Totally Spies! 2 Undercover
Score: 80% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Atari Developer: Mistic Software Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 - 2 (Singlecard) Genre: Action/ Adventure/ Puzzle
Graphics & Sound: Totally Spies! 2: Undercover brings the three teenage super spies from Beverly Hills back onto the game scene with an all new series of adventures. Graphics wise, Totally Spies! 2 is at about the same level of the Km Possible game that came out for the DS a few months back. In-game graphics are 3D, but typically keep you constrained to 2D movement. Models are nicely done and, for the most part, look just like the characters on the show. Cutscenes consist of still images from the show. The game's music and sound effects seem to also come straight out of the TV series, but Undercover's audio is noticeably missing any kind of vocal work.
Gameplay: Totally Spies! 2: Undercover is broken up into five episodic missions. Each one has the three girls, Clover, Alex and Sam, hunting down and capturing one of their main enemies. Along the way, Jerry will give you various tools and you will run into friends like Arnold. The missions will not only have you facing off against enemies like Geraldine, but also Kyle, Broccoli-Boy and Carrot-Man. Episodes are action/adventure like levels with interesting puzzles slipped in between. For instance, the first mission I took on (there are multiple opened at the beginning), was Arnold the Great. First you had to race down a busy street to catch up to and scan a stolen armored truck. After that, you have to break into the truck by shorting out the circuitry on the lock; this is done by connecting specific diodes with the stylus while avoiding various obstacles with the stylus. At the end of each mission, the spies will debrief you and ask you a series of questions. These are things like "How many times did you have to scan the truck" or "How many diodes did you have to connect". If you answer all the questions correctly, you will unlock a gallery of the images used in that mission. Each of the mini-games you get past in Undercover can be played in multiplayer mode. These are basically just playing through the mini-game again but now you have your friend's progress bar visible too.
Difficulty: Totally Spies! 2: Undercover starts off at a decent difficulty setting and never really changes. I found that most chapters in the episodes could be completed on the first try, and if not, then a second was sure to cinch it. Some of the mini-games, like the dance off, took a few more times, but that is because of a personal lack of rhythm and not necessarily a fault of the game. All in all, Totally Spies! 2 is a game that, while not really tough for older gamers, will probably be a bit of a challenge to the younger kids that this title is geared towards.
Game Mechanics: Overall, Totally Spies! 2: Undercover feels more like a series of mini-games with a story tying them all together, especially when you see how different the controls are from chapter to chapter. In some, you are flying down a street using the D-Pad to dodge vehicles and then when you reach the runaway truck, you have to press buttons that appear above the truck in order to scan it. Then in the next event, you use the stylus to drawn lines between diodes on a circuit board, only to be followed a couple of chapters later by a need to blow into the microphone in order to inflate a giant bubble so that you can catch Geraldine. Even though this game isn't really a series of mini-games, the differences in the events really blurs the line. Totally Spies! 2: Undercover is a game geared towards fans of the show. If you have never seen it, then most likely you have no interest in the game at all. Unless you are a fan or are looking for a game that uses a lot of the DS' various features, then Undercover isn't really for you.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
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