In this technically oriented age of 3D videogames, one would think that the very pinnacle of early 1990s gaming had seen its last wacky, mammalian days. Yet, in 1999,Eurocom, Disney and Sony, aiming to please the mass PlayStation market, young and old, tied in Disney's Hercules, the movie, with the game, and have succeeded with not surprising, but solid, old-school platforming.

Perhaps the best aspect of the game is that it is indeed a 2D side-scroller at heart, even though it's a graphic step above the days of Sonic and Mario. There is still a place for these kinds of games, just as there is for 2D fighters. They're still fun and, if designed correctly, there's nothing Quite like them.Disney's Tarzan doesn't bring anything new to the table, but it integrates a bountiful sum of gameplay aspects into one whole for a fun, light game that's well worth its price in bananas.

Gameplay
Old school is in again withDisney's Tarzan. Jump, run, hop on animals (but not their heads necessarily), swim, and do it back and forth until you're done with the level. We've all been there, done that. But withTarzan,Eurocom has made it fun again. It's integrated 3D elements that bring a look and feel that's eerily similar to several games I've played before. Jump from the ground to a suspicious branch and watch the world turn a corner, just like in Wild 9s. Jump from a cliff into a pool in which elephants are bathing and the game transforms into the Crash Bandicoot levels where Crash runs toward the screen from a boulder. Jump and swing through the jungle that's both 2D and 3D just like in Pandemonium or Nights. Or surf along branches just like in a mine cart level that you've never quite played before. These are the elements that make up the gameplay stuff ofDisney's Tarzan.

While it's all been done before, the mosaic of great gameplay elements brings the entire piece to a new level of depth and variety. Spanning 14 levels, not including bonuses,Tarzan enables players to watch as Edgar Rice Burroughs' legendary ape-man grow from a cloying, gloopy child to a muscle-bound, fearless adult. For good measure, Eurocom added even more variety when it brought in levels with the lovely Jane and the meddling Terk, both of which gamers can play.

Tarzan is wonderfully flexible in movement, and is capable of all sorts of physical skills. He can swing from vines (would he be Tarzan if he didn't?); climb straight up walls and trees; monkey climb from underneath logs; surf on trees; pound the ground to break open hidden fruit and bonuses; perform a power jump (off large animals' backs for a super high jump); swim; use a knife, parasol, and spear; and throw fruit at annoying opponents. And as the game progresses, Tarzan will grow from a young child to an adult, with slightly different abilities adding in along the way.

The surfing is great fun, and is actually the most original part of the game, but it could have been better. Eurocom could have made things a touch more comfortable if the camera angle has move back about a foot or so, so that I could see what the heck I was speeding toward. Too often I felt had I been gievn the chance, I could have collected more, taken less damage, etc.

The downside to Tarzan and his special abilities are exactly where the good elements lie, too. Strangely, even though it's great to swing on vines, the physics for it are clumsy, especially with harmful, bookend-type birds on the ends of some vines that make grabbing the tokens and fruit not worth the challenge. The vines rhythm drops dead without constant motion, provoking gamers to smash into the bookend birds, good timing or not, to jump over ravines or deadly traps. The vines should enable you to swing higher and higher into air, instead of to the same height over and over. In many cases, it's either injury or death, and sometmes it's both. In my book, this does make for a good time, even after you get the whole thing down. Added to the lame vines, which once seemed like a good idea, are the other little annoyances that seem to whittle away at your health (and enjoyment), rather than challenge you to avoid them. The culprits are cute but poison frogs, rolling and hanging monkeys, and oddly the animals off whom you must jump, such as rhinos and elephants. In a subtle lack of consistency, the Rhino hurts you at the slightest wrong angle.

Actually, I think I did find a little bug, although it may have been from my own stupidity. In one case of trying to get all of the tokens, the wart hog blew my game. I hopped under a low hollow log to collect a token and the warthog walked under there too; I ended up bouncing off him and the branch, unable to control or remove myself, until I died a terribly pathetic death. If you've ever seen the two dopes from "A Night at the Roxbury" dance-bang a girl like a pinball, well, you get the picture. Luckily, I didn't get thrown out of my own house, but I almost threw the game out the window! However, compared to one of love-hate favorites, Heart of Darkness, this was much smoother, less aggravating game to play.

Graphics
The 2 1/2D look of Disney's Tarzan reminds me of the optical tricks we used to see at the old Tech Museum when I was a kid. I knew the tricks were 2D, but they looked 3D nonetheless. The blend of flat painted backgrounds and 3D, polygonal enemies and objects are expertly woven together into a bustling, interactive set of levels. It's a great technique that works to make the game look one way and play in another.

Certainly one of the great elements of Tarzan is its quality production. The programming is tight and glitch-less, and the entire organic look is well entrenched throughout the game, whether it's in the movies, the gameplay, or the menus.

More significant is the seamless integration of the animation -- from the playable aspects to the movies --into the game itself. The in-game graphics are impeccably similar in look, texture, and in the luscious variety of greens, blues and browns to those in the animated scenes and movies, creating an organic whole that's rarely seen in today's PlayStation games. True, games have been coming closer and closer since the days of Wing Commander and Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, but Tarzan truly takes the cake in this area.

There are a few problems, though. It's hard to see, but ever so often slowdown will occur, usually when there's an animated background, such as a waterfall. Luckily I have yet to see a slowdown occur in a crowded scene of enemies. Another weird graphic oddity is that Tarzan will change in sizes throughtout a level. In one instant, he'll exist in one size and in another he'll shrink, even though the camera angle stays the same. It's not so much a problem is it is just plain weird. I hope that doesn't happen to me as I walk down the street, growing taller and then shrinking to beagle size as I pass newsstands and glass buildings. And what if it's permanent?

Sound
If you like Phil Collins, then you'll like the a little bit of the music in Disney's Tarzan. I'm mixed on old Phil. I remember his singing days back in Genesis after Peter Gabriel left the band, and he can sing all right, but his voice is truly one-dimensional, and it gets tedious, to put it subtly.

But not all of the music is Phil, thankfully. A mix of movie-style atmospheric themes and jungle beats are blended together throughout to create a harmonious whole. There are a few weak spots in the music, but that's because it is from the film themes, and Disney films always have a bunch of wimpy theatrical songs that no one I know likes anyway.

In all honesty, the music is is not as memorable as the sound effects. The birds, the animal growls, the elephant stampedes, the babboons, Tarzan's childish and later on his older calls -- the whole atmosphere is well created and consistently controlled. It's got the jungle feel down pat.