Zapper is your classic story of revenge. Bad guy kidnaps family member’s brother; family member embarks on major trial to bring justice to bad guy. The only difference is that in Zapper, the bad guy is a maniacal magpie queen and the justice seeker is a cricket. Is Zapper’s zest for revenge enough to carry this game? Not fully, but for the family gamer, there are some things to like.

Zapper has several modes of play: Storyline, Arcade and Multiplayer. Yes, that’s right multiplayer! Now the Campaign or Storyline game can best be described as Frogger 3D, which isn’t that ironic considering that Blitz also developed Frogger 2. The game is played out in a similar fashion via an overhead view, giving you pretty good visibility to Zapper and his environment. Only occasionally do other objects get in the way.

Your goal is to hop your way through each level discovering magpie eggs, releasing globes of fireflies and avoiding or zapping the assortment of bad guys that get in your way. While the levels are pretty simple and easy to complete, there was some thought put into them. There are hidden objects to uncover; yellow globes give you an added bonus if you collect them in the proper sequence and most importantly, the levels do increase in difficulty as you progress in the game.

While I do have children, and therefore, try to judge games according to their intended audience, I personally found myself quickly getting bored with this game. Yes, even though the characters are cute and the graphics are on par with other platformer/arcade games. The Arcade mode doesn’t add much more to the game other than the ability to retry levels without having to work your way back to them in the campaign mode. The multiplayer mode is somewhat interesting. Yes, it does seem a bit contrived, like it was sort of tacked onto the existing game, but my kids really liked it. They especially liked zapping the old man. Multiplayer can best be described as Fuzion Frenzy with insects.

Can I recommend this game? Yes and no. If you have children, then yes, this is a great game for them and will definitely entertain them for some time. I especially recommend this game to Xbox gamers desperate for some games that their kids can play. PS2 or Game Cube owners simply have too many other better games geared to children, but in the world of Xbox, at least for the moment, family gamers need to take what they can get. When looking at score, keep in mind that I am rating for the intended audience and not my personal thoughts.