KDUCK radio is holding a promotion, which offers concert tickets to the King of the Bongos show. All you need to do is turn in 20 KDUCK stickers to claim the prize.

With that in mind, Bill (a duck) begins his search throughout the city for the tickets. A friend offers to sell him one for 45 coins. Mission 1, which is timed, tasks the gamer to find the coins to buy that first sticker.

Hip Games, and LSP, serves up the arcade adventure called Sitting Ducks for the Game Boy Advance. The title should have come with a recommended age requirement, targeting a very young crowd. When it comes to gameplay, and the general design of this title, players in the 5-7 age group may find this simple fun. Anyone 10 and older may stumble over the title and go right past the innocent charm. However, here is where the game seems to be at odds with itself. While the content is very young, the challenge is there. But a little more on that in a moment.

Sitting Ducks is cute, but for experienced gamers, this kind of cute will only last about 45 seconds, then the game bogs down is overly easy missions that seem to be an amalgam of several classic arcade titles.

Mission one is wandering through the city, walking through coins to pick them up. You get a pop-up message that will tell you that some of the items you pick up are worth more than others, but for the purpose of this mission, they all seem pretty much the same. The tips are fine, but do not seem to really harbor mission-specific information. For example, you will be told that you can jump items using the B button, but in the first mission, you are racing a clock and the coins all lead to one another, and there is no real need to jump much of anything.

As mentioned, the content of the game, both the look and the feel, seems to be geared for the very young, but the game does have challenge. That first mission is on a clock that seems to be set up in default mode to leave little room for error. And obstacles in the game have perimeter barriers. Cut too close and you will run into the barrier, staggering your duck and losing precious time.

The game has two modes of play – story mode and race. The story mode has 20 levels and the race mode features 12 races and six scooters. The race-mode scooters are quite unresponsive to the controls, even through this relies heavily on both the accelerate (A) and braking (B) buttons.

Sitting Ducks is a game that is frustrating. The game does have a lot of challenging hurdles and yet the gameplay is not that compelling to keep the interest level up. It’s not certain what the developers were aiming for with this title, but the game just falls short in many areas.
 

Gameplay: 6

Each mission is seamless, and the load times are minimal.

Graphics: 6

This is a two-dimensional arcade title that involves wandering vertically, horizontally or diagonally through the map board. The top-down look lets players view a colorful world, but this title fails to capitalize on the graphic capabilities of the GBA.

Sound: 5

A revolving musical theme and below average effect sounds underscore this game.

Difficulty: Easy

Put your brain on hold for this one, but keep your fingers moving.

Concept: 5

Though the game sports a nice variety of missions, each one is based on another game that you’ve probably played before.

Overall: 5

This is a game that, while it does not state it, may appeal to very young games. It is simple with arcade-like action. For the more serious GBA gamer, you may wish to pass on this.