Entering the Game: Spy-Kids 3D: Game Over for GameBoy Advance

By Jonathan Berohn

Most kids' movies these days end up as a video game sooner or later. Actually-quite a few movies of all sorts end up as video games, so it's certainly no surprise that Spy Kids 3D by Disney Interactive has made its appearance in the gaming arena. In fact, very few movies seem better positioned to jump to the interactive gaming realm than Spy Kids 3D, since most of the movie actually takes place in a video game.

Truncated Story Line

Tending to be skeptical of Hollywood's motives, I found myself noting good tie-ins for a potential video game the entire time I was watching the movie (I have kids-I couldn't escape). Sure enough, many of the memorable scenes from the movie made their way into the game. You have to fight some of the same monsters, battle the huge robots, race through the same girders, and surf the same lava flows, but there are some huge omissions.

In the movie, the whole point is to get to the unwinnable level 5. But in the Gameboy Advance version of the game, you don't even get to Level 4! You go straight from level 3 to the final battle with the Toymaker. Needless to say, my kids-yes, my kids-were quite disappointed by this discontinuity with the story. But-with an eye toward fairness-I'll try to evaluate the game on its own.

Unfortunately, the game falls short on its own as well. As with most Gameboy games, the instruction manual is rather incomplete. If you need hints, and tips, don't look there. Most of the game play is straight forward, but there are a couple areas that require you do things so out of the ordinary from what you've come to expect in the game that it takes quite a while (and quite a bit of confusion) to make sense of it. This is particularly troubling for younger kids-the supposed audience for this game. Both my 5 and 7 year-old can play about 90% of the game. The other 10% just baffles them (I still can't decide if I should be proud or embarrassed that I can beat the game-just don't ask my wife).

Frustrating Game Play

The playable parts of the game suffer from two shortcomings as well. First, there is not much variety, and second there aren't many opportunities to save your progress. In other kids games like Jimmy Neutron, you can save all the time. In Spy Kids you can only save between acts in a level-and some of these acts are quite long. At the same time, they are quite repetitive. Even my kids can only jump lava rocks so many times before they become bored.

Disney has tried to compensate a little for the game flaws by adding a 3D gallery. They've even tied this gimmick into the game by seeding little icons throughout the levels that open up additional images, and they include 3D glasses in the packaging. My kids thought that was neat-for about 5 seconds. Really-how many times can you look at 3D cartoons?

Anyway, if your kids are big Spy Kids fans this game will amuse them for a while, but it is nothing special and, at times, quite frustrating. All in all, I'd look for something else.