Donald Duck: Quack Attack

In the early 2000s, Disney has launched a game that many gamers wanted their hands on, and yes, we’re talking about Donald Duck: Quack Attack. This game revolutionized the gaming community when it came to Disney Games. One of the reasons why gamers became attracted to the game was its incorporation of Donald Duck. The Disney character Donald Duck doesn’t get as much of the spotlight as he should because he is constantly seen as a side character and in Mickey Mouse’s shadow.

Well, not anymore!

Donald Duck: Quack Attack or Goin’ Quackers, let you be in the shoes of the all-time favorite Disney Duck, Donald Duck. So, let’s go ahead and break everything you need to know about this game and why you need to download it on Steam and have fun, just like when we were kids.

Plot & Gameplay

For being a 2000’s game, the plot is fundamental. It features Merlock as the evil bad guy that kidnapped Daisy Duck, Donald’s girlfriend, while she was going on a video shoot. As Donald watched the shoot from his come, he immediately went off to try and rescue his lover.

Our hero Donald will have to go through 20 different stages throughout the game until he can save and hold his one true love. You will go through forests, cities, and haunted houses. As you play Donald, you will have to kick and punch your way through endless bad guys such as dogs, sword-wielding characters, and cobras. The game features four main stages, one boss stage and one bonus stage.

The Graphics

The graphics of this Disney game is simple, appealing, and cartoonish. It shows a tremendous array of colors and creativity. You may see some effect of the game that will catch your eye and make you wonder if this even is a 2000’s game. If you’re someone who appreciates the animation in games, then Donald Duck: Quack Attack will leave a good taste on you. Some of the animations will make you think that you’re watching a cartoon show on Disney Channel, like when Donald gets sucked in a teleporter. The animation and graphics are truly unique!

Music & Sounds

The sound and music will be exactly what you expect when you think about a cartoon-based game. Some of the sounds and music tracks are very catchy that will probably be stuck in your head for a while. The voice actors in the game show that they are professionals, and you may be surprised by their vocal abilities in the game.

What’s a Similar Game to This?

If you’re still on the fence about this game or think or too old for this game, continue reading. This game is very similar to the iconic game: Crash Bandicoot. As 2000’s kids once someone mentioned Crash, everyone would look up with a smile on their faces and talk about Crash. Quack Attack is similar because Donald can move in directions such as up, down, side to side.

Each level that he faces has many obstacles, enemies, and pits. On some levels, you only have to run to the end of the stage before the clock runs out to pass the class and proceed to the next.

Pros:

• The graphics of the game is good, and you would not have expected that this is a 2000’s game
• In terms of the plot, it’s easy to understand and although it’s simple it’s super fun to go across worlds
• Donald Duck: Quack Attack is probably one of the best Disney games available where the bosses will provide a little bit of challenge

Cons:

• If you want a game to challenge you every step of the way, then you won’t get that with this game
• The gaming mechanics are simple and there is no room for you to do what you want other than going forward and going through obstacles
• The game is relatively short

Donald Duck 'Is Angry' Shocker! Like Daffy Duck, and I think we've covered this topic in a recent review, Donald Duck is one of those characters that always comes in second fiddle to the main star of the studio (namely: Mickey Mouse). So it comes as a nice surprise to find that Donald has been granted his own platform game and one that happens to be better than the much of the dross that is out there at the moment.

Apparently Donald's girlfriend Daisy has been kidnapped by Merlock the nasty villain, last (and only) seen in Duck Tales: The Movie. With the help of an inventor friend Donald hopes to transport himself straight to Daisy's rescue, but unfortunately the inventor is a bit on the crap side and so Donald is beamed all over the place before he can finally rescue his one true love! As platformers go, this one plays in a similar way to Donkey Kong Land and from the moment you turn the game on you can tell it's a stunner! Despite the small size of the sprites, each one is animated beautifully. Donald handles extremely well and has a double jump action that lifts him high into otherwise unreachable places.

Quack Shot

The levels in this game are – quite simply – massive and very imaginatively designed, so there are plenty of puzzles and obstacles for you to struggle with. Grabbing a certain type of blue orb for example makes Donald go completely bonkers – thus allowing him to smash through previously locked doors – and despite the repetitive nature of the game, a lot of effort has been put into making sure that you are never bored.

The gameplay in Quack Attack can get quite frustrating in parts, mainly down to the structure of each level, but overall this is a polished, well-made game. We could make a bad gag about it being "Duck-tastic" but we won't, instead we'll just say... that it certainly isn't "fowl" (sorry).

