Garfield (2004)

(Not to be confused with the obscure Java mobile game tie in to Garfield: The Movie)

Garfield

Garfield isn't trying to hide the mess, he just realized what the developers did to his game and doesn't want you to buy it.

Genre(s):	Action
Platform(s):	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 2
Release Date:	Microsoft Windows DE: November 18, 2004 FR: November 26, 2004 WW: May 17, 2005 PlayStation 2 EU: November 19, 2004
Engine:	RenderWare
Developer(s):	The Code Monkeys
Publisher(s):	Hip Games
Country:	United Kingdom
Series:	Garfield

Garfield is a video game based on the comic strip series of the same name originally created by Jim Davis in 1978. It was developed by The Code Monkeys studio and published by Hip Games. It was released in November of 2004 in Europe for the PlayStation 2 and Windows computers, with the Windows version releasing worldwide in May 17th, 2005.

Plot

Jon is very upset with Garfield's mischief, having scratched his chair, eaten his lasagna, and shredded his favorite suit. Once Jon leaves the house, Garfield starts to watch TV with Jon not around and drifts off to sleep. One moment later, he wakes up to a giant mess inside the house caused by Odie, and Garfield gets worried because if Jon would see this mess, he would blame Garfield for it and force him to go on diet. With Jon arriving soon, Garfield has no choice but to clean up the house with the help of a vacuum cleaner Odie found.

Why It's Worse Than Any Monday

The gameplay is extremely repetitive, as the player's main objective is only picking up (or rather sucking up) objects and setting them into the right location. It feels more like a point-and-click game or a webgame than an actual video game, and except for the mini games, the gameplay never change at all and there's not any actions either.
Ugly graphics far below the capabilities of the PS2's graphics processor, with the models feeling more like a late PS1 or Dreamcast game, and the animation of the characters are abysmal, especially Odie.
- Also, the game run on RenderWare, in which that engine is know for having games with great graphics such as Frogger Beyond for exemple.
Stiff controls and physics. Garfield's jump is ridiculously short and he falls way too fast, also his movements are quite clunky to control.
Bad lips movement synchronization with the voices in cutscenes. Half the time, the lips barely move.
Horrible voice acting, with Jon Barnard's portrayal of both Garfield and Jon being the biggest example, as he doesn’t show any emotions into their voices.
- Even the French dub is mediocre at best, since some of the characters don't sound right, especially Garfield, who sounds like Goku from the French dub of Dragon Ball Z.
Odie will repeatedly try to bother Garfield by running into him throughout the game, though his AI is badly programmed, and sometime the AI got so bad that he can get his own models being glitched on textures.
The whole game is poorly designed in many ways:
- First of all, the game gives you a time limit of eight hours to clean up the house, but it can be finished within four, meaning it's near impossible to get a Game Over. It's like a failed attempt at mimicking the dawning time limit of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
- Garfield always says something whenever he does anything from picking up and object to putting it where it belongs, which is annoying.
- There's mini games but they are almost pointless.
- Speaking of Odie, Garfield can kick Odie to stop him for a very short time, but he can't kick any other enemies in the game like the spiders.
- Arlene gives Garfield a side quest of collecting several flowers for her, but they are scattered in nonsensical locations around Jon's house as opposed to the garden.
- There are jigsaw pieces to collect throughout the game, but to collect them all you'd have to clean the attic last, as cleaning any other room like the kitchen instead would play the ending cutscene.
- The only purpose of the jigsaw pieces are to unlock a jigsaw puzzle that's eerily similar to one you'd find in a Phoenix game, in addition, only 50 pieces are needed to play despite the game having 58.
Incredibly bad hit-detection and collision detection as when you try to get an object, it take a long time to get it, and when you try to hit Odie, it is incredibly hard because of the abysmal hit-detection, in fact this was a problem for many games made by The Code Monkeys.
The cutscenes do not appear in a resolution higher than 1024x728.
The game has four minigames included that are terribly generic and lazy alongside the aforementioned jigsaw puzzle. These include a race with Odie and Nermal, a round-up style game in the attic where Garfield has to put moving toys back in the closet, and a rip-off of Columns you'd find on the game disc.
The cutscenes, while not terrible, had animations that look poor for 2000s standards, and it is even worse when you consider that even Mega Man X7 had better looking cutscenes and it was released in 2003, one year before this game.
The PC version uses the infamous StarForce DRM, which is known for causing instability issues and even crashes, and this game is no exception.
- In fact it is so bad that the PC version is even worse than the PS2 version, and the PC version doesn't had that many PC friendly options for a PC port.
The game is very short, as it can be completed in only 2 hours, the fact that barely anything can stop you doesn't help.

Lasagna Qualities

It was the first 3D Garfield game. Although that's not saying much.
Decent soundtrack.
The voice acting by Frank Welker may be "so bad it's good", and it would improve a bit in the next Garfield games on the PS2.
Every once in a while, you will find references to the comics, including a comic strip, and artwork of the characters.
You can actually explore the entirety of Jon Arbuckle's house in 3D, in which it is the only game to do so, and it deserve credits for that, despite how bad the game is overall.
The cutscenes can have some funny movements. and entertaining sometimes.
In 2024, a mod of the game named Garfield+ was released and improve the game on a lot of things, such as nicer visuals, a reworked soundtrack and sounds effects and a lot of bugs was patched, making the game more enjoyable to play, you can download it here.
The good ending is great to watch, where Jon is proud of Garfield because he did not cause any mischief when the former was absent.

Reception

The game was universaly panned by critics and gamers, and is considered to be one of, if not the worst Garfield game ever made due to it's bad gameplay, it's ugly graphics and especially the horrible controls

The game was rated 2/10 by PlayStation 2 Mag UK , 4/20 by JeuxVideoPC.com, and 3.0/10 by Gry-Online.

On Gamefaqs, the game had a score of 2.94 and 3.54 for both the PS2 version (based on 31 users)^[1] and the PC version (based on 14 users)^[2]

Videos

References

Comments

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[1] ttps://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/920510-garfield

[2] ttps://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/920509-garfield

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