Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland

I was born in the early 80s, meaning I grew up in the era of the original Nicktoons from 1991: Doug, Ren & Stimpy, and Rugrats.  While all three franchises had video games based on them, only games based on Ren & Stimpy were released during the early part of the series’ run on TV.  The only game based on Doug wasn’t released until 2000 after Doug’s Big Movie was in theaters, and the first Rugrats game didn’t launch until 1998.  However, Rugrats has had twenty-eight games released overall with Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland being the twenty-ninth.

If you’re not familiar with Rugrats in general, the series mainly revolves around a group of babies and their daily experiences, though these seemingly small and simple experiences are seen as grand adventures by the babies and their imaginations.  Without actually watching any episodes of the show that’s the best way to describe it, and that’s essentially what the game is. 

In Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland, the four main babies (Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil) imagine if their life was a video game (or “bibeo game” as they say since they’re only one year old, and you can rest easy knowing I won’t write this review in toddler-speak). However, Angelica (Tommy’s cousin and pretty much the antagonist of the series) wants to be the boss. That’s the premise of the game, but for a Rugrats game that’s really all you need as it fits the cartoon: take a simple life experience and turn it into a grand adventure.

Throughout the game you (and a friend if playing co-op) can freely swap between the four babies, and each one has different stats and abilities. Tommy and Phil are pretty well-rounded, Chuckie has little strength but can jump higher than the others, and Lil can slow her descent after a jump for a brief moment, making her a good choice for some more difficult jumps. While this is definitely not the first game to use that formula, I’m perfectly fine with that as, while it’s been done before, how else are you going to make four one/two year olds different enough to want to play as all of them? You have three difficulties to choose from: Newborn, Baby, and Big Kid, though Newborn and Baby aren’t all too different. The main difference in difficulties is that Newborn basically gives you infinite lives and Big Kid doesn’t let you swap between the babies during a level; whoever you pick you have to use until either the level is cleared or you run out of lives.

The initial stage gives you a chance to get used to the controls and a few mechanics. Aside from the aforementioned differences between the babies, you can also do a ground pound, which can be used to take out enemies and activate certain switches. Enemies can also be stomped on normally, then you can pick them up and throw them at other enemies. Besides the intro stage there are five other stage you can play in any order.

Each stage consists of various enemies and obstacles to traverse, and items to collect such as milk bottles to replenish health, cookies to give you an extra life (health and lives are separate for each baby), a screwdriver hidden towards the end of each stage that you must find to exit the stage, and three Reptar coins with a fourth being obtained once you defeat the stage boss. The Reptar coins can be hidden throughout the stages or can be in plain sight and easily collected, but you will need to collect a certain amount to finish the game dependent on the difficulty you chose at the start of the game. On the surface that all sounds easy enough, but there are moments in a few levels that ended up being a bit more tricky than they needed to be.

While the stages themselves weren’t too difficult overall, there were several moments that started to become frustrating. A lot of those moments involved making jumps that either gave you very little room overhead so a minor slip up would mean either taking unnecessary damage or requiring you to redo part of a vertical section. Other times, you’d have to make very tight jumps while enemies are flying around you, and coupled with the already little room for error, it just made for some frustrating moments. On the flip side, the boss fights were pretty enjoyable, if not a little on the easy side. Even the final boss isn’t too difficult as long as you’re good at mashing the attack button.

When it comes to visual and audible presentation, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland did a great job at recreating the look and sounds that Klasky Csupó used for the original cartoon. There is an option to change the graphics and audio to 8-bit which is nice, but I actually preferred the original graphics and audio due to how spot on they resembled the cartoon. Each of the babies having their own strengths and weaknesses is nice as it makes you want to play as each of them to see who’s best for what situations, though some areas do feel a lot tougher depending on who you play as. As such, Lil and her slow descent made a lot of the game easier, especially with some of the tougher jumps, and I used her for a good chunk of the game.

There is one final thing to comment on and unfortunately it’s definitely my biggest nitpick: Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is a rather short game. I played on the Baby difficulty which is the default and despite some of the platforming frustrations I had, I was still able to not only complete the game but also obtain every Steam achievement in under ninety minutes. I did everything the game had to offer within Steam’s refund policy outside of playing through it again on the hardest difficulty. On top of that, the regular price is $24.99 which some people may find a little high for its length and easy difficulty.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is a fun little game but is definitely on the easy side. Considering it’s based on Rugrats I wasn’t expecting anything too difficult, but I also wasn’t expecting a game that could be completed in under an hour and a half, let alone collect every achievement. Despite the occasional platforming issues and some areas being more difficult depending on which baby you’re using, the biggest turnoff for a lot of people will probably be the price as twenty-five dollars seems a bit high for a game this short and easy. If you’re able to wait for a good sale, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is definitely worth checking out but at this time, it’s hard to recommend even for diehard Rugrats fans.