Donald has some new Duck Tales to tell! Another month, another game with a duck as the main character. Last time it was Daffy Duck flying through space doing good for the sake of the planet Earth. This time around it's Donald Duck doing that thing he does and hoping to save his girlfriend Daisy in the process. What is it about this current trend for duck-based games? Will this open the floodgates for more ducks to grab a piece of the action? Will Ed the Duck come out of the closet for more 'cheeky' escapades? Perhaps Orville will leap off the fist of Keith Harris and straight into videogame stardom? In both cases: let's hope not! Disney and Looney Tunes licences are fine but we have to draw the line when it comes to rather rubbish ventriloquism acts – although I suppose Ed the Duck can't be lumped in with those because he's actually a real bird (Que? – Roy)...

So what's it all about then? For you and only you, here's the plot, and if we're being honest, it's a little weak! It seems that Daisy is a bit of a roving reporter and she's crept into the lair of Merlock (the evil and rather obscure villain of the Duck Tales movie voiced by Christopher Lloyd) and then gone and got herself caught. As you'd expect Donald is very keen to rescue her but there is one other spanner in the works. Donald has a rival for Daisy's affections and his name is Gladstone. Can Donald get to his beloved before this other rascal can? That... is entirely down to you.

Beat Gladstone (With Your Fist!)

Gladstone, as we have already discussed, is a love rival to Donald for Daisy's affections. We know that Gladstone doesn't have a chance but that doesn't stop him from having a jolly good flirting competition. When you have collected all of the toys for your nephews on a level, and then completed the "running away" (from whatever it is) stage, then at the end of that section you finally catch up with Gladstone, who challenges you to complete all the previous levels again... this time against the clock.

When you return to a level you're given the choice to choose either: a) Gladstone's challenge or: b) A toy hunt. If you successfully complete all four time trials, return to Gladstone to see what he'll give you!

When you finally do manage to get back to Gladstone, he toys with you. Get the present by beating the crap out of him and taking it anyway. When that's done, you end up with some brand-spanking new togs to wear for the next part of your adventure!

Duck And Cover!

The game now becomes a simple matter of beaming to a world, not dying in the process of entering that world and then moving on to another, once the main boss has been vanquished to the land of the dead. Quack Attack is very simplistic stuff which means that both: a) Anyone can get straight into it with out having to consult a rule book thicker than 20 copies of War and Peace and: b) It's not really very challenging and will leave you with a case of 'Oh, is that it?' syndrome. The levels themselves are constructed to be played from left to right – like a traditional platform game, plus into the screen (in some cases out of the screen too!) If you are familiar with Rayman then it may be comforting to know Quack Attack runs on the same engine! Although the way Donald travels is different the structure of each level/world is exactly the same. At a very basic level you must run in a certain direction and jump gaps and collect toys or stars. There is no real puzzle-solving involved – unless you count searching for Huey, Dewey and Louie's toys – and provided you can get to the end of the four levels that make up a world the bosses at the end are the only real changes in how Quack Attack plays! One other element in Donald's great adventure is a speed trial that pits you against love rival, Gladstone. In the plot, Gladstone has gone ahead to beat you to Daisy. When Donald takes on a level if he can beat the time set by Gladstone on that particular stage it lights up one of the special signs on that level. There are three per stage to switch on, one for the time trial, one for collecting all three toys and one when you have found the piece to the boss' warp pad. Again, there is a piece of each of these pads on every stage and you must have all four to take on the end-of-world villain.

Top Of The Bill!

Concerning what you hold in your hand and fiddle with – ie: the controller (what else could we mean?) Donald handles really well. There aren't masses of buttons to press and all you need to familiarise yourself with is the analogue stick and the A and B buttons. It really is that simple! To get from the start to the end of a level, jumping and punching are the only skills you really need! The only thing that gets in the way is that contact with the surrounding environment, and by this we mean villains, obstacles, ledges and so forth, doesn't make them interact much with Donald himself. When jumping over, say, an electric fence then, particularly when you are running into the screen, it can be quite difficult to judge when to leap over said object. This also applies to the enemies too and that can be quite frustrating when you just want to whack them one. At least Donald is responsive, turning on a dime to twist around corners or last-minute obstacles. Although this is handy, there are moments when an inadvertent flick of the stick can plunge you into oblivion. How much do you want to bet that that will become annoying after a while?

