Game Review: Kung Fu Panda (PS2)
Based on the summer animated movie, join unlikely panda hero Po on a quest to become a Kung-Fu master. When an evil villainous leopard threatens the land, it’s up to Po to team up with the Furious Five, a group of experienced martial arts animals, and save the day!
Kung Fu Panda on PlayStation 2 is a 3-D action adventure. It’s also available for the other popular game consoles: Nintendo Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, and Nintendo DS (though the DS version is more 2-D). Play as Po and jump, punch and kick your way through settings and plots straight from the movie. Use fighting combos and special moves like the Belly Bounce to defeat waves of enemies. Sometimes you’ll get to play as one of the other animals in the Furious Five and use their special powers as well. Gather coins to buy upgrades to Po’s movies, and collect Rare Coins to unlock fighters for the multiplayer mode, character bios, and other movie goodies.
Visuals reflect the feel of the show, although the PS2 version takes a hit graphically as it’s not as sharp looking as the newer console versions. Voice acting is on the mark, though. Play control for basic moves like punching is decent, but sometimes jumping and pulling off advance combo moves feels a little sluggish. The Kung Fu Panda video game doesn’t stand out as being original, groundbreaking, or epic, but fans of the movie should like it. I give it 3 and a half out of five stars.
Kid Factor:
Kung Fu Panda is rated E-10 for Everyone 10 and up for Fantasy Violence and Mild Language. I didn’t hear any bad language but the game is all about cartoon animals beating the snot out of other cartoon animals with kicks, punches, and the occasional belly flop. But there’s no blood or grisly death scenes. Defeated enemies just fall on their backs and disappear with an “argh!” If you’re OK with your kids watching the movie, you’ll be OK with the game, too.
Reading skill is helpful but the text and instructions in the game is usually always followed by spoken voice. Even though there are three difficulty selections available, younger or less experienced gamers may have a little trouble and need some help on the trickier parts. Kids who loved the movie will enjoy the Kung Fu Panda video game, though.
July 13th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
I played the 360 demo and was pleasantly surprised at the quality. What is the world coming to when movie tie-in games are not horrible?!
July 14th, 2008 at 4:36 am
Yeah, it’s not horrible. Generic, but not horrible.
I’ll wait and either rent the Kung Fu Panda movie or go see it when it hits dollar theaters. –Cary
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:20 am
If you didn’t hear any bad language, why is it rated with the mild language tag. It’s driving me crazy, where can I find out what is in this game for language. Please help
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
My son is stuck o the protecting the palace level in the room with the 4 trampolines. We can not figure out how to close the doors. We have all bounced and twisted, run and jumped in all different kind of combinations. Can someone help us out
November 14th, 2021 at 11:45 am
EWJ1 shouldn’t be on this list, because the SNES version is just a gimped port of the Genesis version…same with MK1. Nobody decapitated anyone in the SNES version of MK1 either, because it was censored to shit…also Super Street Fighter is inherently better than Turbo, too bad Nintendo couldn’t get the Western version working on their Canoe emulator.
Holly Hooper