Beating each boss will unlock touchscreen mini games that can be accessed from the main menu. These mini games are the only features that even use the touchscreen. They are similar to touchscreen games found in New Super Mario Bros. but there are only three of them. Use your stylus to drag a Garfield head in order to collect coins while dodging the rambling spiders, use your stylus to drag Garfield's dish to collect falling donuts while dodging falling bombs, or use your stylus to hit some of Garfield's friends as they pop out of holes on a table.

The overall control setup for Garfield's Nightmare works rather well. The L and R buttons can be used to scroll the screen up or down to look for any impending traps that may be around Garfield - this feature helps out a bunch. During gameplay, the touch screen only shows Garfield's current inventory of collectibles and cannot be used for anything else. As already mentioned, the only reason to use the touchscreen is for the mini games.

Garfield's Nightmare is presented in a pseudo 3-D style much like New Super Mario Bros. - 2-D gameplay with 3-D graphics - and it looks rather nice. Each character and enemy is animated well. Much like other games that use 3-D graphics with 2-D gameplay, the hit detection is off a bit and can lead to some unexpected deaths when attempting to defeat enemies.

Each set of stages carries the same tune from stage to stage until a new set of stages is reached then that tune will start to repeat. The only sound that Garfield ever makes is a normal cat yell once he is damaged. I don't know about you, but I would expect Garfield to sound different from the average feline.

Overall, Garfield's Nightmare is a standard romp through a very average platformer and will do little to hold your amusement for the entire playthrough. It's not a horrible game, but it gets old rather quickly thanks to the lack of variety and length of the stages. It may be worth a shot if you're heavily into platform games, but the game can easily be beaten in one afternoon, so one rental should be enough for the curious.

The Good

+ Pseudo 3-D graphics
+ Good overall platforming gameplay

The Bad

- Stages are too long
- Game is absent of Garfield personality
- Stages lack variety and can become boring quick
- It's very short and only has a total of 16 stages and 4 boss fights

Graphics: 70%
Gameplay: 60%
Sound: 60%
Controls: 70%

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 65%. Garfield isn't in a complete nightmare, but his adventure isn't a very exciting dream either - it's more along the lines of an average snooze or power nap.

« Page 1