I have to admit that I have had no desire to watch the Garfield movies, as the appearance of the animated characters is so different from the comic versions. But I don’t have the same prejudice for a game, as when playing a game, it’s irrelevant whom the character is. Garfield: Tale of Two Kitties looked interesting from the preliminary blurbs, so I was glad to get a chance to look at it. It did turn out to be cute, but a few quirks and some difficult areas make this a little more difficult probably than the designers intended for younger players.

Garfield has been separated from his family while trying to sneak a ride with Jon, who was on the way to London. The luggage Garfield was hiding in was switched, and he is now in Carlyle Castle, the home of the cat Garfield has replaced. The animals who live there pretend that Garfield is Prince, the real owner of the castle. But the evil Dargis, who is trying to take over the castle, has imprisoned many of the animals of the castle. Garfield rallies the troops and sets about freeing the animals and ultimately rescuing Prince.

The beginning of the game is a short tutorial mode, wherein players are introduced to basic game controls. Garfield explores the garden, and uses his jumping and dashing skills to get around and smash things up a little. Once a few missions have been finished in the garden, it’s on to the castle to get to the real order of business, namely collecting lasagna, completing simple missions and freeing the animals.

The brunt of the game consists of Garfield running around the castle, avoiding live hazards like spiders and frogs, and smashing things up to see if there’s any prizes or lasagna hiding inside. There are missions scattered around, designated by signs. Most of these missions have to be played in order to unlock other missions. Many of them are the same from level to level and just vary in difficulty, such as a “match the control button” dancing game and a timed game that requires the collection of items while racing the clock. In order to free the animals, Garfield has to figure out how to get into certain rooms from hidden pathways and also sometimes use other characters to help. The dancing games serve to introduce new skills and abilities for Garfield to use later in the game.

The gameplay is a combination of exploration, basic platforming and locational puzzles. While the collection of items and the platforming isn’t complicated, it’s still pretty engaging. Running Garfield around collecting lasagna, jumping around on top of the furniture and smashing everything up is fun, and the hazards aren’t very difficult to avoid or kill. Having such a low viewpoint of play (Garfield is a cat, so is close to the ground) is different, and scampering around on the floor with such a view is therefore a different kind of experience.

This is a fairly linear game, in that many missions have to be successfully completed before advancing. I would advise players to explore all areas closely! My impatience in the very beginning of the game had me requesting help in the very beginning of the game, as I couldn’t advance. Turned out it was due to an area that I hadn’t even seen yet, because I hadn’t explored thoroughly. One mission early on in the game requires Garfield to jump up to a higher level in a room, in order to activate a switch and ultimately free a mouse. This stage is an evolving challenge, in that it has multiple goals that have to be discovered during the solving process. This complexity keeps things interesting. It’s also a difficult part, as part of the challenge is to discover just how to jump and what platform to jump to on the higher levels in the room. If the player guesses wrongly, or jumps badly, it’s back to the floor again, to start all over to get higher.

However, while the gameplay is fun for the most part, the controls make things a bit wonky at times. The PC version uses the keyboard, a joystick or a gamepad. As I’m pitiful with keyboard commands, I usually use a gamepad for PC action games. The gamepad allows for a rigid camera rotation, from a left perspective to a right perspective, it doesn’t scroll freely. So, the camera view can’t be toggled freely with a gamepad, which makes for some interesting blind jumping at times. There are also a few spots where Garfield gets stuck in walls and can’t get out, but hitting the spacebar to bring up menu choices solves this problem, as he can be returned to the castle hallway at any time during the game.

While the game is touted as being for all ages, it’s a little difficult for young players. Even on the easy setting, some of the levels are hard to manage, mainly due to the control and camera issues. Just trying to run Garfield in a straight line is a problem, the control stick moves him from side to side at an angle when toggled, instead of straight ahead. Using a keyboard isn’t very child-friendly, either. A joystick may work better. Also, the timed racing games are a bit harsh in the time limits, which may frustrate young children. Older players and adults won’t have many problems, though.

The graphics are quite nice, and the characters are animated well. The castle and other environs are drawn nicely, and the backgrounds and other details are crisp and clear. Sometimes the rooms are too dark, though, and it can be hard to see if there is a room opening off a dark hallway.

As a whole, this is a decently fun game to play. But attempting to have it fit into a wide range of ages falls a little short. It’s too difficult at times for young players in some of the missions, as the jumping can be hard at times and timed levels have too short a time limit. At the same time, the platforming is kept simple and the hazards are very easy to avoid or beat, which may off put older players due to a lack of challenge during much of the game, even though the missions themselves can be very challenging. The game has a certain charm and attraction, though, and is worth playing.

Gameplay: 7.0
The platform modes are fun enough, but not all that exciting. The missions to free the animals are more fun, and the missions that are really mini-games are fun the first few times, but then suffer from a sameness in design. More variety would be been welcome.

Graphics: 8.0
Very nice graphics!

Sound: 7.0
The music is loud and brassy, but suits Garfield’s persona. There aren’t a whole lot of sound effects during the game.

Difficulty: Medium
While the overall difficulty isn’t too hard, there are sporadic spots that are fairly difficult to solve or finish.

Concept: 6.0
There isn’t anything really new here, but it is fairly well presented for the most part.

Overall: 7.0
This is a mostly entertaining platform game that combines a mix of simple platforming with a few mini-games, collecting and in-game challenges. The result is somewhat enjoyable, but parts of the game can be annoying. Garfield is cute, though. Despite the age range given as 7-up, the best age is probably 10-up, unless you have a pinball wizard, as in the song, in the house.