Scooby-Doo & Looney Tunes Cartoon Universe: Arcade - Review
Warner Bros have been giving the reboot treatment to the Looney Tunes a lot lately and it comes as no surprise that the iPad would get in on the action with an all new title. But the Looney Tunes are not alone here, Scooby-Doo and the gang are also around which gives us the full title of Scooby-Doo & Looney Tunes Cartoon Universe: Arcade.
When you first boot up the game you are tasked with creating your own Looney Tune style avatar who you will use to move around the arcade and also the games themselves. Character creation gives you a few small options that limit just how create you can be, but you can still end up with something decent. My character was styled after Sylvester, but to make him more modern I gave him a baseball cap, which is one of the options you can select. Once my avatar was created, I was placed into the arcade and given the lowdown on what to do. Simply move to a game cabinet, touch it and play the game, actually pretty easy to understand. While some of the games are locked from the get go, you can unlock them with the coins that you can earn in the games, so the more you play the more you can unlock.
This is where the game falls apart though, the arcade games are named things like Foul Ball or Taking Root, with each of the games featuring a simple mechanic and nothing else. Foul Ball for example has you playing the old game of Breakout but themed around an old farm with Henery Hawk, the Chicken Hawk at the top, with you bouncing baseballs around the stage. If you hit Henry, another baseball will appear, similar to a mutli-ball in pinball and if you hit him again another ball appears. In order to play the game, you simply need to move the paddle by dragging your finger left and right across the screen.
Taking Root, will see you planting seeds, watering them and removing the grown carrot from the ground before it is stolen from underground. Other games will see you mowing lawns, delivering packages in outer space, or spelling words out on a shooting range; there is even a small dancing mini game here. The problem with all of the mini games is that they are boring, there is very little incentive to go back and play another game a second time and even the description of some of the games is boring.
The worst offender here though is that they barely even use the characters you know and love, with the bulk of the Looney Tunes and Scooby-Doo casts just hanging around the machines. You can’t interact with them in any way, they don’t even make any noise. The only voice you will hear throughout the game comes from Bugs Bunny when he gives you instructions on how to play each game and what makes that strange is that he does it for the Scooby-Doo themed games as well. Sound is actually worse than the mini games through out here, because each time you complete a game you get the same sounds, the same music which may not be an issue for some, but with some levels lasting only 15 seconds before you are done, hearing the music over and over does grate on the ears.
As a massive Looney Tunes fan and someone who grew up watching Scooby-Doo I was excited when I saw this game coming, even more so when I noticed it was developed by Warner Bros Montreal, the studio behind the Batman Arkham Origins game. But the quality of the mini games, the presentation and even controls for the game as a whole, I have to say I am let down. Your millage may vary here, but go in with low expectations because there is little to be excited by.
The Score
3.5
Review code provided by Warner Bros Games
The Pros
+You are a die hard fan of the characters and have to get everything
+Mobile games are your jam
The Cons
-You shouldn't come in expecting anything decent
-The insult to these iconic and beloved characters is just too much
