Genre: Action
Publisher: Gotham Games
Developer: Doki Denki
Release Date: 19-Mar-2003

Courage is not measured by size but by the power of your heart. And no one can sum it up better then Pooh’s little friend Piglet. Piglet finally gets his big break with his new movie and game for the PS2 called “Piglet’s Big Movie Game.” You can help Piglet show his true colors, taking on the mission to become a true hero. There are a total of 7 different levels, each requiring Piglet to help his fellow friends.

The game play is quite simple and easy to pick up. The controls used for this game are the analog stick to move, X button to activate events such as picking up items as well as initializing attacks versus computer opponents, the square triangle and circle button are used to initialize the items you picked up as well as for battles. These battles require you to hit a set sequence of keys on your ps2 controller “Scaring away the opponent.”

Like I said before you must hit the X button to initialize the battle. In order to start this “scaring” battle you must first force your opponent to run towards you initializing it with the X button. You should try and initialize a battle as far away from the opponent because it’ll be a lot easier to beat them. The opponent’s attacks only affect you when they have manage to reach your location, the farther away you initialized the battles the more circles are available. These circles are kind of like a hiking path; you must beat the opponent before they can reach you. In order to beat the opponent you must hit the assigned key sequence to make one of Piglets many scary faces, depending on which scary face appears the harder the key configuration. But if you can’t defeat the enemy before it gets to close I suggest running away getting distance from the opponent and re-battling again. If you are unable to run away and the enemy is able to reach your point. The enemy will then scare Little Piglet. The more scared Piglet is the more awkward he runs. One scare and he starts tip toeing making it hard to run, two scares and Piglet is a crazy running character. In order to get back to your normal self you must find a Cheer-up Piglet item where Christopher Robins will tell Piglet to believe in himself and you’ll walk normally again. Yet battling is not the only thing you will be doing in this game you will also be searching for cookies as well as locate key items.

For the cookies you must randomly kick the background forcing them out of their hidden objects. Once they are out you must catch them before they go back into hiding. This is quite annoying because the cookies bounce out into random places making it hard to catch. If the background object has cookies the location will have 5. When you collect all the cookies from the map scenery you will have a small cut scene of Piglet going LALALA and a mark on the cookies. I believe the only reason we collect cookies is because we require them to purchase more scary faces to defeat the enemy units. The cookies are somewhat a side quests not the main goal. The main goal of the game is to find the key items. Key items are quite easy to find unlike other RPG type games, these key items have a pink circle showing that there is something important at that location. It’s quite a tedious task trying to find all the key items required to pass the level, since you are required to walk back and fourth from place to place until you have everything to trigger a new event. Key items aren’t the only way to trigger an event, scaring away the enemy will at times also trigger an event allowing Piglet to move on. If you are ever lost there is a map that informs you where important characters are at as well as figuring out if you have found all the cookies in that section or not. In order to see this map you must hit select. At times Piglet cannot complete his task without the help of another friend. This allows you to plays as Pooh and Tiger.

When you are required to play these characters you can get quite annoyed. The reason for this is that Tiger and Pooh must never get close to the enemy, or you’ll have to retry the task again. I know this because I had to retry these parts several times. In order to pass the two characters move quite differently. Tiger moves slowly trying to not catch attention while Pooh just tries to out run his opponents because of his loud tummy growl. The interface is also slightly changed when you are these characters. Rather then just seeing the enemies position you will see one added feature the enemies “eye sight.” at least for Tiger. This makes it slightly easier to pass the task but still is quite hard. There are also non-playable characters that help you out in the game. They would be Eeyore, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Gopher, and Owl. They would inform you of certain key item locations. After working together you will be able to finish the mission.

Now I’ll go into the enemies (these only happen in battle mode) : Basic Heffalump (he just runs towards you no special characteristics), Bee Heffalump (moves forward at a fast speed and gets pushed back whenever you scare him), Road Sweeper Heffalump (he tries to hide your key sequence that you must type), Jackpot Heffalump (makes the sequence random, giving you a ? mark where you’ll have to guess), Tuba Heffalump (same as the Basic Heffalump but moves faster), Basic Woozle (just moves with fast speed), Hide & Seek Woozle (he will play hide and seek so you must hit him when he’s looking at you), Mirror Woozle (he switches you around making it hard to see your sequence like upside down commands), Sporty Woozle (he switches one of your buttons when he finishes his swing).

When you finish the game there aren’t much you can do after. The only options that are available would be watching the unlocked videos in Cinematic as well as Disney clips. There are a total of 6 clips for each section. Cinematic section contains all the in-game cut scenes. While in the Disney clips they have short footage from the cartoon Winnie the Pooh.

The sound in the game is almost non-existent. There is no BGM music running in the background such as the Winnie the Pooh song or other music there are at most a few background sounds like water running, wind blowing, and sounds when a key item is in motion such as a train etc. What is probably the most impressive about the sound are the voices. Like my previous review about Jungle Book the voices almost seem identical to the ones that were used in the original. The only difference that I’ve seen is that Christopher Robins seems to have a different voice. The characters also in the game have the same tone of voice, facial expressions, and actions as in the cartoon. The narrator in the game really helps out in finishing the mission.

The graphics in the game are pretty impressive. The graphics are cartoony but are quite suitable for this type of game. There isn’t much going on with the background other then maybe water flowing and at times weather effects. The backgrounds are pretty simple with some items such as trees, bushes, rocks, cookies, carts, and many more. There are both indoor and outdoor type maps. The indoor environment is usually inside a room of some sort. The Outdoor ones are mainly in the forest or to be more exact where the characters of Winnie the Pooh reside. There are also cut scenes which tie together certain events, like how the characters started the dream as well as some helpful hints on finding where key items may be located at. The graphics are smooth and fit perfectly for this type of game. The only downside about the graphics is that you cannot ever change the camera angles. This would be quite useful when picking up the cookies as well as the running objects that you must catch within a time limit. .

The reason for the final score is because of the crazy key sequences for the battles. Hitting those sequences are not easy and require quick timing as well. Also the fact that some scenes have a time limit makes it slightly harder. The game is also quite repetitive, such as constantly being required to find keys to unlock the doors. If you play this game over a given amount of days it probably wouldn’t be as bad but playing it 6 hrs straight was not such a hot idea. The game is also quite short being able to beat the game in a good 4-10 hrs. Even with these slight downsides the game was still slightly fun. Having the real character voices, which I am quite familiar with, brings back old memories. For a retail of $39.99 it’s up to you if you this game is for you. And just a reminder to those that don’t know, this is only a 1 Player game.

Score : 8.0/10