Reviewed: August 12, 2002
Reviewed by: JoLene Lark

Publisher
Acclaim

Developer
PuzzleKings

Released: June 4, 2002
Genre: Puzzle
Players: 2
ESRB: Everyone

4
2
4
4
3.8


Supported Features:

  • GBA Link Cable


  • ZooCube’s instruction manual cover was very fitting for this game. Envision a monkey wrapped around a road sign with a cube and the word “puzzled” on it. Puzzled is how I felt after playing this game, as this game can only be called "weird". It is your job to use the zoo cube - a machine specifically designed to reverse the evil Dr. Ooze’s locking creatures into unnatural 3-dimensional forms. The zoo cube is your tool to reverse Dr. Ooze’s process by pairing animals and thus neutralizing the 3D shaping effects.


    When you start playing this game it is VERY HELPFUL if you complete the tutorial level. Once you are comfortable with the GBA controls for this game the puzzlement begins. A zoo cube can be rotated to store the animals on all six sides of the cube. It will overload and thus end the game if the player stacks more than five animals on any one side. Your goal is to play pairs of animals together to aid in the neutralization of Dr. Ooze’s shaping fields. The animals that you free return to a place called the “ark” for rehabilitation.

    Scoring is very simplistic in this game; you earn points for matching shapes. The closer the animals are to the zoo cube the more points you get, ranging from five to twenty-five points. These points can be doubled if you accelerate the incoming shape by pressing the “a” button. Also of note is that you can rearrange the positions of the animal on the zoo cube as well as using of the three smart bombs to clear up to six animals at once.

    There are also other items such as directional bombs, power ups, goodies and juggling balls that provide bonus points. Receiving any of these items helps with your performance rating. A rating under fifty is poor, one hundred is good and if you get over a two hundred you a “zoo cube master”!


    Wow. Now for the bad news. This GBA game's graphic quality was rather horrible at times. It was rather hard to distinguish the different animals and certain colors seemed to blend. This game's cube was rather hard to control in the higher levels due to the lack of graphic quality, thus be prepared to replay your game a lot in order to keep losing. The cube was also very sensitive to controls and thus all of these factors led to a very high frustration level for me and almost drove me to dig out my copy of Tetris World to play a decent puzzle game.

    According to the manual you were supposed to be seeing 3-dimensional animals. However due to the graphical muffling found in this game you will be lucky to tell the differing colors apart. Also at times it was rather difficult to even distinguish the various shapes. This game is by far the worst GBA game, graphically, that I have played to date.


    Sound quality for this game was average at best. There was nothing out of the ordinary or even noteworthy. Music could get repetitive at times, but this can usually be found in any puzzle-type game. And while there was enough variety of sounds throughout this game, none of them stood out; even when each puzzle piece joined the zoo cube there was nothing impressive.


    There are many versions of game types available for zoo cube. There are five single player modes.
    1. Classic: in this type you use the zoo cube to load up your “ark” with pairs of animals and take them across one of the seven ocean levels.
    2. Levels: you help pilot the zoo cube across three seas and four oceans. You must be successful in the beginning levels in order to unlock further oceans.
    3. Secret Levels: If you completely clear certain Classic Mode levels this unlocks and allows you to gain bonus points.
    4. Knockout: you start with prearranged shapes. If you clear fifty percent of the shapes you can go onto the next level.
    5. Knockout Blind: just like Knock Out except that the initial shapes have lost their (already horrible) color and turned gray. Thus have fun matching the blobs...err.. I mean shapes.
    There are two types of multiplayer available. In order to play with another zoo cube playe the must own a game link cable and a zoo cube game pak. The first type is called two player co-op. in this type there are pieces that you must swap to your friends cube and vice versa. The last mode is called two player versus classic & knock out. Each player battles against the computer to see who can last the longest.


    This game provided a few hours of emotions for me. At first I was overjoyed to see that another type of puzzle game had been released. The next emotion was dismay at the mediocre color quality and graphics. Finally I felt indifference, as I could care less about finishing this game due to its many many faults. This game is rental quality only in my opinion. If you do happen to buy it be prepared to become frustrated. With such a unique concept, it was unfortunate that this game simply didn't follow through quality wise with the overall presentation.