Donald in Cold Shadow
Donald Recently released by Disney for the PC, Donald in Cold Shadow is a platform game. As far as platform games go, Donald in Cold Shadow is fairly entertaining, but it's still a platform game, nonetheless. Now, if you've lived a sheltered PC gaming existence, then perhaps basic platform games are your cup of tea, but if you've played almost any computer game since Doom, you'll know that how far game designers have pushed the envelope.

Even if you didn't enjoy the Doom style of game itself, you can't have failed to notice that to get away with releasing a platform game today, you have to offer something different, and although Donald boasts high quality animation, there's nothing new. I'm not against platform games per se, but with so many games available, you need something, some edge to make it stand out from the crowd.

Looking back, even Doom appears extremely dated when compared to Quake and Tomb Raider. But the style is not the point. The slogan on the box was: "Live every level like it's your last...'coz it might be". They don't know how right they were. I gave up after a couple of levels when I decided that things weren't going to get much better. The levels are quite different and fairly detailed but when played full screen, it becomes pixelated and less impressive. The backgrounds change, but the action stays the same. It might tax the brain a little more than Doom's game objectives of running around blasting everything, but not by much.

Perhaps I may have been hard on poor wee Donald, but when a brand new game comes out trying to impress, I expect to see something new and exciting, or even just something old done better. This isn't it.

Reviewed by Joel Newman