Ore! Tomba

In a world of Tom Clancys, Final Fantasies, and Grand Theft Autos, it was hard to find a game that was pretty much ridiculous, but still enjoyable, with a great story and a challenging-though not impossible-level of difficulty. My friends, look no further than Tomba!

Tomba is a 2-D platformer. It has beautiful graphics-cartoonish, but still breathtaking. The gameplay is basic-X is jump, O uses weapon, and square reads signs. Unlike most "level to level" games, though, Tomba introduces an odd "mission" based system. By talking to someone, finding an item, or seeing an object, you "obtain" a mission, which is told to you by large orange letters across the screen. By completing the task set to you, you "clear" the mission and are rewarded with an item, information, or even another mission(ugh!). There are 130 missions in the game, so you won't get bored for quite a while.

The best aspect of Tomba to me, though, is the storyline. The story is simple at first, but gets more involved as you go on-but never becomes as complicated as some other games. It seems that irritating little pigs in vests have stolen Tomba's precious golden bracelet, and he wants it back. As you go on, though, you find out that the entire land has been warped and transformed by the Seven Evil Pigs. Tomba then has to find "bags" to seal the Evil Pigs in, thus breaking the evil magic spells on the lands. The main theme of the story is friendship-you make many friends along the quest, who all help you some way or another in the end.

This game was amazing. It gave me a lot to do, a huge world to do it all in, magic, mystery, and flying dogs. I give this game 10 of out 10 possible stars!