GAMES REVIEW – Johnny Test: Gravity Pants

It’s time for another short puzzle game. While I don’t have much to say on the game itself at least reviewing Johnny Test: Gravity Pants gives me the excuse to talk about the show, Johnny Test, itself and where I stand on it. The show centres on the adventures of the wild and crazy Johnny Test and his best friend and intelligent talking dog, Dukey, as they and Johnny’s sisters, Susan and Mary, cause problem after travesty in the city of Porkbelly usually because of selfishly using one of Susan and Mary’s inventions for Johnny’s own benefit. A classic experiment of the week show, which is why some make comparisons and claims that Johnny Test is the spiritual sequel to Dexter’s Lab. So instead of one stupid sister and one super genius boy, it’s two super genius sisters and one stupid boy. I personally wouldn’t even put Johnny Test in the same category of quality as Dexter’s Lab as I find the show more irritating then entertaining.

But this is more because of the radical shifts in direction over the seasons. Watching seasons 1 and 2 of Johnny Test again, they are COMPLETELY different to Johnny test now in tone, animation and comedic style. This show was actually one of the main reasons I got into reviewing, so I guess you can say me and it have this sort of Count of Monti Cristo style relationship. I’ll definitely sink my teeth into the show itself but until then let’s look at Gravity Pants.

Good thing I spent the first two paragraphs talking about the show because as for the game there isn’t much to talk about, but that isn’t a bad thing though. It’s your typical puzzle game where you control Johnny using the arrow keys, to collect all the metal debris and three pancakes to get the highest score. The catch with the puzzles are that Johnny can only fly in the directions of the arrow keys and can only attach himself on flat surfaces. If he lands on a corner he’ll ricochet until he hits a flat wall or falls out of bounds to die in the depths of space.

From a puzzle game lover’s perspective, the mechanics work great lending itself to some basic challenge thanks to its slight depth with the ricochet movement. However the difficulty curve is completely scrambled. Amidst the 30 levels, you can go five levels like it’s a walk in the park until the game throws a curve ball at you and you land a level that actually is a brain teaser. This would be a fine curve if it were going up in difficulty consistently, but while playing it feels like the levels are out of order when considering their difficulty with only 5-7 of the levels really worthy of being called brain teasing puzzles. It’s not a deal breaker but it’s enough to raise an eye brow.

And that’s it. It’s a good puzzle game with good controls and a slightly scrambled difficulty curve. You can speed run Gravity Pants in 20 minutes tops but those 20 minutes, if you think this sounds fun, you won’t be disappointment.