I just finished... if you could call it that... playing Poptropica's Beta Carotene Island. And I can only say one thing to sum it all up: it sucks. The only truly strong point is the inspired soundtrack. See for yourself:
- The mouse is a total joke of a glitch. It's supposed to be a crosshairs mouse, like the one in multiplayer rooms, but instead seems to just change to anything it likes, whenever it wants.
- Again with the mouse: it keeps locking in the 'move' mode, so you can run for a little bit, then release the mouse button back to stop... you'll keep going. Move your mouse up, and you'll start jumping. Also, if you stop too suddenly, your character does into 'duck' mode, which means you can't move. At least until you go into the Settings and change the dialogue speed.
- You want to jump straight up? Not gonna happen. Your Poptropican might as well be drunk the whole time; no kind of precise control is possible at all. Speaking of the Poptropican...
- Your Poptropican is also another joke of a glitch. Sliding randomly, making weird and out-of-place expressions no matter what you do.
- Coming back to control: every single move you try has a ridiculous delay on it. Try the conveyor belt mini-game: no. You'll be squashed five times before you figure out how to compensate for this.
- The rabbot ears are unusable. You can't put them on, so how in the world is anyone supposed to beat this stupid game? EDIT: I played the game for the fourth time and finally managed to put the rabbot ears on. This is an unacceptable glitch.
- The soundtrack is simply amazing. The sound effects are a nice try, but need a little work.
- The bigger screen makes a huge difference. It is absolutely amazing to play in the larger area, however I can see some Poptropica fight scenes becoming too easy with the extended viewport. Also, the graphics in some buildings, especially the Carrot King Diner, look like they weren't redesigned for the larger screen at all, but just scaled up from their original, making it look slightly annoying and 'fuzzy'.
- The menu's open/close animation is pretty sweet; it actually looks good to see the items 'tumble' out of the basket. I think in the final version, they should use some more of the blank space that's on the menu screen.
In short: Creators -- if this is the future of Poptropica, it is severely disappointing.
