For those of you who don’t know, Disney’s Tarzan is a movie intended mainly for kids with beautiful visuals but not much substance. For those of you who don’t know, Disney’s Tarzan, the game, could be described in exactly the same way. First of all, I have to give kudos to this game for two reasons: One, it’s a sidescroller; and sidescrollers rule. Two, it’s got a lot of monkeys in it. I’ll let you worry about that.

The game basically follows the plot of the Disney movie, with Tarzan being orphaned in the forest, forced to gain the respect of his adoptive father, and then faced with the brutality of human beings that invade the jungle. Were it not for some hyper–cute characters and overtly stupid dialogue, the story might have been decent. However, with said ’features’, the story is simply too trivialized for gamers to care. But hey, it’s a sidescroller! The story is simply an excuse to run and jump, right? Tarzan is definitely good at what it does.

While the game is technically a 2D sidescroller, the levels are designed in such a way that there is often more than one path players can follow. While there aren’t really any objectives in these levels (other than get to the end), players who want to completely finish the game will have to spend their time exploring these intricate levels in depth. Players will have to find letters to spell the word TARZAN, or pieces of a torn photograph, among other hidden articles. Some of the levels are 3D in design, although they still follow basic sidescroller principles. For example, one level has a young Tarzan running ahead of a herd of stampeding elephants. Players view the action (which is beautifully rendered) from in front of Tarzan, and the action is semi–3D. However, the same basic sidescroller tenets are in place, as players must run, jump and avoid obstacles in order to win. Very well done.

However, if there is one big difference between Tarzan and the sidescrollers that kept me chained to the TV as a child, it would be this game has insanely good graphics. Tarzan is the best looking ’sidescroller’ ever. The graphics are rendered in 3D, despite the 2D nature of the game. What this means is, while Tarzan is running from left to right on screen, there are always things happening in 3D dimensions all around him. The effect is quite nice.

The game sounds are also great, with plenty of speech and ambient sounds. Despite the game’s cool premise and excellent execution, though, the only gamers who are going to get much out of Tarzan are those for whom the game was designed — kids. Because of the audience Tarzan is targeted to, the game is especially easy. Most teens or adult gamers will whip through this game fairly quickly, especially if one doesn’t bother to look for all the hidden articles.

Despite this fact, though, Disney Interactive has impressed me with Tarzan. It is brilliantly executed and wonderfully designed, and I’m sure that the audience it caters to will love this game.

Overall Game Rating: B

Activision’s website