Camp Lazlo: Leaky Lake Games
	Genre: Adventure Developer: Collision Studios
Publisher Region Released Crave Entertainment NA 10/17/2006

Your Account Options

You currently have no privileges related to this game profile because you are not signed into an HonestGamers account. Please log in, or click to register for a free user account.

More Reviews by Jason Venter
	Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland (PlayStation 3) There’s an astonishing level of complexity on display everywhere you turn, so you might have to wait until your second or third trip through the game before try...
	Kingdom Rush (iPad) Kingdom Rush is the perfect showpiece for Apple’s famous tablet, by virtue of thoroughly competent and refined design that typically is preserved for the...
	Revenge of the Titans (PC) Compounding that particular issue is the fact that it’s difficult to see very far. The perspective is close enough to the ground that you can easily see detail...
	Little King's Story (Wii) Your royal guard has a tendency to get caught up on fences, on the edge of buildings and so forth. By the time you’re commanding a group of 17 soldiers, it’s a...
	Ridge Racer (Vita) In Ridge Racer, though, none of the tracks—even the two bonus ones—include more than a few corners that you might call “sharp.” Old Town, one of the adde...

Best Game Boy Advance Games
	Mother 3 Average Rating: 10.0; Reviews: 2
	Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga Average Rating: 9.5; Reviews: 2
	Kuru Kuru Kururin (Import) Average Rating: 9.0; Reviews: 2
	Mario Kart: Super Circuit Average Rating: 8.7; Reviews: 3
	Fire Emblem Average Rating: 8.7; Reviews: 3
	Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon Average Rating: 8.5; Reviews: 2
	Super Puzzle Fighter II Average Rating: 8.5; Reviews: 2
	Riviera: The Promised Land Average Rating: 8.4; Reviews: 2
	Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Average Rating: 8.4; Reviews: 7
	Castlevania: Circle of the Moon Average Rating: 8.3; Reviews: 7

Looking for a good read?
Check out a selection from our database of more than 8000 reviews! joseph_valencia has weighed in on Mega Man Zero 2 for the Game Boy Advance and figures it rates 8 out of 10. What do you think? Read the review, then be sure to leave feedback or chime in with one of your own!

Staff Review

Review by Jason Venter
November 10, 2006

After playing through Camp Lazlo: Leaky Lake Games, I’m pretty sure it’s based on a cartoon I’d enjoy. There’s a definite sense of humor in the game, and I really like the art style. It reminds me of Rocko’s Modern Life and a number of other Nickelodeon shows. You know, the sort of stuff most of us loved when we were kids. With that said, the game doesn’t seem to have the same pedigree. When you get right down to it, the package you get is nothing more than 15 rather dull mini-games, connected by tedious exploration.

The idea behind the game is that Lazlo and his witty friends are hoping they’ll be able to participate in the Leaky Lake Games festival, as representatives for their camp. If they get their wish, they’ll get to show the rival all-girl team that Lazlo and crew know where it’s at! Unfortunately, the activities director doesn’t share their faith in their skill, so they’ll have to first prove that they are up to par by participating in the inconsequential qualifying events, of which there are around 12.

It’s clear that Camp Lazlo: Leaky Lake Games was conceived as a collection of mini-game madness, just as it’s clear that the team behind it ran out of ideas about five minutes in. To pad things out, they made an exploration mode that will occupy about two thirds of your time. This mode is about as much fun as playing Tic-Tac-Toe against yourself. Camp Lazlo is a relatively large place and you’ll have to cross it numerous times between each mini-game.

Really, it amounts to item hunting. Maybe you’re about to participate in a swim meet, only you suddenly realize that you don’t have your swim cap. Of course, what animal could possibly swim without the appropriate gear? So you have to scrounge around camp, only you’ll find that the person who had it lent it to someone else, who might tell you where it’s at if you retrieve the meat-flavored lip balm. That’s not an exact example, just a meaningless collection of a few examples I remember off the top of my head. It hardly matters, though, since they all blur together. At the end of the day, aside from the occasional line of dialogue, everything blurs together and it doesn’t matter if you’re getting flowers or shovels or whatever else. It’s all repetitive.

At least fetching items is made simpler by an in-game compass, which works about 90 percent of the time. You generally have a good idea which direction you need to go, and then you get near and maybe you have to backtrack one screen and take a slightly different route. Either way, it’s doable and shouldn’t provide children with too much frustration.

If you're above five, though, your primary source of amusement is the art design and not the play mechanics. Packed as they are with trees and brush, docks and cabins, the Camp Lazlo grounds feel appropriately 'camp-ish' and the characters are fun to watch as they make their way around the area. They're just not doing anything particularly interesting in and of itself.

Your reward for going through all the fetching isn’t much better: you get to play some mini-games.

For a game like Camp Lazlo: Leaky Lake Games to work, the mini-games have to be a huge payoff. They have to be so cool that you want to go back and play them on a whim. Well, you can do that here if you really want to, only you won’t. Want to, that is. Because they suck.

As I already mentioned, there are 15 mini-games. I counted. Plus, they were posted on the bulletin board at the center of camp. So, what do these games entail? Around a third of them consist of more running around the map and collecting items. So those are immediately a ‘no thanks’ sort of thing. Then there are the rest, which switch things up a bit.

One finds you hopping across floating ledges to one side of the screen, touching a flag, then hopping back to the left, touching a flag, and repeating the process until the event ends. The controls are fairly precise so you’ll probably only mess up a few times and then win. That’s how it is with most events; there’s little risk of actually losing, little in the way of tension except for a timer that ticks down and is just as likely to have two minutes remaining when you complete your objective as not.

Another area has you grabbing water, then cleaning up trees that have been sprayed with paint. You have to keep running back to the start to get more water, then back to the other end of the map to clean a tree off, then repeating the stupid process until you just want the game to end. Then it does, and you don’t have to play that game again unless you sucked and didn’t finish in time.

A few of the other games just have you press button combinations. You do so for a few minutes until the event ends and you win. There are sometimes amusing animations to go with, but these events are repetitive and benefit only from a different set of animations, so to speak. There’s not much else to say about that.

Probably the best game is the food fight, only it’s also really irritating. You stand at the center of six people that are throwing food back and forth, and you have to do the same while avoiding hits. Then you figure out that just moving up and down while chucking food is all you have to do, and the event loses its luster. How delightful.

Ultimately, Camp Lazlo: Leaky Lake Games is completely forgettable, despite its promising premise. Little kids who love the cartoon will find it mildly amusing for awhile, but even they are likely to tire of the unimaginative mini-games and seemingly endless fetch quests. The license deserved better and so does your wallet.

Feedback

Facebook()

Forums(0)

You can click the tabs on the above bar to choose whether you wish to read comments from visitors who have posted on Facebook, or from registered site users who have left feedback on the forums. Please leave a comment of your own if you have anything to say!

Info | Help | Privacy Policy | Contact | Advertise

© 1998-2012 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site--from reviews, guides, cheats and editorials to message board posts--may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Camp Lazlo: Leaky Lake Games is a registered trademark of its copyright holder. This site makes no claim to Camp Lazlo: Leaky Lake Games, its characters, screenshots, artwork, music, or any intellectual property contained within. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors.