Ham-Ham Games (Game Boy Advance) - Review by Andrew

Introduction

I have to admit when I first reviewed a Ham-Ham game on the GBC some years ago I was a little concerned that not only was I too old for it but the majority of GameBoy owners would be too. Imagine my surprise then when this imaginary world populated by Hamsters (and cute ones at that) not only completely won me over but went onto become one of my favorite games of the year. Since then it's all been GBA with the Ham-Hams falling in love in Heartbreak and getting to the bottom of things in Rainbow Rescue. Unlike either of these 'Games' is a sports based title which is quite apt in an Olympic year. It does have obvious problems though which is why you don't get many athletics based games on home entertainment systems. Simply put, this is control, and converting the competitiveness of sport to a console has always been a challenge with retro titles such as Track and Field proving that blistered fingers and thumbs probably is not the way to go. Well, that enough chat for now... we're off to win some medals...

Gameplay

Ham-Hams Games take place over a week?s period with a handful of the 15 different challenges presented to you each day. These start out as relatively simple affairs but quickly become more challenging on both the mind and fingers. The action takes place in a kind of Hamster Olympic Village with each event occupying a different location. As with the other games in the series you travel around the area by selecting the desired location from the map. If nothing is happening there you will simply be denied entry and there's generally no one around to even talk to. Getting to the right event on time however enables you to enter and apparently practice for as long as you like. The events themselves are just as you'd expect and include diving, archery and several track and field events. The results are all entered into a league table and the team which has amassed the most gold medals at the end of the week is the winner. It's quite challenging to begin with too. In our first tournament we only won a pathetic one gold, two silver and four bronze. Clearly, we were not the world champions on this occasion.

Once you've reached World Champion you open up new modes where the ability to select any of the challenges from the menu gives the whole thing considerable replay value. Another interesting area of the game is the link up feature but rather than multi-player as you?d expect, it's actually for trading cards. The cards in question are a combination of costumes you've collected and messages. You can collect up to 50 of these in total and they can even be beamed wirelessly as long as you have the adapter making the whole thing a kind of forerunner to Pictochat as featured on the DS. Clearly even if you did enjoy the main game you're unlikely to use this feature but it's nice to see that Nintendo never miss an opportunity to experiment on new ways to communicate and play.

Controls

Control, as you'd expect, changes from one game to another but all this is detailed on an on-screen tutorial. Even then you can still practice before you actually enter the event. Thankfully, as we?d hoped, this is no 'Track and Field' and the developers have wisely avoided events that requires you to button bash or leave you with painful blisters at the end of a gaming session. Instead you?re usually required to press controls in the correct order or time. It does get a little frantic at times but nothing like on the athletics sims of old.

Graphics

Visually the game is identical to the Ham-Hams previous outings with large hamster sprites populating well drawn backgrounds. This changes though when you enter one of the events. Some are viewed from above whilst other use an entirely different perspective. What's most remarkable about this style of visuals though is just how much personality the developers manage to inject into the various characters with minimum animation. They also look suitably different which can be important because you don?t want to be accidentally cheering the opposition. In fact the whole thing has progressed only slightly since the GBC original but strangely it all seems to work and did we mention just how cute they are?

Sound

As with the visuals the sound remains the same with pleasing soundtracks throughout the game and Ham-Hams communicating in hamster speak. It's not particularly memorable but seems to work within the context of the game.

Final comments

Placing the sickly sweet nature of the Ham-Hams? world firmly to one side you can't help but enjoy this latest outing whether you are a sports fan or not. As with all Ham-Ham titles it's the simplicity and accessibility which really wins you over and while this perhaps isn?t as engaging as the previous adventures it is a title that you'll dip into when you have a spare few minutes. Even once you've completed the game there's still the challenge of re-entering the various events to beat the world, or even your own, records. It's not without its problems however with some of the events, the yachting in particular, incredibly difficult to play. We're not sure if this is deliberate but given how simple the rest of the game is we can't help feeling it's simply bad design. In addition the lack of any multi-player option can only be seen as a huge missed opportunity with some of the events screaming out for this absent feature. Hopefully, if there is a sequel, this will be rectified and had it been included here a fun title would probably have turned into an essential one.

Pro: Great Replay Value
Con: No Multi-player
Final score: 7.5

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