In Ty the Tasmanian Tiger, you take on the role of Ty, who discovers that he must retrieve magical talismans to release his fellow Tigers, including his parents, from another dimension. At the opening of the game, you see other Tigers fighting the evil Boss Cass, who's been trying to acquire the talismans. Once Ty takes up his task, he fights Cass' henchmen as he runs through levels, grabbing Thunder Eggs, which Julius (the brains of the game) uses to power his machine to find and retrieve the talismans. Also along the way is Maurie, a cockatoo who acts as Ty's mentor.

Ty the Tasmanian Tiger is your standard platformer at heart. You run and jump around levels that initially look small and straightforward, but the further along in the levels you get the more you'll realize that there are multiple paths and a lot of things hidden. Each level has multiple objectives and the player can choose to do as many they want before leaving the level. Most objectives are fairly simple, but on each level, you can collect Opals, locate trapped animals and grab Golden Cogs, which can be used in the hub level to gain new boomerangs. Ty uses his boomerangs to defeat enemies, hit switches and even to glide short distances. Certain enemies may be resilient to the boomerangs, so Ty will need to use his bite attack, which can also be used to smash boxes open. Ty's various boomerangs include elemental based attacks and even a sniper attack (which can be used with the look button). And while a lot of the game consists of grabbing various amounts of items, there are the occasional mini-games to break up the gameplay.

Graphically, the game is built on a solid engine. The large levels have a lot going on all at once. Lighting and visual effects add a nice touch to the game. Most of the characters and monsters have a fairly simple, yet effective look to them. Textures are fairly decent, even if some may look a little bland and underdetailed at times. The CG cutscenes are nicely polished and add a fine cinematic feeling to the story.

The audio portion of the game is a nice accent. Sound effects are crisp and varied. The music is upbeat and fairly appropriate, even if one or two of the tunes sound like variations of themes from other games. The voice acting is nicely done, and as the script is geared towards a campy attempt at Australian accents and slang, you'll get a kick out of the cutscenes and the sense of humor present.

While Ty has a lot going for it, there are a few aspects that could use some tweaking. The in-game camera, a problem in a number of recent platformers, seems a little loose. It's never really bad, but a number of times, you need to manually adjust it and even keep a finger on the C-stick while jumping from platform to platform. Also, the jumping mechanic seems a little slippery, leaving the player performing jumps a few times before success. Graphically, the only sore spot in the game is the occasional jagged edge, most of which turn up in in-game cutscenes.

If you can look past the drawbacks and don't mind that a lot of the game will be spent fetching items, you should considering getting Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. It's a fun game that offers a lot to do and the basic gameplay behind the game is well executed.

- - Kinderfeld