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Disney's Toy Story license is as cursed in the video game industry as it is blessed in the film industry. While the movies do incredibly well in the theaters (and DVD sales), the games spawn from the two-movie series have been severely below standards.

That’s not to say that they have been extremely bad, but they have nearly all lacked a sense of originality in the gameplay department. The only good Toy Story game in my opinion was the original, which was released for the SNES and Genesis. From there, we moved into the 3D realm, and while this helps many game series, the translation seems to have hurt this particular license.

While the latest Toy Story game tries to jazz things up a bit, it still isn’t fully realized. This one is based off the Toy Story spin-off movie, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, which was a Disney original animated film, released only for video, of course. This one wasn’t done by Pixar Studios, the creators of the series, either, and both the movie and the game suffer because of this. Frankly, taking Buzz Lightyear (who discovered he was a mere toy in the first flick) and making him a real person doesn’t even let the movies accurately co-exist. It was produced to make a cheap buck. But this isn’t a review of the film. Unfortunately, while the movie may have been tolerable, the game is not; at least, not for very long.

Visuals:: Cell shading, a graphical technique virtually uncovered by the Jet Grind Radio team, has now almost become a cliché. We’ve already seen it in Dreamcast’s Wacky Races, and a few of the upcoming PS2 games are utilizing it. The difference is, these games use the technique to the game’s advantage. Buzz Lightyear, on the other hand, fails just as much as the animation of the film on which it’s based. Think about it like this: compare Toy Story 2 to Buzz Lightyear of Star Command; the difference in visual appeal between these two movies in enormous. There is the same gap between this game and others using cell shading. It just doesn’t work like it’s supposed to.

For starters, the level design doesn’t really employ the cell shading. Only certain characters utilize it, and it causes a major imbalance in the visuals. The level design itself is rather poor. The layout is completely linear, and you either follow the set path or you die. This really takes out a good portion of graphical variety. Each level of the game, though fairly different, doesn’t change much through the course of the level. The first level, taking place on a farm (go figure...) is just running down a path (blocked off by white picket fences), and you get to see the occasional barn. Drab. There is no life to the environment, and it leaves a bitter taste; there’s no incentive to actually make it to the next round knowing that it’ll look disappointing.

Each level does have its share of different bad guys, each of them somewhat appropriate to the level. And while the variety is there, the quality of each of them is severely lacking. Texture quality is rather poor, and while the game runs at a speedy near 60 frames per second, the animation can get rather stiff. Often times you’ll just suddenly be attacked by swarms of things that came from the middle of nowhere, and while it’s nice to see so many enemies on screen at once, it makes keeping up with the pace of the game rather difficult.

Buzz Lightyear himself is about the only decent looking character model, one that uses cell shading in a great way. Too bad the level bosses couldn’t have had the same time put into them. You’d be hard pressed to call this a Dreamcast game when looking at them. Each has a substantially low polygon count (I’m talking about jagged edges in every nook and cranny) and very poor texture quality. They’re downright ugly.

All in all, while kids that are fans of the movie (or Toy Story in general) might get a kick out of the cartoony look of the game, those of us with slightly higher expectations might be extremely disappointed.

Audio:: I can’t even start talking about the sound without first mentioning the in game voicing: it’s pitiful. They hired some actor to play Buzz Lightyear, and I must say that it’s the worst Tim Allen impression I’ve ever heard. It sounds nothing like Buzz Lightyear, and I could do nothing but sit there and laugh at it when I first heard it. It’s that bad. Other voices in the game are just as laughable, though not as bad as the man himself.

Space age sound effects abound, but that mainly just consists of laser blasts, rocket engines rumbling, and some other fanciful weapons that Buzz can pick up along the way. The music is pretty corny, and although I haven’t had the pleasure of watching the movie, I suspect it’s taken or adapted from it.

Sound as a whole is average, but nothing beyond that. Once again, fans of the movie might be able to identify with it, but I sure can’t.

Gameplay/Control:: If only developers would learn how to do something different for a change. Of all the offenders of mediocrity, Disney is the worst of them all. While some Disney platforming games of yore were cool (Aladdin is still one of my favorite Genesis games), this same type of "run, jump, shoot" has simply never carried over to the third dimension well. Buzz Lightyear is no exception to the rule accept that it does it worst than most. As mentioned above, the game has strictly linear play mechanics.

It goes something like this: You choose a planet from the solar system that has a crisis (from a slightly confusing menu setup), hear your briefing, and then start the mission. Unfortunately for you, unless you read up on the instruction manual (which I doubt you would), you won’t realize that the rounds are actually a race. So while the first couple times I played the first level, I was taking my slow sweet time, checking out the sights, sounds, and figuring out how to play. But before I knew it, the screen would blacken out and I’d get a big fat "Mission Failed" message. This kept happening until I realized that I had to beat the level boss to the end of the round; it was a race.

Now I don’t know about you, but what kind of sense does this make? There are all kinds of cool items to pick up, Galactic Alliance Credits (GAC) to pick up to unlock even more items and weapons, a slew of bad guys to kill, and even some little aliens to rescue. But we’re supposed to do this and run like heck to get to the end of the level? I don’t think so. You either run and jump as fast as you can and miss all of the level items and bonuses, or you pick them up and lose the level. This comes off as a lose-lose situation. On top of that, you have to get enough bonus items to be able to travel to new planets for new quests. All this together makes for an extremely difficult game that was likely intended for children.

It’s not that the learning curve is that steep; all you do is run through the level blasting as many of the bad guys as you can before reaching the end, followed by a fairly easy boss battle at the end of each level. But when they make it where it’s hard enough to keep me on my toes, I feel sorry for all the poor kids that are throwing down the controls in anger that they can’t beat the game. For a game that has such a simple idea, it sure doesn’t follow through well.

Extras:: You can replay the rounds over again to pick up bonuses and items that you missed along the way, but there are no really good secrets to be found. There is some level variety, and kids will probably want to take command of Buzz and blast away for a little while, but the replay value is virtually not there at all. It’s fun the first time around, but a second is likely out of the question.

Overall:: Buzz Lightyear should not have been made into a game. This is just another good example of why some movie licenses should simply be left out of the gaming industry, at least not through this type of game. Using the cell shading graphics method, Buzz tries to boast some cool effects, but with the other shortcomings of the graphics (choppy animation, poor texture quality and low polygon count, and lack of individual level variety), it simply doesn’t even begin to compete in today’s already overcrowded gaming market. If you’re under ten years old and a huge Buzz Lightyear fan (or your kid is), this might be a worthy buy, but otherwise, leave this one on the store shelf and let Disney know that this is not the type of game to spend their valuable time creating.