Koala Lumpur - Journey to the Edge
Only recently we reported about Thomas Richter's finding of a small magic-talented Koala. Now the Koala became grown-up, learned the German language and invited Thomas into its colourful adventure world. I must admit that I exceptionally looked forward to this test. No other preview rouses my expectations in such a way lately than Broderbund's Koala Lumpur. I was tired of this "new" shoot'm-up-racing-sport-beat'm-up games and wanted to consume again a fastidious adventure game. Of Lucas Arts one can apparently only expect a good game every three years, and else it also looks rather thin at the adventure front. The bad, bad time now found an end, because here comes ... tatatataaaa: Koala Lumpur: Journey to the Edge!
At the beginning Dingo is cought up in the writing table.
Only the correct code will free him from the converted refrigerator.
The story
For all those, who missed the
preview of Koala Lumpur in the edition 4/97, I repeat the short prehistory more detailed
and... aehem ... corrected. Our small Zen master named Koala Lumpur (who has more hair in
his face than our chief editor on the head) was in his everyday meditation phase, in order
vitalize his chakras a bit. And during murmuring, a scroll suddenly materialized before
him, because of a false babbled magic spell.
With the puzzles brain is demanded.
The piece of paper does not only have as a consequence that Mr. Lumpur gawks completely surprised, but still somewhat much worse. In a discussion with the heavenly lady Ella Mental he learns, what a stupid small fur animal he is and should better lie knocked over on a road in Australia. After all he is to blame for the fact that the time was scrambled and now Elias' bad opponent Macho Al Dente (or something like that) owns the possibility to destroy the entire comic universe and perhaps even beforehand haunt the area plundering and raping. The chap does not only look like a devil, but also behaves so.
Again and again comic scenes make fun
The task
Of course good Ella still grants him another chance
to eliminate the mischief. Koala Lumpur must find the counterpart to the scroll, throwing
him and the comic universe into misfortune. This task emerges at the end however
nevertheless more complicated, than the eucalyptus-guzzling and climbing beastie could
have ever imagined. The sought object was torn up into innumerable parts, scattered all
over the universe. Well, as reward after successfully terminated mission old Ella promises
Koala the complete spiritual enlightenment.
Many stairs ...
As the task seems to be very difficult, our bear contacts its old buddy Dr. DingoTu DingoTu-Far, to help on the search for the holy paper rubbish. Not only that we have to deal with a conjuring bear, now another nutty tyke with scientific knowledge appears. As ice-on-the-cake of this zoo that you have to control, Koala invokes its personal guardian angel: A fly! This winged comrade are you - yes, you - dear reader. Dingo and Koala follow this fluttering cursor at every step and turn as long as they are not prevented for any reason and you must release the two out of their dilemma. Would be interesting to know, if you will use your fly flap this summer too to swat the little buzzing ones after playing this game!
You need to draw a map
for this huge tube system
The technique
Although in the entire game a
view of 360 degrees is guaranteed, it's not a 3D-Engine. Broderbund made it rather simple
and put background pictures together, which then are simply scrolling from left to the
right and sometimes also from above downward. Naturally thereby the "first"
picture ties to "the last", to be able to provide the panorama view. Refined,
simple, but nevertheless realized interesting. So there are is no bucking during
scrolling. Now and then you can find some automatic scenes, where you only must fly to the
correct direction in the correct moment.
To cope with the dog guard you
should have a certain knowledge about the dogs' customs.
As you surely already noticed, the graphics were pressed on CD in comic style. Found objects are carried around easily on the hat of Koala Lumpur. You will be convulsed with laughter at Koala Lumpur. If the bearish actions of the travelling zoo don't make you laugh already, then the impudent, but very amusing comments of Koala and Dingo will settle the rest.
Some landscapes are everything else but beautiful
The Koala's German speaker tries audibly for an obviously East Asian Slang, which sounds however very professional. Fortunately the people from Broderbund thought very much about the puzzles, because those are partly rather difficult and challenging. But do not give up: Koala Lumpur makes so much fun that you would certainly like to play it again and again!
Developer: Broderbund
Minimum system requirements: 486/60, 8 MB RAM, SVGA, Win3.xx o.Win95
Pros
Tricky puzzles
Humor with no limits
Graphics not the best
Rating:
- Gameplay/continuous fun: 44 of 50
- Handling: 8 of 10
- Graphics: 14 of 20
Total: 81
PC Power June 1997
Adventure-Archiv 11-05-02