Review: Muppet World Tour

I have always liked the Muppets, and, so, when it was first announced that a party based on the property would come to Club Penguin, I was rather excited.  But, was it all worth the hype?

The Muppets World Tour is all over the place when it comes to the good and the bad.  First, there are the rooms.  They are designed really well, though the recent trend of no interior decorations (for the most part) has sadly floated into this party.  The music is also pretty well done, though it and the decorations can be a bit a stereotypical.  Additionally, the USA room does not represent the United States well at all.  While the rest are pretty recognizable, the Plaza holds very little that would make anyone venture to guess that it was the United States that was being imitated.

The costumes, sprites, and character art at this party are really well designed.  Aside from Miss. Piggy, who looks kind of nice but really in the end seems a bit strange, all of them have really good production value and represent the characters really well.  I did feel the catalog was a bit small, though; characters like Walter, who appeared at the party, should have gotten costumes of their own.  Also, the Rowlf costume also looks nice, though it is disappointing how it is only available in one county.  While a good marketing ploy, it is also very confusing how one actually gets the costume once they buy the membership card.  This strategy needs to be ironed out in the future.

The free items are simple but nice.  It's neat how some of the names and items have roots to the countries from which the product comes from in real life.  I don't know if I'll wear them much, but they are universal enough that they could go with many clothes combinations.

What can actually be done at the party is the real problem here.  While meeting Kermit and getting his background is neat, everything else falls flat.  The daily tasks are far too simple and are incredibly buggy.  They became too repetitive, and aside from the dialogue and animations of the characters (which were faithful to the true characters), along with the interesting new animations for penguins, I felt they were incredibly boring and remedial.  The final show, after all the hype, proved just as underwhelming.

Additionally, having Constantine around gave Club Penguin a lot of potential.  Perhaps they could make a heist game?  Perhaps they could have us go on a scavenger hunt for treasure?  But, no.  Instead we got a brief moment with Constantine after an incredibly easy task which delivered two things: 1) a cool background and 2) longing for more.  Constantine's promise of bigger plans seemed like it was going somewhere, yet only set up the plot of the movie.  His character was squandered on one of the easiest challenges in Club Penguin history.

This all shows a disturbing trend in Club Penguin.  While rooms and music are at the top of their game, the overall experiences at parties are becoming disappointing.  Club Penguin is at a very awkward stage: pretty much everyone would be content with a Club Penguin party that had decorations, music, and a few free items.  However, Club Penguin wants to move on from that.  But, in doing that, they don't invest 100% of their effort to it, and, thus, we get parties like this, with disappointingly simple features.  Club Penguin needs to stop with the half-effort parties and give us their best work.  What happened to new party games at each party?  Why can't we do new things each day instead of more of the same?  I do realize that these things take time and money and they can't be too complex for the kids that they are meant to include.  However, a lot more could be done.

Should it return?  Yes, the Muppets deserve another chance.  Will it?  I'm not sure about that.  After all, there's not always new Muppets stuff to promote.  I sure hope it does, though, with lots of improvements.

So, in closing, Club Penguin got a great property and tried to make it into a great party.  Did they?  Not at all.  While the costumes, rooms, and music continued to impress and the inclusion of Kermit as a mascot was a great decision, everything else seemed too simple and lacking.  There was so much potential when it came to these characters.  Club Penguin has proven they can make great things.  The question is: why don't they bother to give all they've got?

As Billybob would say, Waddle On!
- Chillin43