Over the Hedge is a movie by Dreamworks that has been released recently. Of course, it has also been released across all the consoles, too. While the PS2, GC, Xbox and PC versions are practically identical action/adventure games featuring light platforming, the handheld versions are somewhat different, most markedly the GBA version. Over the Hedge for the GBA is more of a puzzle game that requires players to move objects and sneak around people to advance in the game. Vicarious Visions designed both the DS and the GBA versions, but they are different in almost all respects.

The story is that while the animals have been snoozing away for the winter, a suburb has sprung up around them, effectively cutting their forest habitat in half. They wake up to find a hedge cutting them off from the rest of their former preserve, which is now a ‘burb. Led by RJ the raccoon, they cross the hedge into human territory and discover a world full of goodies just lying around waiting to be taken.

This is a primarily a puzzle game that starts out interestingly enough, but soon deteriorates into pure boredom. This is due to the same exact missions played out over and over again in almost every level. For most of the levels, there is a four-part mission: push logs and rocks out of the way in the forest to move around, cross the mean streets of the ‘burbs while hiding from adults and avoiding running children and moving cars, beat the dickens out of crazed critters in the yards, then sneak around a house while picking up junk food. And do this over and over again, with slow characters that won’t run.

Yep, they don’t trot much in this game. Some of the levels allow running, but the characters are limited as to how long and will soon stop. Players will soon find themselves mashing the run button over and over again, trying to get a little speed going. And in the house-sneaking level, the characters automatically tiptoe, so their run is just a walk! I can’t describe how irritating it is to get the character to walk normally past a running child, only to have him/her start tiptoeing very slowly again right in the front of the speeding kid and get run over, thus requiring the level to be played again. And a word to the wise, do yourself a favor and don’t choose a mission with Verne the turtle, as his tiptoeing and walking is even slower than the others.

A few of the missions mix up the action a tad bit with a “Hammy Time,” where Hammy runs past frozen enemies and traps, and the boss battle at the end, but this isn’t enough to infuse any sense of variety in the levels.

It’s a shame that the game is soooo boring, because there is a sense that this could have been a good game, if the missions weren’t so exactly the same. There are four different types of gameplay elements after all, but playing them over and over again takes away any novelty they may have had in the beginning of the game. Designing different types of forest scenes and houses may have helped, dunno. There is also a sandbox mode for players to design their own levels, but who on earth wants more of this?

The really strange aspect of this yawn-inducing game design is that Vicarious Visions also designed the DS version, which is a vastly superior game in all respects. The DS version features lots of action and variety for a much more fun experience. I would pass on this version, and get the DS version instead if players have the DS handheld.

Gameplay: 5.0
The game begins well, but soon becomes very boring due to the sameness of it all. The lame movement of the characters in the sneaking around the house levels doesn’t help, either.

Graphics: 8.0
The graphics are easily the best part of the game and are superior. The movie clips are quite good.

Sound: 7.0
The music and sound effects are decent and not annoying.

Difficulty: Medium
There are three difficulty levels, which really makes this game accessible to children.

Concept: 6.0
Nothing new is shown.

Overall: 6.0
While there isn’t anything terribly bad about this game, neither is there anything really good to say about it. If a game isn’t fun to play, there’s not much else going for it, as the purpose of a game is to entertain. This game is numbingly boring, and frustrating in some of the levels due to the slowness of the characters’ movement. Families are better off passing on this particular Over the Hedge version.