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Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon reviewGame: Putt-Putt Goes to the MoonPlatform: PC Genre: Adventure Developer: Humongous Entertainment |
Reader review by Sise-Neg
October 25, 2012 As I was cleaning out my storage the other day I found my old PC that had ran on Windows 95 along with a handful of children's games that were purchased for me by my parents years ago. One of these games was Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon. I remembered how much fun I had as a kid joining the purple car and his dog Pep on their adventures, and so I brought the PC home along with my old computer games and dusted them off. Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon booted, reintroducing me to the nostalgic music of MS-DOS quality. It took nearly thirty minutes of playtime for me to guide Putt-Putt and Pep from Earth to the moon and back, and at the end of it all I just felt good. Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon is a fantastic game.Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon tells the story of an adolescent car from a fictional place on Earth named Cartown, a town inhabited by talking automobiles in place of humans. Putt-Putt and his dog Pep are invited to Mr. Firebird's Fireworks Factory so Putt-Putt can help him make a sky rocket. Mr. Firebird, who is indeed a red Firebird, warns Putt-Putt not to touch a certain lever in the factory, but Pep tries to catch a butterfly that lands in from an open window and accidentally pulls the lever down, causing sky rockets to blast across the room until one lifts Putt-Putt and his dog into outer space and onto the moon. Fortunately for our hero, the moon has a lunar rover on it named...Rover, as well as multiple aliens that speak English, or car - whichever works for your imagination. Putt-Putt and Rover discover a two-headed multi-gendered alien that is selling a busted rocketship with missing components, and the rest of the game consists of the player guiding Putt-Putt on a search for money and parts to purchase the rocketship and fly it home.
The game is essentially a big fetch quest, and although that is often considered a con in games it works surprisingly well here. In order to obtain each item, the game requires you to explore different locations and click on the interactive environments or talk to moon citizens to find clues. Each item requires different objectives to be completed before obtaining it. For example, in my search for the rocket fuel I traveled to the gas station, the most obvious place to look. The station was closed so I clicked on the machine out front that revealed a note saying that the owner is at the Moon Apartments. But once I reached the apartments the landlord told me that the owner of the gas station had just gone to a different floor and gave me directions to get there, and each time I arrived where I was supposed to I was told that he had just left and to try another place. Finally I found the owner and met him back at the station, getting the rocket fuel as a reward. Each part has you go through some sort of mini-quest in order to get it, and they're all quite enjoyable.
This is an educational game primarily, and although adults won't have any trouble figuring out what to do, young kids will have to do a bit of searching. Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon will teach kids scientific facts, and test memory, reflexes, and critical thinking. For example, when I entered the observatory and looked through the telescope I was told the name of a different constellation each time and rewarded with an animation sequence. I also saw a space alien that told me how far away each planet in the solar system was from the sun. One of my objectives had me complete a Simon Says styled game to continue forward, and another required a game of tag.
There are many opportunities to goof off with the search and just have fun. A lot of the fun comes from clicking on different objects in the environment that activate certain animations and a whole lot of creative sound effects. I clicked on a pile of rocks and it turned into R2-D2 from Star Wars. When I entered the Cosmic Dust Diner and drank varieties of soda pop it changed Putt-Putt's paint color depending on what he drank, and he remained that color permanently until I gave him the right soda pop to change him back to normal - I wanted to see Putt-Putt turn green, so I left him that way for the rest of the game. Guiding Putt-Putt to the basketball court let me watch him jump on moon bounces, and going to Buff and Glow's Do It Yourself Beauty Shop allowed me to use a machine that mixed and matched various alien parts for the head, torso, and legs, allowing me to come up with whacky alien creatures. There was even an arcade game called Bear Stormin' that let me take control of a bear in a plane with limited fuel and pop balloons while avoiding obstacles like floating cows and pigs tied with string.
No matter what you decide to do in it, Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon is a fun game. Kids are sure to learn a few things while being entertained, and although the game targets young children there are homages and adult references that will make even older people chuckle. The game also provides you with a sense of accomplishment upon completion that many other games fail to give. I mean, hey, you just rescued a talking car and his dog from being stranded permanently on the moon!
Of course it's possible that I have nostalgia glasses on. I can definitely see how adults that didn't first play this as kids would find this game juvenile. But I think everyone should give Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon a chance. It may reawaken your childhood innocence.
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