Jungle Party

Buzz! Junior: Jungle Party comes to the PSP, only without the Buzz! Using the PSP buttons, players control the actions of one of four brightly coloured, cheeky monkeys, competing against the CPU or up to four friends in a ‘pass around’ game to find out who really is king of the jungle.

Ready Up Junior: Amber

Age: 10

What can you tell us about Jungle Party?

Amber: Well it starts off with you getting to choose which colour monkey you want, then you get to choose its clothes. Then there are all these minigames to play. I liked the one game where you were sat in a jacuzzi with a gorilla and you’re blowing bubbles, which are farts, and you have to not let the gorilla see you cause he doesn’t like it. If he catches you, he will smack you on the head and you’ll lose points. I also liked the one where you had to whack a squirrel on the head, so that it wouldn’t touch the snake, otherwise it would spit at you.

Was there anything you didn’t like about the game?

Amber: Some minigames were easy but some were hard. The one with the elephant throwing balls for you to whack at a mountain was hard, because I kept missing the ball. I got the hang of it in the end, though. The Lion taming was hard, but not that hard. You had to put your head in the Lion’s mouth and make sure it didn’t bite you.

What did you think about how the game looked and sounded?

Amber: The graphics were okay for a kiddy game, because kids don’t really care about that stuff do they?! The music was a bit boring, I couldn’t really hear it because the monkey’s voices were loud over it. I would have liked to choose different colours for my monkey; the only colours are blue, green, yellow, and orange.

Do you think you’ll play Jungle Party a lot?

Amber: I might play it again one day but it’s not my favourite game so I wouldn’t play it every day. My brother (aged 11) and I played it together but he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the graphics or the mini games, he said they were too stupid. But he’s older than me and he’s in comp so he thinks lots of things that I like are stupid. There aren’t a lot of minigames to choose from, though. I would have liked more. You can change the order that you play them so you can choose the ones you like best over and over again.

Parent’s comment: Jungle party kept Amber and her brother occupied for around an hour or so, then maybe another hour as we played it all together. The mini games are simple and easy to get to grips with. The kids had fun while it lasted but I can’t see them investing much more time into it than they already have.