Teen Titans
Ages: E 10+

The Teen Titans, those cartoony heroes/heroines are just the right touch for an amusing, light, fun game. The small fry of the major action figures assemble here to do what? Eat pizza? No, would you believe it -- get out of a video game. The team is sent a video game starring the Teen Titans. It's irresistible, but once they start playing it they find that they have been sucked into the game and have to fight their way out.

You can play any of five characters; Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Raven or Robin. Each character has his or her own special attacks, and between the three buttons you can get 6 different ones for each Titan. Try them all. Power beams are good.

Since there are five heroes there have to be twice as many villains -- ten in all, including Slade, Cinderblock and Jinx. In Story mode you can play any character, and when that character is knocked out, you can continue to play the next Teen Titan. Meanwhile all the other four are controlled by AI and helping in the fights. There are lots of things to pick up and throw including the enemy. You have to vanquish many many minions on each level before you can progress to another level, which leads to some button mashing. Button mashing is what you will do also if you play as "Master of Games", where you choose your character and your opponent. Both styles allow for up to four players.

The levels are interesting and colorful and the on screen displays are helpful and clever. When your character is low on energy, or takes damage, your icon changes to a super deformed face -- not hard to miss. Also, the Boss energy meter shows how close you are to beating him -- helpful.

You know how they have light reading during the summer? Take this as light playing, plus the price is light on your pocket. Somehow it's more fun having the teens battle it out than the big boys. Both console versions are pretty much the same, just depends upon which buttons you prefer to mash.

Reviewed by: Editor - 06/06