I know this is an unusual post but as soon as I played the
game I knew I had to review it. So let's just get things over with, let's dive
into My Talking Tom.
This is not a game. This is a toy. A toy that attempts to
suck the user in with the cute factor to help you forget just how bad it is.
Throw in some pointless accessories that are purchased through
micro-transaction and you have a My Talking Tom.
In terms of game-play Tom will become either bored, hungry,
tired or need to go to the bathroom.
Boredom is alleviated by sliding your finger across Tom or
playing a mini-game. The mini-game can be best described as the worst level of
Dance Dance Revolution or tap tap revenge but without a beat or catchy music to
make the experience flow.
Needing to go to the bathroom can be solved by clicking on
the toilet and then waiting, riveting. While I obviously don't expect a
toilet-based mini-game, I do expect the game to not to leave me waiting while
my virtual cat takes a leak.
Sleeping is the obvious evolution of the brilliant peeing
mechanic, but now instead of watching your cat taking a piss you get to watch
it sitting in a dark room... sleeping... in real time... What the hell... Who
would ever think this was a good idea? I get that this is a mobile game so
you’re not supposed to sit and play it for hours, you’re supposed to make a
couple of taps and then put it back into your pocket. But games that do waiting
right (e.g. Clash of Clans) reward the player the longer they wait. All you get
in THIS game is a cat that doesn't yawn constantly.
Finally we make it to the worst game-play
"mechanic" in the entire "game". Hunger. The obvious way to
solve Toms hunger issue is to feed him, and in the games defence this is just
what you do. But before you feed Tom you must first decide what to feed him.
You can unlock more food items the more you progress but you're a moron if you
choose anything other than the tier one food items and I'll try and explain
why. For this example I'll compare the tier one strawberry with the tier two
orange. The strawberry costs 3 coins and regains 15% hunger while the orange
costs 5 coins and regains 23% hunger. See the problem here? The strawberry
regains 5% per dollar while the orange regains 4.6% per dollar. If you buy
anything other than tier one food you’re just wasting your money. And speaking
of wasting money it's time for the micro-transactions!
While you can buy most items with in game currency it would
take weeks of taping the cat to buy, oh I don't know, a monocle. So they really
rely on you spending real world money on pictures of a cat. And did I mention
that these objects don't change the game at all? I mean sure, certain items
will help you level slightly faster but if the player has already used REAL
money in game then they obviously don't care about actually playing the game,
they're more focused on making the cat look ridiculous, no matter what the
cost.
The most fun I had with this game was beating the shit out
of Tom (I suppose that speaks wonders for what's going on inside my head) and
even that becomes annoying. When I'm sitting there bored, watching him sleep I
decide to slap him in the face to make things more interesting, but the novelty
is short lived because in spite of giving the little shit five across the face
he retains his annoying smile and keeps sleeping, how satisfying. His other
interactions are just as irritating. Touching his tail will make him squeak at
you, tapping his belly makes him fend you off and touching his feet actually makes him
wave his finger at you (I shit you not) and say "No, no, no". Are you kidding me? The
cat actually tells it's OWNER off for being annoying, trust me, as a cat
owner the irony isn't lost on me. Now, I think I can take orders when need be,
I'm not going to let my pride get in the way of some good leading and role models but I
draw the line at goddamn virtual talking kittens telling me off for poking at their feet.
There are various other ways to have fun with this game but
they all involve being an ass-hole. My favorites being: Holding food up to his
mouth and then take it away, Force feeding him hunger potions to watch the painful
look on his face and waiting for him to go to sleep and then slapping him in
the face.
The final feature in this self-proclaimed "game"
is the way that Tom repeats whatever is said into the microphone. While this is
the feature that the previous Tom game was based around, it isn't much fun
here. But I'm willing to wager that it wasn't fun in the original game either.
Like I said, he repeats what's said into the microphone but pitch shifts it to
make you sound more like a chipmunk than a cat. It also lacks the ability to
customize the pitch, speed or even save the audio for later. You'd be better
off getting a dedicated voice modulator app, not only would it be more
functional but it wouldn't send you annoying notifications either.
Now, I know that game notifications are inherently annoying
but Tom takes it one step further. Instead of a standard message sound it plays
a realistic recording of a cat's meow. Like I said earlier, I have cats, I also
have a room in which my cats are not allowed, I also don't appreciate having to
tear the room apart searching for a cat just to find out that it was in my
pocket the whole time.
Over all I'd describe the game as the worst parts of the
Sims made worse. And then put on a phone. And then shoved a cat in there somewhere. Another way to describe it is as a piece of shit, but a more constructive description would be a modern Tamagotchi. It keeps to the most basic of interactions and has very limited game-play, but there are more differences than similarities. A Tamagotchi can die, so you actually have something to lose. Tom on the other hand will just grab as his crotch and yawn. I suppose with new more realistic graphics you couldn't really have the cat die but please have some sort of penalty for making your cat starve half to death. Surprisingly the graphics are a bigger problem than you may think. A Tamagotchi is incredibly low resolution, black and white, and has SFX that sound like they came out of an old Nokia. These technical limitations make the user more forgiving, what did you expect from an electronic key-ring. Tom, on the other hand, has some nice 3D visuals. That would be fine in any other game but in a game that is inherently simple it just leaves you wanting more when the graphics look more like something from a PS3 game but it plays like a $2 Tamagotchi. That's another problem. The Tamagotchi cost around $2, and while Tom as an application is free, you are more than likely to be playing it on a phone that costs over $200, and while free is a good price tag there are plenty of better games available for the same price. And they don't have any of the aforementioned issues. So yeah, it's a next Gen Tamagotchi with a new coat of paint to try and make it cuter.
And in the end he isn't even that cute. While at first you
may find some visual appeal you soon associate Toms character with the horrible
“game-play” and the charm is lost forever.
So yes, My Talking Tom is quite possibly the worst
interactive experience I have ever seen, note the words "interactive
experience" replacing the word "game". It's because this quite
simply isn't a game. It's as much of a game as navigating the phone menu to get
to the app. Though I genuinely had more fun watching my phone lag as I flicked
the menus back and forth.
