Jambo! Safari Ranger Adventure (Wii) Review

Jambo! Safari is a remake of a ’classic’ 90s SEGA arcade game which adds some much needed depth to the core driving and animal-capturing gameplay, but fails to recreate the pure fun of the original. Aimed primarily at children, the game will have most adults either doubling over in laughter or completely horrified at the poor attempts to shoehorn an animal conservation message into an otherwise animal cruelty-ridden concept. Lassoing wild animals from the back of a fast moving truck is not the recommended way of capturing ’sick’ animals. Despite this oversight, Jambo! Safari is a relatively fun game which uses an open world, mission-based gameplay structure to help make the player feel like they are participating in a genuine safari park. The graphics and sound are stylised, but do a good job of giving the player a sense of being part of a living, breathing world, and the controls are well thought out and work effectively. There is plenty of content on offer, but the limited range of missions ensures the game quickly becomes repetitive.

Jambo! Safari allows players to become a safari park ranger on an ’exotic, action packed journey across an African safari park’. Players can complete a variety of missions, including rescuing exotic animals, nursing sick animals back to health, photographing animals in the wild and taking tourists on tours of the park. The core gameplay consists of capturing wild animals by chasing them down across the plains, swinging a lasso around their necks and yanking on the rope until they stop running. Once caught, the animal can be transferred to an enclosure where they can receive treatment. Animals can be named and then tracked around the plains after they have been released. The other missions are basically a variation on the theme and usually involve the need to drive somewhere as fast as possible.

For a game based around the gimmick of using the Wii Remote as a lasso, it was exceptionally important for the developers to get the controls just right, and for the most part they have succeeded. Swinging the Wii Remote to simulate the lasso is actually quite responsive and even fun for a while, and only occasionally do the motion controls fail to recognise the intended movements. Driving is handled with the Nunchuck’s analogue stick. Sadly, the handling feels a little unresponsive and the vehicles feel like they are floating rather than careening across the African savannah. It is not a major issue, but with a little tightening up, it certainly would have improved the overall quality of the game.

The stylised graphics are skewed towards the target market of children and families and while the textures can be a little fuzzy, eveything looks fine. The graphics are certainly not up to the standard of some of the promotional shots that are floating around, but the overall look is suitable for what the developers were trying to achieve. Technically, the game works well with a steady frame rate, with no glitches and no sudden pop-ups in the environments.

The audio is also adequate for the style of game. While all of the expected sounds are included, there is nothing special about the sounds or music in the game and most of the audio is instantly forgettable.

The value for money proposition is entirely dependent on the player’s ability to derive enjoyment out of the capture and release gameplay. There is certainly enough content in the package to keep most people entertained for many hours, especially the target market of younger players, but some of the more demanding or older players may find that, while there are a lot of missions, they lack variety and quickly make the game repetitive. The character development and customisation options, two-player cooperative mode, party games and lots of collectibles go a long way to making up for the repetitiveness, but it does come down to whether the player finds it fun wielding the Wii Remote like a lasso.

Overall, Jambo! Safari has its moments, but the developers failed to capitalise on some decent controls and a fun concept.

Personal thoughts

When I first started playing Jambo! Safari, I thought I was going to be thoroughly bored after about five minutes. Everything from the family-friendly visuals and approach to the gimmicky core gameplay concept was screaming out ’budget title’. I persevered though, and underneath all the gimmicks and kid-friendly stuff is actually a reasonably entertaining game. It is enjoyable to take on photographic assignments (especially for those who enjoy real-life photography) and driving around the safari park and checking up on all of your captured animals is kind of fun.

But that is the thing… the game is ’kind of fun’ and that’s it. It is not genuinely fun and it perfectly represents the effort (or lack of it) that most third parties have been putting into their Wii games for more than three years now. So much effort and expense is invested in developing games to their fullest potential on the 360 and PS3, but it seems that third parties are just happy to slap something together for the Wii in a short period of time.

We constantly hear third party developers complain that Wii owners do not buy games. Well the millions of people buying Nintendo’s own offerings are evidence that people with Wiis do buy games, and plenty of them. What Wii owners don’t buy is half-assed ports, underdeveloped games and games that are only almost fun. Why should we, when we can buy any number of offerings from Nintendo that provide genuine fun. If a new Wii owner is looking at the available games on the shelf, why would they go for Jambo! Safari when they can choose from Mario Kart, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Pikmin, Metroid, Punch-Out!!… need I go on?

Until a third party puts out a game that is equivalent to the quality of one of Nintendo’s own titles (and I am hoping that the upcoming release of Monster Hunter Tri is of that quality), none of them have the right to complain about poor software performance on the Wii.