"So wait...I don't think I follow. You're telling me that Curious George doesn't have like, a special attack? He doesn't hit anyone"?

That right there is how bad the videogame industry has become, that I can actually ask a developer a question like that because I expect every platform game no matter how cute and/or innocent to feature violence and death on some twisted scale. But Namco's Curious George contains neither. It's a straight up kids title in every sense, a game where exploration, vine swinging, and chasm clearing are much more important than conking some poor sap over the head with a tire iron or jamming bananas into his face. And you know what? I wasn't necessarily turned off by this.

Having played the game for about fifteen minutes, I'm not entirely sure that it's my cup of tea, but my steaming hot beverage of choice is smashing someone into a face with a locker door. With that being said, the game's not bad and I think children will dig it, but it's obvious that the developers have some additional work to do, and whether or not they do it will be the difference between a great final score and a 2.5/5.

Curious George is based on Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment's upcoming film (due out February 10) and it closely follows the film. Players take control of the loveable monkey (a curious little monkey, or so I've heard) George and cause all sorts of mischief. This also involves giving his friend The Man in the Yellow Hat a coronary by trashing his apartment, causing havoc in a museum, and just running amok about the city. By the end of the adventure, people will be mortified, places will be a shambles, and George will have that cute innocent grin on his face.

It all begins in the African jungle, where The Man in the Yellow Hat is just passing through. Fascinated by his car and his overall yellowness, George sets out to catch up and burden him to the extreme, and this is where you (or I) come in. The goal of the very first mission is to reach the Man in the Yellow Hat and to do this you'll have to traverse a fairly large section of jungle and perform the usual set of platform mechanics which include swinging on vines, using fallen branches as slides, hopping on lily pads, and climbing up the sides of cliffs. It's all really basic stuff and it's enjoyable for the most part, but Namco needs to fix a few things, the most notable being the collision detection between George and a vine. I spent way too much time trying to align George and the vine, and unless kids' motor skills are far more advanced than mine are (which is probably true), they might struggle. The same goes for the aforementioned cliff climbing. George can leap through the air and grab onto a bunch of plants, but sometimes he doesn't latch onto them right away.

After bopping around the jungle for a while I checked out the museum, and while it offers up more of the same, the change of scenery spices things up. In this level, George is jumping atop dinosaur bones, evading security lasers, and activating switches while avoiding what appear to be security guards and characters from the film, most of which are voiced by the movie's actors save Will Ferrell (Man in the Yellow Hat), who supposedly had other commitments and was unable to do any recording. However, Namco assured me that the sound-a-like has done an excellent job and it's hard to tell the difference between him and Ferrell. Certainly if that's the case, then Namco dodged a bullet.

Most of the environments in the game are filled with "curious objects", items George can investigate whenever a question mark appears above his head. Doing so may produce some cool goodies or just launch an animation of George doing something he shouldn't. But they may also provide clues how to make it past a puzzle or mission, so it's important to explore every nook and cranny.

There will also be times when George and The Man in the Yellow Hat will need to work together to complete objectives, and George will come in handy because he can go places The Man can't fit such as vents, for example. You may have to take a shortcut or access a locked room through such a vent. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like you can actually play as The Man in the Yellow Hat, so there won't be any character swapping.

In addition to the main quest there are also a handful of mini games, one of which asks you to catch a bunch of fireflies while another features a Dance Dance Revolution type setup where you have to hit face buttons on the controller to make George dance. It starts out simply enough, as Square slowly floats across the screen, but then Triangle. Square, Circle, X, Circle, X, X starts speeding past and the challenge ramps up considerably.

Namco has complete access to the film's assets and have made excellent use of them. The game is not on par graphically with the movie, but the simple 3D environments and the cel shaded George look just fine. The developers have also included the original score as well as some movie clips that have been hidden throughout the adventure. All told it's a decent looking game, just not one that immediately jumps out when compared to most PS2 titles. But the visuals are adequate for this type of adventure, and if you're a fan you should be pleased.

If anything, Namco is on the right track to produce a simplistic and fun platform adventure game that will compliment the film, but as I previously mentioned, there are some things about it that if the developers fail to fix will seriously impact my overall impression of the product. But with two months left to go before its release, there's plenty of time to make Curious George another Namco hit, or at least a lot better than Popeye: Rush for Spinach and Gumby vs. The Astrobots.