Completion Time: 3h:32m:00s
Rating: 4/10

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An Icebreaker

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Hey! It’s certainly been a minute since I’ve made one of these. The past month or so I’ve actually been trying to complete the original “Super Monkey Ball” and have been stuck on finishing Expert Mode without using any continues (which is a real time sink). Oh well, this blog isn’t about that! I went into the backlog of other GameCube games I’ve already completed and grabbed one at random, so I’m gonna go into Ice Age 2: The Meltdown a little bit. Wouldn’t ya know it: more licensed games on the GameCube. Who would’ve thought?

We've come a decently long way from having to look at models like this

As made clear in my previous blog post about the Shrek 2 game, I haven’t really been invested in the DreamWorks output in close to 2 decades, so I only have a passing familiarity with the Ice Age franchise. I certainly watched the first two movies at… some point, but my base level knowledge will have to carry me through. I’m sure it’ll be fine and the film will barely be relevant to the plot of the game at all anyways. But be well warned. This is by far going to be far shorter than many of my other blogs because there's practically nothing here to latch onto.

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My Meltdown

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This game sucks. Plain and simple. I've played a lot of these movie licensed games in my time gaming, hell it's practically a right of passage to beat a number of these as a kid when you have a limited supply of games at your disposal. But this isn't terrible because it doesn't function or breaks or is... offensive to the sense in some way. It's just horrendously boring is all. For the majority of the game, you play as the little squirrel Scrat, that's always chasing his acorn. Fittingly, the collectibles in the game are acorns as well, and they are EVERYWHERE. Why does he hyper-fixate on this one acorn when you can't walk 5 feet without running into one? Is this elaborated on in the movies? Is this some kind of "special" or "magical" acorn he seeks? I don't know, but the game doesn't really care so I don't either.

The end of the world can wait. I need my big acorn :)

There are thankfully a couple of minigames that involve sliding down landscapes and collecting things (of course) while avoiding obstacles, and if I have to provide any praise for the title it would have to be in these sections, because at least there's momentum causing some fun. It's sort of the same as "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" game I touched on a while back, as I recall the sliding sections of that game also being the better portions. Granted, overall that game has a lot more going for it, so I don't want to totally compare it to this one. But being this sloth character sliding down ice flows is enjoyable enough for me.

What is this feeling? Am I having fun? I am!

You navigate a number of locales that line up with the movie as I remember it, just with the caveat that you have next to no involvement with the characters themselves. That's at least KINDA interesting, being a character that is on his own adventure while the actual plot is happening around him. But the platforming is a bit too rigid to be fully enjoyable in this case, and the enemies and hazards are obstacles in name alone. The game isn't hard due to its content, but rather how it functions. In fact, the only thing that I'm surprised works fairly well are the ice physics. Despite what the title might claim about melting, there's a fair amount of ice in this game, so I'm not sure what's going on there. But the slip and sliding of the ice was actually probably the most enjoyable part of the game for me, as I got good at using the flow of the ice to my advantage. Honestly I felt like a speedrunner at times, which made it all the more depressing when I would get to a swamp or a bog or whatever other kind of stage the game has to offer. Especially because the swamps have tar, which are the exact opposite of ice in this instance.

The eternal struggle

But lastly, the way the game ends is just comical. You go through all these stages, save the sloth from being sacrificed, play a couple of minigames that run the gamut of basic tasks like "hide & seek" and "simon", and navigate an ice maze until you finally reach an outside section of ice and climb to the top. You've gotta dodge a single spider climbing the ice wall and then squeeze through a crack at the top. And... that's it. You've reached the end of the game. No final real run of it, no boss, no nothing. You get a couple of slim (albeit nicely painted) pieces of stationary art to tell the rest of the story and then the game ends. This had to have been a rush job, especially compared to other games of this ilk, I don't recall having played anything else quite like this during the GameCube generation.

"Six Characters in Search of an Exit" by Gordon De Haseth (circa 2006)

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Completing the Game

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So what exactly would you expect from a game like this? That is has a deep collectible or challenge system that would reward its players for accomplishments? If so, then you’re likely not familiar with games of this ilk from that period. Just make your way through the stages and collect acorns so that you can progress, that simple. Collect enough minor acorns in a stage and you’ll unlock a Bonus Feature, which are pretty much all just trailers for other things. These always drive me up the wall, because given the lifecycle of games and entertainment in general, I usually already saw these trailers in other places. Thus, the merit has always eluded me.

Thank you participating boys, I know it couldn't have... Jay Leno?!

Yeah, there isn't much of anything here, I'm sorry to say. I squeezed as much as possible out of this "Ice Age 2" game, but to little avail. The game was a breeze to get through first of all, but it was so tiringly bland and provided next to nothing in the way of completion, so what all can I give it other than a hearty: "meh". I'm still hard at work with Super Monkey Ball, and I hope and pray that I'll finish it soon so I can analyze the completion process soon without a massive delay in any blog posts. Though I may have to place it on hold and jump into something else if things keep going the way they have been with those damn monkeys.

This is another entry in a series where I go through and complete every GameCube game, as it is the largest part of my video game collection. GameCube Games: 22/652