Floigan Bros Review

Good things come to those who wait; they also come in small packages! Those particular sayings have never been so apt as for The Floigan Bros, a unique title from the usual Sega Sports developers, Visual Concepts.

The Floigan Bros has been in development since the early days of the Dreamcast, quietly being worked on whilst NBA2K, NHL2K and itâs successors won the company critical acclaim. Murmurings arose regarding state of the art visuals, complex AI and innovative gameplay, but then all went quiet. Well finally, a few months after US gamers, European dreamcast owners can find out what all the fuss was about.



The Floigan Bros features Moigle and Hoigle, two brothers who own a junkyard just out of town. As with any classic comedy duo, the game focuses on the opposite nature of both characters, so like some modern day Abbot & Costello, we have Hoigle the intelligent but rather diminutive sibling, and Moigle the oversized idiot.



The story begins with Moigle hard at work on a secret project in the workshop, there are seven key items missing that he needs to find before he can complete his masterpiece so he enlists his brothers help to find them.



Players take control of Hoigle; at first the game appears to be your standard 3D adventure title. However come across the first item and youâll realise that at heart this is a puzzle title, to gather the items certain puzzles need to be solved, and to solve these you need to rely on the interaction between the two brothers. 



Essentially Moigle is a living pet, a tamagotchi trapped inside a videogame. Being the intellectually challenged oaf that he is, Moigle acts on emotion rather then thought, and so you can manipulate these to your own doings. For example you canât cross the bridge over the river to start off with, as the water level is too low, simply insult Moigle enough and watch him bawl out enough tears to raise the water level. 



Throughout the junkyard are âemotion boxesâ that open up new areas when activated, these are split into; Happy â“ Make Moigle happy enough and heâll lift you onto his shoulders giving you extra speed; Sad â“ Insult Moigle enough and heâll start weeping; Angry â“ Annoy Moigle and heâll chase after you, rolling you into a ball and whacking you with his baseball bat to new heights.



Puzzles become more complex in nature, but only just, and therein lies the games main problem, itâs just too easy. Very little thought is required to solve all of the puzzles throughout the game, which is a real shame as the idea works brilliantly and is certainly a breathe of fresh air when compared to switching switches, moving blocks and collecting keys as found in most games.



To break up the action you can concentrate on âraisingâ Moigle, you can teach him a variety of mini-games, such as tag, high five and hide and seek. When you play these games, you can earn points, which are needed to teach Moigle new tricks and to bribe him when he doesnât want to do something. As with any 2 year old trapped inside an adult body, Moigle constantly wants attention, feeding and playing.



Half way through the game the nefarious Baron Malodorous makes an appearance, for some reason he wants the Floigan Bros junkyard, and hatches a devious plot to get it from them. Suffice to say, these turn out to be your âbossâ style encounters throughout the game.



Thereâs a lot to like about the Floigan Bros, itâs style is very akin to early Warner Bros material, and special praise must be given for the way VC have captured this through the outstanding presentation. 

As with any cartoon worth its paint, natural laws go out of the window to make way for humour, so bomb explosions will see the characters covered in soot, cats have nine lives, storm clouds appear over Moigleâs head when he gets mad, etcâ¦



Considering that this game has been in development since before the Dreamcast was released, it features some of the best visuals around perfectly capturing that cartoon essence. Textures have that typically bright, varied and crisp nature that you expect from the Dreamcast, whilst the actual environment reeks of quality, magpies and butterflies fly about, little mice with signboards help you on your way. What VC has created is very nice, everything has been well polished and you get the sense that there isnât a weak part, itâs just a shame there isnât more.



All of the games characters animate wonderfully with that OTT style to accentuate the cartoon style, itâs simply a joy to watch.



Up there with the graphics is the excellent jazz soundtrack, and voice dialogue. At times Moigles voice may get a little grating, but thereâs no denying that itâs a few notches ahead of most games, and the amount of speech contained is⦠well impressive.



The problem is though that once you start getting into it, the game is over. A typical gamer would probably have this licked within 2hrs, and unless youâre a huge virtual pet fan thereâs not a lot to go back and see. Unfortunately this problem canât be forgiven, thereâs so many elements hinting at a good game, the style and presentation, the innovative gameplay, the humour, that you just want more and the end feeling of disappointment is a bitter one.



The Floigan Bros was always set to be an episodic experience, which would explain its short nature, and like Tom and Jerry proved, cartoons of this nature are better off when kept short rather then in feature length movies⦠Tom and Jerry: The Movie anyone???