The Duck Universe Lives On

YMH@aol.com YMH at aol.com
Fri Aug 25 06:25:36 CEST 2000


I'm pleased to report that it seems that Carl Bark's Duck universe isn't 
quite as dead in the US as it appeared to have been. Ubi Soft will soon be 
releasing a Platform game starring Donald Duck for the Nintendo 64 and the 
Playstation 2 video game consoles. While this unto itself isn't all that 
surprising, this incomplete list of supporting characters is: Huey, Dewey, 
and Louie Duck, Daisy Duck, Gyro Gearloose, Gladstone Gander, the Beagle 
Boys, Magica DeSpell, and Merlock the Sorceress (who appeared in the 
DuckTales movie.) And there are others as well... I'm still hoping they 
they'll announce the presence of Scrooge.

It's almost as if they wanted to make an Uncle Scrooge game but were worried 
that their target audience wouldn't know who he is. Either that, or they 
couldn't come up with any enemies for Donald to fight that he'd independently 
fought before -- but the fact that they even *bothered* to look into the old 
TV shows and comics instead of making up their own from scratch impresses me 
very much -- I actually think that I may buy this game.

Of course, the gameplay will be simple stuff; typical relativly-mindless 
Platform game fare, reminiscent of the Mario series. But the fact that these 
forgotten-by-most characters will be appearing in a mainstream videogame has 
*got* to be a step in the right direction.

As for myself... I hope to someday have the privilege of having the 
opportunity to design a LucasArts-style Adventure game based on the Uncle 
Scrooge comics, featuring mature, intelligent, and sophisticated character 
development, dialogue, plot, and puzzles... That genre of game has all but 
died out, these days, but I have hopes that it will eventually return. 
Whether I'm someday will actually in a position to design computer games is 
less certain, but I can still hope. :-)

In the meantime, though, games like Donald Duck are better than nothing...

For more information about the games, see the following URLs:
Playstation2 version:
http://ps2.ign.com/previews/15164.html?2132.237.3
(This preview actually mentions the Barks comics!)

Nintendo 64 version:
http://ign64.ign.com/previews/12183.html
(has gameplay videos)

A lurker for several months who's finally found a good reason to speak up,
Yossi Horowitz




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