This ain’t your daddy’s Jonny Quest! Well, actually he is not
much different. Jonny’s new adventures have been modernized and computerized.
Instead of thieves and smugglers, the Quest Team now faces off against holographic
hooligans and paranormal poachers. Jonny’s father, Dr. Quest, has created Questworld,
a virtual reality dimension that has allowed the Quest Team to update their adventures
from the 60s to the 90s. Unfortunately, this newest incarnation of Jonny Quest
never caught on with today’s cartoon viewers, and neither will this well-intentioned
but misbegotten attempt to convert the Quest Team’s adventures to the home computer.

Jonny
Quest’s first rise to popularity was in 1964. In what was a novel approach
at the time, the Quest Team attempted to solve problems and save the earth by
using brain over brawn. Of course, Race Bannon was always available to provide,
when needed, a dose of muscle. Jonny was the impetuous young teenager, Hadji his
adopted brother and master of all things Indian (i.e., mysterious), Jessie, the
comely but still tomboyish daughter of Race and, of course, Bandit, the world’s
greatest pooch (take that, Lassie!). Generations of children grew up watching
the poorly animated but well-written Hanna-Barbera escapades of Jonny Quest.
In 1994, Ted Turner and his Cartoon Network decided to update this beloved
series for a new generation of cartoon lovers. The All-New T.V. Adventures
of Jonny Quest, though it garnered excellent reviews, never did catch the
fancy of a new, jaded Nintendo generation and was summarily canceled after only
52 episodes. Why Dreamcatcher decided to distribute a game based on a show that
has had no new episodes on the air for almost two years is a mystery that only
Jonny Quest could solve (in all fairness, though, the new Quest show
has lived on in syndication).

This episode of Jonny Quest (one of
the really neat things about this game is that whenever you return to your game,
the announcer intones, “Previously on Jonny Quest,” and you then
view quick flashbacks of what formerly occurred) concerns a UFO that has jettisoned
several alien artifacts before crash-landing in Roswell, New Mexico. The Quest
Team must now race against time, the evil Dr. Surd and a corrupt branch of the
U.S. government in order to be the first to ascertain the secrets of this alien
technology. We will travel to the dark side of New York, the depths of the Bermuda
Triangle, the jungles of Peru, the heat of Tanzania and finally the mind meld
of Questworld–and all this globetrotting on only two CDs! While the story may
seem to be mundane–there are no unexpected plot twists, nor is there any character
depth beyond the personalities we are already familiar with–this is geared toward
pre-teens and young teenagers and as such would want to rely more heavily on puzzles
and animation. The story succeeds on these basic terms; it never pretends to be
more than it is meant to be–an entertaining journey with bad guys, aliens and
a constantly moving storyline. Grade B.

The game’s animation
is as splendid and colorful as the cartoon series. Actually, it appears to be
nothing more than an episode of the series with puzzles and arcade sequences inserted
at the appropriate spots. This is were the game faces its greatest challenge–matching
the graphic quality of cartoon–and it fails miserably. The animation for the
puzzles that have been inserted into the game occasionally looks like it was created
on a Commodore 64. The ludicrously poor quality of such puzzles as landing a helicopter
on a skyscraper roof or navigating a whitewater raft are especially jarring when
interspersed with cut-scenes from the series. Unfortunately, these are the majority
of the interactive parts of the game. The rest of the interaction consists of
still scenes that must be clicked on to proceed in a chosen direction. This quickly
dissolves into a slide show as you are forced to proceed to preset locations.
While the animation from the series receives an A, the aforementioned puzzle graphics
receive the biggest grade of F possible. Final score for graphics: C.

While
the puzzles are usually quite easy, and they should be for the age group they
are aimed at, they are also the downfall of the game, but not because of their
simplicity. Rather, many of the “puzzles” are poorly realized arcade
sequences. The crudeness of the navigation of the helicopter and sea-slug puzzles
is mind-boggling and a slap in the face to the 90s gamer. Compare these puzzles
to the deviousness and the splendid 3D graphics of the chess piece puzzle, and
I really question whether the game creators had decided on their audience. But
wait, that’s not all. Someone decided that it would be neat if some of the game’s
puzzles were in actual 3D and even provided a pair of 3D glasses with the packaging!
The glasses do nothing to make the puzzles easier to solve and, in fact, you will
probably find yourself ripping them up in frustration. This hodgepodge of styles
never quite meshes, and the final grade for the game’s puzzles is a D.

The
one category where The Adventures of Jonny Quest truly shines is the music
and voice acting. It should, though, since it was taken directly from the series.
If you are at all familiar with the show, then you know what to expect. The actors’
voices and the background music are all familiar and, while not of Oscar quality,
are still a step above the usual fare for this type of game. This game has even
provided me with my favorite cheesiest line of all time! As Jonny, Hadji and Jessie
stand outside a diner in New York, Jonny moans about his hunger pangs, exclaiming,
“I sure could go for a hamburger right now!” to which the ever-wise
Hadji proclaims, “Ah, as could I, but first we must feed our appetite for
adventure.” Pass me the barf bag! Music and voice acting: grade of B.

If
you are a Jonny Quest fan, then you will enjoy “pretending” to
be in his shoes–or flippers as the location dictates–for a while. I believe,
though, that this game was released more to capitalize on the continuing popularity
of Jonny Quest than to convert new followers. There are some nice touches
to the game, such as the built-in hint system for the puzzles (honestly, though,
you would have to posses the intelligence of a cucumber to get stuck on some of
these puzzles), but the majority of the positives come more from what was taken
directly from the television series than from what the computer programmers added
into the mix. One final redeeming factor is that this game can be purchased at
a retail price of $19.99.

Final grade for The Adventures of Jonny
Quest: C.

Minimum System Requirements:
Windows 95/98
8 MB RAM
2X or faster CD-ROM drive
Pentium CPU