Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue

There is a reason why you are meant to play this game, but it is a fluffy one at that. Apparently 'Boss Cass' has some henchmen who are, unsurprisingly, up to no good - they plan to break their Boss out of prison! Therefore you, as Ty, must work together with the rest of the newly-formed 'Bush Rescue' team (hence the strange title that is not actually porn related after all...) to prevent the dastardly plan from being carried out. Think you are up to the task? EA is counting on you to say yes!

 

Prepare to gasp, because Ty 2 is quite a looker, with the GameCube version appearing to be better than the PS2 edition, making a nice change from previous dodgy cross-platform releases where the GC somehow comes off worse than the technically inferior Sony ageing system. But nope, what we have here is a bright, colourful title, complete with sturdy cartoon-like 3D models, a frame-rate to be proud of, level design that prevents the action from getting tiring too quickly and an overall sense of great production quality, Ty 2 really deserves to hold its head up high. Quite an achievement indeed!

And then gasp once more as you discover that the sound composition is above average and that the voice acting is definitely of quite a high calibre, despite the Australian accents that sometimes sound like they are from actors/actresses clearly not of that descent. But nonetheless, the script is well constructed, helping the storyline move along quite smoothly and the acting is clear and easily understandable, without being drowned out by the pleasantly bouncy background music and surrounding sound effects that are blasting around you. Again, classy stuff!

 

The developer behind Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2: Bush Rescue is the same one as the first time round, Krome. Thankfully the development team has learned from most of its initial mistakes to ensure that Ty 2 is not just any old run-of-the-mill follow-up, but a successor that is worthy of standing tall amongst the millions of other GameCube platform games, as well as the likes of Sly Racoon, Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank on Sony's system. Whilst not quite reaching the top of the table, it now looks like the Ty series is at least no longer struggling in the relegation zone.

The playing field is rather open, rather than leading you directly by the hand, which proves to be quite refreshing, especially because it does not go to the extreme of being too open that you end up getting lost! You can jump, you can run, you can view everything around from a first-person viewpoint when standing still and you can, most importantly, blast enemies out of the way with those wonderful Australian contraptions

 

Of note, there is also a racing game included in the package and it is by no means just a tacked-on affair either! Think along the lines of Crash Bandicoot Racing, except better and you will get the idea. New tracks become available as you play through the main adventure, so the two are definitely intertwined