Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts!

Hmm, it’s not an oxymoron, because that is a phrase that contradicts itself, but “Hammy Goes Nuts” is one of those phrases that state the obvious. After all, Hammy is a squirrel that is highly addicted to sugar – so much so that most of his reactions are over the top.

So when the cable goes out, Hammy has a fit. It turns out that the suburbia residence he was stealing his cable from has gone dish. It’s RJ the Raccoon to the rescue – along with Verne the Turtle, of course. All they have to do is destroy the dish setup and the human will go back to cable, and Hammy can continue to steal the signal and all will be well in the Over the Hedge world.

But it gets a bit more involved. Apparently the person with the dish has been holding a beaver – Boris the Beaver, to be precise – in a cage in his house. What are a group of friends to do but set the beaver free. This begins the series of adventures that comprises the PSP title from Activision and Amaze entitled Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts!

The game is a progressive ride through various environments, employing many of the elements familiar to platform gamers. For example, early on, you have to disable laser devices (sure, every home has laser beams in vents and across doorways) which will entail climbing, jumping, hanging from rails, avoiding steam or sewer pools. There are three playable characters, each with their own abilities. Boris prefaces each level with words of encouragement (via cutscenes) and then you get to hop in and use RJ (he is nimble and uses various tools/weapons), Verne (shell attack and his defense is to withdraw into said shell), and Hammy (ingests caffeine-based products and goes into “Hammy Time” in which things slow down a la “Bullet Time”). Players don’t have a choice over which character they get to use in each level, though.

The game does have some graphical glitches. During a timed element, the screen inexplicably went to that blue shade that usually was associated with a Windows fatal operating error. The gameplay was all but useless until the clock/timer finished winding down, with the mission half finished. At other times the controls seemed to take on a life of their own, and the character being controlled would do something that didn’t make sense, nor was it input via the controls. During one scene, RJ is shimmying along staggered ledged to ascend a pipe. On more than one occasion he slipped off, in the same manner that he would have used to drop to the ledge below, except there was no ledge below and the hotkey used to have him drop was not used. During this same scene, RJ was blown off the ledge by a steam release, when he should have been clear of the stream of steam and not touched by it. Disappointing? You bet. So much so that a 10-year old that was playing sections of the game laid down the PSP and walked away from the game. 

The sound is merely Ok. The voice dialogue is somewhat emotionless (save for Hammy) and lacks enthusiasm. The musical score is average, as well.

Multiplayer has five Ad Hoc games that can be played with up to four other gamers – each a variation of Capture the Flag. Still, this provides some measure of fun … well, when you can find another gamer with a copy of the game.

Over the Hedge: Hammy Goes Nuts! is an ordinary single-player platformer that benefits from lush 3D characters and environments. The story is more contrived than the original movie and the game just seems to lack any sort of enthusiasm.

Gameplay: 6.0
Standard fare with some anomalies that can lead to a bit of frustration. The control scheme won’t take much to learn, but you may be put out by the way the game sometimes seems to ignore what is input and does its own thing.

Graphics: 7.0
Lush 3D characters against environments that are serviceable with some glitches that are simply odd.

Sound: 6.5
Uninspired voice narrative and Ok effects and scoring.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
What passes for environmental puzzles are very easy to solve and aside from some stumbles in the controls, this is a straightforward and linear game.

Concept: 6.0
The multiplayer elements are fun, but the single-player has a “been there, done that” feel to it.

Multiplayer: 7.5
Five Ad Hoc gameplay options that will prove fun to play.

Overall: 6.3
Despite the fun of the multiplayer element, Hammy Goes Nuts is an often predictable platformer transported into 3D. While the graphics look terrific, there are moments when the player will be left staring at a screen that has nothing but a wash of color on it, or wondering how you managed to pull off that bit of a slip when your hands were not near that control button.