Genre : Action
Publisher : Eidos
Developer : Crystal Dynamics
Release date : November 20, 2003

Buy 'WHIPLASH': Xbox | PlayStation 2

What the demented PETA activist dreams about…

Mark me surprised. Whiplash, by Crystal Dreams and published by Eidos, isn't just a gimmick laden platformer that is instantly forgettable. I must admit that I am pretty biased towards Eidos. I am skeptical about any product line or franchise they start up, but Whiplash either breaks the mold or marks a new era in the Eidos…tradition.

Whiplash comports itself with a charm that marks itself as being childish but with a sarcastic edge for the better read and more observant gamer. If Lisa is your favorite Simpson or if you like The Onion or The Daily Show then you'll get a good laugh out of this game just on premise alone. You see, at its core, this game is about liberation. The struggle for freedom that so many people take for granted or are so hopelessly lost in their own plight that do not know what freedom really is anymore. You think you have it bad? The characters of Whiplash, Spanx and Redmond, are animals in a product testing facility run by Genron. Genron, or any major product manufacturer, simply must test its products or processes in order to make sure everything is safe so you see, the Hamster Cannon really is a sacrifice hamster should be happy to make as is to see whether or not monkeys like being in a pool of water when a toaster or hairdryer is tossed in whilst being plugged in. It's all in the name of science, you see? Or is it?

Whiplash begins its little narrative of strife and struggle with the proposal of how life might be enhanced by the existence of a rabiweasal or a weasabit…how about weabasil? Basically Genron wants to combine a rabbit with a weasel because…it's cool. I guess, anyhow it makes for compelling characters. Redmond is the rabbit and Spanx is the weasel but these two aren't just any regular bunny or rodent, no sir. They are thoroughly jaded veterans of the Genron testing regimen. After having wires implanted into his skull, Spanx is essentially bereft of the ability to speak but he can receive radio communications directly into his little brain which comes in handy. Redmond can talk, and sometimes you're glad that he can because he has some rather interesting commentary to share, but more importantly Redmond has been the test subject for nearly every cosmetic product produced by Genron. From hairspray to lipstick to nail polish; Redmond has been squirted in the eye, shaved and dipped into vats of the stuff and even made to ingest the stuff that warning labels say you should not ingest. You should be thankful for rabbits like Redmond, without them we might stuff like mint flavored Drain-O. Anyhow, through his illustrious if not underappreciated career as a product safety demonstrator/quality assurance adjudicator Redmond has not only become just a little angry but also virtually indestructible. To top it all off, the two little guys are attached to each other at the wrist by a five foot chain. Either we've got ourselves a hysterical game in the making or the tag line for a buddy movie starring Lawrence Fishburne and one of the Baldwin Brothers (take your pick, doesn't make a difference to me).

On to the gameplay! Whiplash is a 3rd Person Platform Jumper with a healthy dose of destruction. One of the great innovations of gameplay to this title is that you can destroy almost any object in the level. For every piece of furniture, lamp, computer console, poster, painting, fire extinguisher and product display you can destroy like the iconoclast that you are. What makes this satisfying is that the Genron Corporation is worth only so much in terms of assets and every time you destroy something you lower the worth shown by a little ticker at the bottom of the screen. It gives a purpose to the devastation just in case the notion of liberty was a little too heady for you. In this sense, Whiplash displays some clever humor. Everything associated with consumer culture and materialism is fodder for this game's wanton lust for destruction. The fact that the employees of Genron all look the same isn't because of lazy design; it's actually done on purpose. Even the name Genron is no mistake.

You control your little duo with the left analog stick and use the right stick to move the camera which works for the most part and if you back yourself into a corner the game is sensible enough to make Spanx or Redmond see-through. You have two modes of attack where you swing Redmond around by his chain and you have the obligatory double jump but you can also scamper. Scamper mode is somewhat like a first person mode where you can take aim at certain things with your Robomice grenades homage to Tomogachi?) or scamper along rails while Redmond rides on your back.

You furry crusaders of animal justice can be enhanced by these little snack foods that every human carries around. This junk food has to be spread between Redmond and Spanx. The more you feed Redmond, the stronger his attacking power is. The more you feed Spanx, the longer his health bar becomes. There are also little barrels around each level that allow you to freeze Redmond into a ball of ice, light him on fire or fill him with helium. Each of these barrels are pretty context specific, they are not so much as intended as random power-ups but as a means to complete each of the jumping puzzles. For instance, one of the early levels has you trying to bring down a giant globe to break open the doors into the corporate food court. To do this you have to break a few suspension wires. To do that you need to hop here, swing there and watch out for the fat security guards with their maglites. The final wire can only be reached if you make Redmond swallow helium to blow up like balloon whereupon you steer him up into the catwalks and snap the wire. Blam-O, you're in.

Whiplash is no the most complex game, nor is it the deepest. Even so, the gameplay mechanics are thorough and necessary. One of my gripes with the design happened with the maps and menus. The menus are meant to mimic a corporate computer terminal, which is cute but not intuitive at first. You get used to the menus, but for the life of my I found the maps to be pretty useless. They are three dimensional and color coded and again they are meant to look like "You Are Here!" mall maps which are usually as equally useless. There is also a legend of different things spread around each map, again this is needlessly confusing. The environments are fairly linear and not very complex so you might even find yourself not needing the map, I didn't. Another gripe is the dreaded save-point. There are only selected points where you can save your game at a terminal. Personally, I need to save when I want to save because despite reviewing games and being an avid gamer, sometimes I need to stop where I am and peace-out. I'm already a slave the game; let me save where I want!

Whiplash displays great graphics. The models are clean and articulated while there is not much variation among the NPC models. Spanx is great. He is twitchy and bug-eyed with two little wires dangling from his temples that spark. He scampers and squeaks the way a weasel should. Redmond looks like a forlorn little bunny rabbit that has had a little too much coffee. When Spanx walks, Redmond is able to keep up; when Spanx runs (as he mostly does) poor Redmond gets dragged behind like a dead water skier.

Environments are expansive for being set indoors. The lighting is well done and not overpowering. Thankfully the color palette is more than just gray, brown, red and black. Graphics engines that do not take advantage of the PS2 hardware can look rather hideous and muddy. Whiplash is polished and I did not detect any degree of texture tearing, dithering or aliased edges. Surely each of those artifacts is there, but they are not glaring at you.

The sound department is a mixed bag. The music is small and uninspiring. There aren't any head-banging tunes or knee bobbing beats, but the voice acting is very well done. The dialogue for this game ranges from silly to clever to utterly inane. The best bits are the little one-liners Redmond spits out during the game while you're swinging over your head. I could rattle off a bunch right now, but they're all so context sensitive and delivery is the key so I won't waste your time. The little cinematic cut scenes and your messages from "Cut Loose", your mysterious benefactor and guide, are funny enough but in the end they fall more into the realm of Cartoon Network funny rather than Comedy Central funny.

Overall, I enjoyed Whiplash a good deal. It seems that game design philosophy has been evolving with the hardware quite well. With Metal Arms we saw a very clever melding of genres. Knights of the Old Republic has single handedly revitalized American RPGs. Manhunt took gaming over the edge into a dark abyss and finally gave aging gamers something that was edgy enough for an R-Rated audience. I wonder how Halo 2 will work out and what Ninja Gaiden will do to the gaming landscape. As for Whiplash? Well, it's not insta-classic material, but it is a fun game that exhibits solid gameplay and a good sense of humor. I enjoyed it and you probably will too if you like platform adventure games.

Score : 8.4/10