Mar 22

Mar 22 Preview | Kao the Kangaroo - Spring In Its Step

Colourful animal mascot. Running away from the camera. Blurry textures. *You telling me this is a PS2 game?*

The cheeky, fast-fisted Kangaroo from Tate Multimedia is back, and Kao is on one of his most exciting adventures yet. I have been fortunate enough to have been given a chance to play the demo of the 3D platformer. Although it was only one level, I have been left wanting more, and wondering where this game has been all my life. I’ll level with you all here, I had only ever heard of Kao before, but I never had a chance to play any of the PS2 era games. Now, if the new game demo is any inkling of how the old games are, then I can see why fans love the franchise so much.

I entered Kao the Kangaroo with higher hopes than one might imagine. After all, who wouldn’t want to play an old-school style platformer as a Kangaroo with boxing gloves?. I did get slightly panicked when the game experienced severe lag upon booting it up. We’re talking about Kao moving to the left, but the screen not following him until a minute later. However, this was soon fixed when I fiddled with my settings. I turned my FPS down to 30, turned off auto-aliasing, and set everything as low as it could be (without compromising the game). This may sound like a big knock against the game’s optimisation but I would like to point out that I have a PC copy, and my laptop is just that, a laptop. It is in no way built for high-quality gaming and yet Kao, for the most part, managed to run. I believe that the issues I did encounter were largely down to my technology, and were probably not a reflection of the game itself.

Kao looking upon all which he has conquered.

Once I had sorted my settings out to suit my laptop, the quality of the level design became apparent. There’s a clever balance of old-school nostalgia and new-generation tech in the world design. The areas feel as though they belong to an older game that has been remastered for modern times. Though the danger of letting Kao drown was prominent, the entire world felt comforting as I passed through it. This may be because I am someone who spent a lot of their childhood playing 3D-platformers, and the world design of Kao hits all the nostalgic sweet-spots. The different green hues of trees merge together to create the feeling of being deep within a forest, while ripples of blue and white water, murky green mud all combine seamlessly into one immersive, yet imaginative world which feels like a recreation of my memory of a classic 3D-platformer.

Now onto the gameplay. It’s, as you would expect, by which I mean, I had great fun gatecrashing a Frog Concert so I could punch them all into oblivion with their drum kits. It may sound simple, but its simplicity is where the fun lies. Sometimes, games can be guilty of overcomplicating tasks which can make it a tedious grind to get from one level to the next. Tate has perfectly balanced having the player do just enough to make it engaging to hop through a level, with not having so much going on that you feel like you are just trying to survive. Being able to clearly see where I need to go did not detract from the fun. It enhanced it. I didn’t get frustrated when I died, because the game is designed to ensure you are never stuck spending ages trying to figure out what to do. When I died, it was my own fault, and I happily accepted it because I enjoyed hopping across platforms again.

In Kao the Kangaroo you’re encouraged to explore away from the main paths. It was quite clear where I needed to go to complete the mission at hand, but the layout of the world prompted you to explore elsewhere. For example, while I completed a crystal puzzle that involved moving platforms, I was given glimpses of a chest. Once I had hopped across the platforms, it was clear that I needed to double-back and explore a different path if I wanted to get to the chest. Again, it wasn’t an overly complicated route that I needed to take, but the fact that I could uncover more of the world without being punished enhanced my experience in the game.

Definitive ranking of video game kangaroos.
3. Kao The Kangaroo
2. The kangaroo from Tekken
1. Kangaroo Jack in browser game based off the hit 2003 movie Kangaroo Jack

This brings me to the collectables and talismans side of the game. I am a strong believer that being able to collect random items and talismans in a 3D-platformer will always make the game better. In the case of Kao the Kangaroo, my beliefs were justified. Whenever I punched a wall down or wandered behind a waterfall to find hidden objects, I gained an immense sense of self-satisfaction. As I said previously, the game is not complicated enough to be stressful, but it takes just enough effort to find things that are hidden that you feel pretty smart when you discover them. Now, my love for this throwback collect-a-thon gameplay may be because I grew up playing 3D-platformers but I like to believe it’s simply because Kao does it very well.

Overall, I had a really great time with this demo. Granted, it was only one level, but that level gave me high expectations for the rest of the game. I am hopeful that Tate will live up to those expectations, and the demo left me pretty darn confident that they might even exceed them. The tantalising taste I had of Kao has left me wanting more, so I cannot wait for it to be released!