Personally, I don’t like it when video game adaptations include “The Movie” part of titles, and it’s especially odd for Rugrats in Paris, which already has a unique title without “The Movie”. Still, that’s more of a pet peeve than an actual issue with the game. The game itself is a minigame collection, but with a small number of minigames.

To get to these minigames, you have to slowly walk through five hub worlds, using awful-feeling tank controls. You also have to collect red tickets in order to buy objects, like puzzle pieces to complete jigsaws. If this had been a simple platformer with a jump and normal controls, it would have been a decent game, but trudging across the map is just immensely tedious.

The minigames range from some simple target shooting games to a 9-hole golf course, which has a feature that is nice on paper, but is rather tedious: you can walk around the course. With the slow tank controls, it’s just a faff, and when you approach the ball, it never seems to be aiming in a direction you want, and the turning (just like when walking) is extremely slow.

A game like this should shine in multiplayer, but Rugrats in Paris is really dull there, too: every game is done by alternating, you can’t play with others at the same time. This includes the bumper car minigame where you compete with three other CPU players to collect balloons. In multiplayer, each player takes their own 2-minute turn against CPU players.

It can be surprisingly difficult at times, too. The object of the game is to get enough gold tickets (via completing minigames and jigsaws) to buy a Reptar control helmet. You can’t use this on the big Reptar you see at the start of the game – you have to find an extremely well hidden gate saying “keep out” and find a warehouse in there. There, you get to be Reptar in a final battle – an immensely difficult final battle, largely due to the bad controls.

This is a very disjointed minigame collation, with a poor multiplayer alongside it.

Poor

Bit of a mixed bag, then. This is very much aimed at those still mastering the art of joined-up writing. Which is almost a shame, since the Rugrats have a wider appeal than perhaps they’re being credited with. But if you, or a younger sibling, is a drooling fan of Chuckie and co, you could do considerably worse than snaffling a copy of this and amassing a collection of tickets red and gold.

Alan Maddrell, N64 Magazine #51. Review Score: 67%

Remake or remaster?

Nothing needed for this game.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Rugrars in Paris: The Movie (The Game).