Chameleon Twist

Chameleon Twist is a fun little action/adventure cart that shouldn't be overlooked. Twist's twistis that you're really only a chameleon named Davey for a few seconds. Early on, a nattily attired rabbit who's late for a date leads you down a hole and into a weird fantasy land, and there you transform into a cutesy dwebble character. There's surely some major intellectual-property issues with the Alice in Wonderland people brewing here, but beyond that, Twist is straightforward hop-n-bop stuff.

Or maybe hop-n-slop is a better way to put it. The star of this slippery show is Davey's tongue. Nicely crafted controls enable you to deftly guide said tongue to do all sorts of tongue-like things as you explore six challenging stages, including a jungle, an ant hill, and candy land. You shoot your tongue out to swing across chasms, to lift yourself up to climb obstacles, and to slurp up enemies (a la Kirby) and spit them out like bullets.

The visuals are sharp with sugary-sweet backgrounds and character graphics, which give Twist real kid appeal. You can control the camera for 360-degree playable views of the action; however, some angles fool you into making dumb, life-sapping missteps.

The audio's much less imaginative. The music's lively but too cartoony, and the effects do their job but little else.

Chameleon Twist looks and sounds like child's play, but there's a really entertaining, challenging action game in there, too. There's even a cool four-player Battle Royale mode that's...well, a major tongue twister. Overall, Twist is a solid game and a wholesome way to score some major tongue action.

Chameleon Twist may be one of the most bizarre games to make it to the Nintendo 64 yet. Originally planned for release only in Japan, Sunsoft and Nintendo thought the kids in the U.S. might enjoy a 3-D action game starring a cute little creature and its multipurpose tongue...and who wouldn't?

Basically you're set loose in a luminous 3-D atmosphere where you must make your way from room to room while avoiding a host of obstacles and strange creatures. Tons of smaller enemies nip at your heels, while the big Bosses require your attention and fighting concentration. The interesting part is that your only weapon is your long, talented tongue. Sounds tough, but when you consider how many things your tongue can do, it's much more fathomable. For most enemies you can hold down the B button and aim to lasso and swallow them whole. Afterward, you can spit them back as powerful projectiles. Other tricks the tongue can help you perform include vaulting over dangerous ground and swinging from platform to platform.

Fighting is not the only thing you will have to contend with while adventuring through the handsome 3-D environments. Puzzle solving also comes heavily into play in addition to remembering which rooms have already been explored.

Multiplayer will be an option and should prove to be a lot of fun due to the search-and-destroy theme of the game. So limber up that tongue and get ready for action, soldier.

One of several Mario clones that the N64 has thrown up, the only innovation here being that the central character uses his prehensile tongue to haul himself around and destroy enemies. A stupid camera system which makes it hard to follow the action lets the game down badly, as does its astonishing easiness - the game can be completed in next to no time.

A simple platformer, its only real innovation being the main character's use of his tongue in order to move himself around.

The latest N64 offering from Ocean, and it's a weird one! The plot is fairly simple -a chameleon (that's you) is happily sunning himself on a rock one day, minding his own business, when along comes a talking white rabbit with a pocket watch who leaps into a glowing hole and vanishes. Our chameleon hero, not having read Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (well, he's a chameleon), is blissfully unaware of the dangers involved with following talking rabbits down holes, and so he does just that.

Cut to a strange world, where said chameleon finds himself-or herself, since you can play as a girl — transformed into an 'alien' (read: small bloke with a large head) but he still has his tongue.

Now, the cynical among you might say that the game designers wanted to do a game with a bloke who had a long tongue, and then made up a plot to fit the concept. To you we say, "sounds plausible".

Tongue Twisting!

Anyway, this is where you come in, as you take control of said hapless chameleon. Armed only with your tongue (should that be 'tongued' only with your tongue?) you must make you way through six bizarre lands, each with a running theme, such as Ant Land, which is populated by ants, and Bomb Land, which is populated by, well, bombs (you get the idea). You must search high and low throughout these lands in a quest for crowns and carrots, with the ultimate goal of transforming back to your old colour-changing self and returning to a life consisting solely of basking in the sun, eating small invertebrates and appearing in the odd Wildlife On One documentary.

The alien lands are fairly inhospitable, so fortunately for you your tongue gives you a variety of special abilities, including the ability to vault things, grab things, swing across things and swallow things, all of which will be essential in your quest for the crowns and re-transmogrification.

Chameleon Twist is a great idea. It takes the 3-D platformer concept and adds a new, er, 'twist'. Fans of weird Jap game Ganbare Goemon will see similarities between the chameleon's tongue and Goemon's chain weapon - used for whipping enemies and dragging the character across gaps - but the tongue is far more versatile than Goemon's chain, allowing the chameleon to trip enemies, grab things around corners and make super-jumps.

On the face of it, this is a brilliant concept, wonderfully executed. The variety of enemies and the contrast to the various landscapes gives each land its own unique challenges, and is a recipe for a top-class platformer.

But...

There are, however, a few niggling problems. The first, and possibly the worst, problem, is the camera. The angles used are a complete nightmare! Although there is a choice of two different camera methods, they both have serious flaws. The worst of the two is probably the floating camera, which centres on the character and follows him around. The problem is that it will suddenly switch from one view to another without warning, and as the character's movement is dependent on the camera angle (ie, they will head away from the camera when you push up, so if the camera changes, so does their direction of movement) this often causes annoying falls or collisions. The other camera is primarily fixed, but this means that as you make your way across a room for example, the character gets smaller and smaller, making it more and more difficult to line up the pin-point jumps.

All these problems serve to make the game more difficult. Conversely though, much of the game is far too easy. In practically no time at all, you'll find yourself racing through the game (the first boss will probably be found and defeated in under ten minutes) and it will only be the awful camera positions making jumps a lot more difficult than they should be that will give you any real trouble. Add to this the fact that you don't have to complete all the stages to finish the game - you need only to complete the second or third stage to get onto the fourth and fifth stages, and then complete either the fourth or fifth to get onto the final one - and it becomes all too easy.

Fortunately, there is a multi-player battle option, which will greatly extend the life of the game. Using your tongue and various in-game objects, you must battle other chameleons in an attempt to knock them off a platform (which plays a lot better than it sounds, honest!)

Overall, Chameleon Twist is a nice variation on the 3-D platform theme, but one which just doesn't quite fulfil its potential. That said, it's ' still a very enjoyable 3-D adventure, with some cunning puzzles and amusing enemies. Take into account the multi-player battle games, and you get a package which should keep you amused for quite a while. A word of warning though - if you're one of those people who really hates 3-D games involving lots of precision jumping across chasms, then avoid this. Otherwise, it's certainly worth a look.

There are thrills and spills but it won't take you long to finish. The multiplayer game beats Bomberman - but that's not that hard.

When doing the pole vault move, as you're springing back up. press jump just a little way before you reach the top for an extra-high jump.