur protagonists (Bill, Mazu, Tiny and Rocky) must traverse are designed with all the care and forethought of an underpaid school dinner lady slopping lumpy mashed potato onto a plate. That is to say, not much care at all. Not helping matters is the fact that, from any sort of distance, most of the obstacles look frustratingly similar. The combination of these factors results in a near-endless “have I been here before?” feeling as the same ground is mistakenly retread over and over, culminating in an underlying sense of aimlessness that leaves the whole experience feeling hollow.

Despite their shoddy layouts, the levels aren’t all bad, at least with the young target audience in mind. Gigantosaurus: The Game will probably end up being several young players’ first ever 3D platformer, and because of that its lack of difficulty is actually a silver lining: the whole game acts as a sort of ‘game mechanics 101’ with basic implementations of lever puzzles, bounce pads, powerups and more—even occasional stealth sections make an appearance. Of course, anything starring Nintendo’s Italian plumber would be lightyears better for any child making their first wobbly gaming steps, but WildSphere’s attempt to make a videogame ‘baby pool’ is worthy of at least some recognition.

Being an adaptation of a TV show, it’d be sensible to assume that the plot, if nothing else, would hold up where the level design and structure falter. Not so, unfortunately. There are elements of a plot made apparent during between-level cutscenes: velociraptor antagonists, plot ‘macguffins’ in the form of dinosaur eggs to collect, and various helpful animal characters willing to lend a hand; however, these elements are never actually woven together to form a narrative worthy of even basic children’s entertainment. Things just, sort of… happen out of the blue, only to be swiftly brushed aside and replaced with the next inconsequential occurrence. It’s yet another way in which Gigantosaurus feels structureless and ill thought-out. In addition, none of the original voice actors for the four protagonists (who can be swapped between on the fly) reprise their roles. If they have personalities on TV, it certainly isn’t represented in-game.

The aforementioned dinosaur eggs, while presented as the main driving force behind the characters’ quest, are not the only collectible found populating each level. Scrapbook pages, walnuts and seeds fill up the barren spaces throughout the game’s predictably themed jungle, tropical, snow and desert environments. Optional collectibles are par for the course in 3D platformers, but the rewards for trudging back and forth across levels to gather them all are paltry to non-existent. Does anyone care about in-game statues and artwork? They’re about as rewarding as a ‘Google Images’ search and take dozens of times longer to achieve.

Optional collectibles, no matter how disappointing, can always be ignored and therefore don’t warrant too much criticism. What can’t be overlooked, however, is the unforgivable and blatant gameplay padding associated with the mandatory dinosaur egg collectibles. Four (out of ten) of these must be collected in each stage to progress onto the next, but unlike every other 3D platformer ever, touching them isn’t enough to ‘count’ as a collection—that’d be too easy, wouldn’t it? Instead, you have to pick each egg up individually and return it, by hand, to the start of the stage. This is horrendous, insulting game design—I can only imagine—done to mask a lack of content and pad out the game’s length. As a direct result of this one choice, a bland 2-3 hour platformer becomes an intolerable 5-6 hour platformer with frequent hikes interrupting the already less-than thrilling gameplay.

There’s something to be said for a game that makes the act of movement, in itself, feel satisfying. If that was the case for Gigantosaurus, the hours of ferrying eggs back and forth might have been forgivable. As it stands, however, controlling the characters is—at the best of times—merely passable. Jumping is precise enough; misjudging leaps between moving platforms certainly isn’t a concern. Running, on the other hand, is less than passable for a couple of reasons: the default movement speed is just plain too slow and—oddly—there’s a momentum-based system which acts in place of a ‘sprint’ button. Neither of these are particularly pleasant, but they’re only real issues because of how they worsen the egregious gameplay padding.

Feet aren’t the only way to get around, even in the dinosaur world—apparently. An array of powerups are dotted around the world which aid in traversal and the navigation of certain obstacles. Bouncing on spring-boots, gliding with a propeller-hat and rolling with speed atop a wooden log make up some of the surprisingly entertaining examples of these. If only they didn’t make the regular movement seem even more sluggish in comparison. On the topic of transport, there are also short racing sections that separate the levels, and the fact that I almost forgot to mention these should help demonstrate how out of place and forgettable they are. I debated not bringing them up at all: each one is over in a couple of minutes, they’re trivial for anyone with their hands screwed on the right way and—frankly—there’s not much particularly positive or negative to say about them. They’re fine.

Gigantosaurus is a would-be bland, but harmless kids’ platformer that, due to insulting levels of gameplay padding, crosses over into dreadful territory. There’s a case to be made that it has value as an ‘introduction to videogames’ for small, dinosaur-obsessed children, but the second Mario leaps onto the scene, that case goes out the window. Truly, it’s hard to imagine anyone enjoying this tedious, personality-devoid bore of a game.