Tokyo Jungle

Pros:

-Funny and clever gameplay

-Unique design choices

-Ton's of unlocks to keep you busy

-Controls and combat are a solid experience

-Large roster of animals to play as

Cons:

-Bad Graphics

-Can become quite difficult

-Combat can be unbalanced at times

Tokyo Jungle is probably one of the most unique games to come out this year, hell it might be one of the most unique games period. It has an interesting concept and some bizarre (but good) gameplay and design choices, it provides an entirely new experience you have never played before. It's different, it's addicting, and best of all, it's just plain fun.

The concept for Tokyo Jungle revolves around the sudden disappearance of humanity, why this happened is unknown, and only the animals remain, forcing them to adapt and fight for survival on the abandoned streets of Tokyo. All sorts of animals are roaming the city; cats, rabbits, dogs, and even lions and much, much more. Many different animals are playable in Tokyo Jungle and each one has different stats and abilities to make it a unique experience each time, however you have to unlock most of these other animals, which you do by completing the many different types of challenges that are available to each animal.

These challenges vary from animal to animal and provide many different types of gameplay, some will have you marking areas, others will have you traveling to unexplored sections of the city, and some will even have you fighting "boss" animals. This keeps Tokyo Jungle feeling fresh and it makes it highly addicting, you will keep coming back for more. Graphically Tokyo Jungle looks very outdated, which is a shame considering it could have been amazing to have seen Tokyo re-created in beautiful graphics, it's even more of a shame considering this is the PS3 and it's an exclusive, so we know the devs could have taken full advantage of the PS3's power.

The city has tons of wild life and plants growing in it, trees are sprouting from buildings, grass grows from the city streets, it looks as if mother nature is slowly regaining the world again. But the bad graphics is a problem that is easy to overlook in the grand scheme of things. Gameplay wise the game is very different and not easy to describe. At it's core it's a survival game with animals, but that explanation is not very accurate as there is far, far more to Tokyo Jungle than that. The game plays in a semi-open world (sounds odd I know, but bear with me) you control the animal of your choice (and the choices are plentiful) from a 3rd person perspective and you are free to wander around the city as you choose. You move along a variety of paths, back alleys, and streets however you choose, however you are confined to the paths themselves.

This may seem to create a feeling of linearity at first, but the city is quite large and also very easy to get lost in, it is very easy to wander further into parts of the city and get lost. There is a map system that does a pretty decent job, but you can still feel lost at times. Control wise the game does a pretty solid job, animals move realistically as you'd expect (though they do jump pretty high), nothing about the controls is complex but they do offer a decent amount of depth, and combat for the most part is well done. Which is a good thing because in Tokyo Jungle you will be moving and fighting for survival a lot! In Tokyo Jungle your animal has a health meter, a hunger meter, and a stamina meter, each of which can go down over time.

This requires you to keep an eye on your resources, and it encourages planning, perhaps it may be too risky to wander into a part of the city as you are not sure if it has reliable animals to hunt? It's things like this that add much more depth to Tokyo Jungle. You also have to worry about environmental factors as well, things like pollution can cause your animal to drop health quite fast, and always keeping an eye out for the bigger predators out there that can be behind any blade of grass or city corner.

There is also a constant feeling of being on the hunt, you can sneak through tall grass and stalk your prey, waiting for the right opportunity to strike, or chase right after your prey in an intense chase through the streets. You also have to compete with other animals, who often times will be on the same prey as you, and you have to fight it out. Combat revolves around pressing the square button, pressing R1 at the right opportunity to strike a fetal bite, and dodging and evading attacks. You can also command your "pack" animals to do attack in combat too with the triangle button.

Combat is relatively simple but fun, however at times it can feel unbalanced as you can get ganged up on by multiple animals who make up part of the same pack, or bigger, more powerful animals that you do not stand much of a chance against. It is amusing and sometimes funny to watch a pack of Pomeranian Dogs try to take on an alligator, Tokyo Jungle provides many entertaining possibilities when it comes to combat. There are two different modes for Tokyo Jungle, Survival and Story.

Survival mode is fairly self explanatory, you select the animal of your choice and fight to stay alive for as many years as possible by hunting, exploring, breeding, doing the various challenge missions etc....survival mode is a good way to get the basics of things but it can become quite difficult, at times you feel as if survival is impossible, but this just adds to the intensity and there are ways to come out alive. Survival mode can also be played with a friend locally, thus making the experience even more enjoyable.

Story mode offers odd but funny scenarios with missions you have to accomplish, from tackling a boxing kangaroo and his rabbit body guards, to taking over a district from a champion guard dog, Tokyo Jungle is amusing all the way throughout. However in order to play the missions in Story you have to unlock them first in Survival, it would have been better to just be able to dive right into the wackiness that is the story mode from the get go, but regardless it's still enjoyable. Tokyo Jungle also features far more than just Story mode unlocks; new animals, archive items like diaries and news papers, clothing for your animals to wear (yes that's right, I said clothing) and much more. There is quite enough to keep you busy.

The animal roster is very large, everything from house cats and toy dogs to elephants and lions, every animal you see in the game is one you can play, and while they do have some unique ways in their play style. For instance choosing to play as a deer will have you sneaking and avoiding other animals and eating plants, where as choosing to play as a wolf will have you hunting down prey and feeding on your opponents. Each animal has it's own specific stats, some are faster than others, some have more endurance than others, and some can do more damage, or any other number of things. You will love unlocking new animals and trying them out for yourself.

Final Verdict:

Tokyo Jungle is highly addictive and unique, it is worth checking out and it has enough content and quality to justify the $15 price tag (Plus Members currently get a discount, so act fast! ). It is another welcomed addition to the PSN library.

Tokyo Jungle get's a 4/5