You Rang, Mallard?

This is where we start to get a bit grouchy. Sorry but it is time to do that critical thing now! Although it has already been established that this is a rather simplistic game, that doesn't mean it is in any way an easy game to play. In fact it's a bit of a tough nut to crack, not because there is a massive amount of puzzles to solve or even because there is a lot to explore. Mainly, it's down to just the sheer difficulty of each level. In all honesty, the stages are not impossible, not at all, they just fall on the frustrating side of difficult. What slows down any progression is that you can die from just falling down a big hole into nothingness. This happens more often than you would like and it just strips some of the fun away from the game. We can all agree that games must be fun to play, last you a long time and provide enough of a challenge to warrant another bash at it. Quack Attack falls just short of every single one of these aspects. How fun can it be to play a title when there is a good chance that you will fall off the edge of the world every few minutes or so? Some jumps can be very misleading and often take more effort than a simple double-jump to overcome! It has been said many times before that there is no fun to be had from constantly trying to jump a gap that seems impossible to cross. This does not constitute challenging, but just a right pain in the rear admiral in most people's books.

There is probably a bit too much of this throughout the game and it does make the whole thing seem somewhat boring at times. Also, because there is no difficulty setting, what you play is what you get and so this really does not cater for the younger gamers out there who may very well want to get their hands on Donald's web footed antics.

It's A Quacker!

If you stick with this though, the later stages get more imaginative and – unlike the early ones – are thoroughly enjoyable. A good example of this is the Haunted House, which happens to be a very good-looking course and is lot more interesting than the City or the Forest environments. If you can tolerate this type of platform adventure where every jump could be your last then this is definitely what you are looking for. The only other real complaint is the rather bizarre saving option. By now a lot of us are used to the "save as you go and carry on" style of keeping your place in the game, but Quack Attack is not that simple.

Ducking Annoying!

Please, stay with me on this one as it is quite convoluted... when you finish a level, it's not automatically saved as you'd expect. Instead what you must do is go into an old or new level, pause the game, exit to Gyro's Lab (he's your scientist buddy who sends you all over the place with his warping machine), exit again and then go to the save option screen. Then, wind your way back through the various other screens and continue on. This does rather hamper the momentum of the game! It's not wise to just play through without saving however because if you do that, then when you die it means you have to go through all the stages you neglected to save on or you have to start from scratch. This can be very trying on your patience!

Right, that's enough of all the negativity, let's look at the positive side of Donald Duck. Although nowhere near as funny as Daffy's N64 outing, Disney's duck game does have some amusing moments. It is common knowledge that Donald is, by nature, an angry little bugger with a penchant for losing his temper easily. All of these character traits are captured perfectly and sit nicely with the recorded voices of the characters too! The cut-scenes are very well animated, and capture that Disney feel perfectly. The overall look of Quack Attack is nothing short of glorious – certainly a damn sight better than the PlayStation version, and it looks very polished indeed! It's in the later levels where you really see the effort that's been put in. As mentioned above, the Haunted House areas are really creative from the enemies to the lightning that flashes in through the windows. Jumping in and out of warp holes is a right giggle too, with hands sneaking out of the machinery to fling you into the next world. If any of you have seen the sci-fi show Sliders then you'll have a rough idea of how Donald looks after passing through a portal!

A Load of Quack!

Donald Duck: Quack Attack is a really hard-going platform game that literally takes no prisoners, and tries the patience like sitting next to a small child screaming for Pokémon cards! It may possibly be a 'try before you buy' deal, as the earlier levels are deceptively simple, and then suddenly turn on you revealing a tougher beast underneath. All in all though this is a very enjoyable game which might not be perfect but which is going to give a lot of gamers many hours of entertainment which – at the end of the day – is all that counts!

If there's one thing Ubi Soft knows how to do, it's put out stuff for the Game Boy. And this is fine, as long as the games are worthwhile. This Donald Duck action game is pretty standard Game Boy fare, but the graphics are looking well above-average. No doubt, it'll be fun to play through, as are most Disney platform games. There are five themed worlds with 24 levels overall. It's due sometime in October.

We don't make up names like this, and neither should you. Donald Duck-Quack Attack brings the speech-impaired duck to life on the N64 via Ubi Soft. The most attractive element of the game will be Donald's various moods: determination and frustration, agitation and exhaustion will all factor into the gameplay in one way or another. DD Quack Attack arrives in your gentle hands this fall.