Battle enemies as guinea pig heroes in 'G-Force'

— -- Disney's newest stars are a bunch of super-intelligent guinea pigs known as the G-Force. Specially trained to be part of a covert intelligence squad for the government, not only do these guinea pigs star in their own movie (opening July 24), but they also captivate you in their own G-Force video game for both consoles and handhelds.

Under the cute little rodent facades are fearless special agents. Equipped with cool spy gadgets and unique weapons, these guinea pigs are a hoot to play with if you like video games filled with combat and tricky environments. The game allows you to drive a rodent exercise ball that rotates at ridiculously high speed while fighting all sorts of household appliances that have become evil.

G-Force immediately grabs your attention with nonstop action. This is a game about infiltrating bad guy Leonard Saber's operations as he tries to take over the world by reprogramming all the world's appliances to do his evil bidding. Between stealth missions of trying to sneak into Saber's mansion and FBI headquarters, and constantly fighting renegade appliances, you'll need to think fast and shoot often to survive.

You view the world from the perspectives of Darwin, the guinea pig leader of the G-Force, and his housefly sidekick Mooch. You can freely switch between the two characters to solve puzzles of how to navigate through the five locations of the game. Darwin carries a variety of weapons and has a hoverpack that allows him to fly for brief periods. Mooch can fly close to electrical things to interfere with their frequencies and has a special ability to slow down time. At times you will need to send Mooch into tiny places to do things to help Darwin, like flying through a fan vent in the wall to activate a switch on the other side of a door.

If your kids like fast action and lots of combat, they will love this game. Each of the 25 missions is about eliminating threats in a location so that you can reason out how to navigate in the environment to get to a goal. At your disposal are a whip, a flamethrower and guns, such as a freeze gun that encases your enemy in a block of ice. You can also shoot an evil appliance with a special weapon that will turn it into an ally.

Our teen-testers loved that the threats keep changing as you progress through the game. At first you will have to deal with pesky waffle irons that have been programmed to chomp on you and annoying headphones that want to crunch you. But as you play through the game, the appliances get tougher to defeat. Beware of twirling water coolers, computer CPUs that send out shockwaves and paper shredders that fire shredder blades.

Testers also appreciated the creativity of puzzle design. In one, you have to figure out how to have a laser track your movements but end up blowing up your enemy instead of you. On the down side, testers occasionally complained that they couldn't get the camera to focus quite right.

Unlike many children's video games that are short in length, this is a robust game. Each mission takes a while, but, thankfully there are frequent save points along the way. The game can be played on three levels of difficulty, so kids will have a reason to play it again.

Because of its intensity and the fantasy violence, this is a game best played by kids 10 and up. For parents concerned about violence in their kids' lives, this is a shooter game; however, kids are firing at renegade appliances. And while these machines can seem menacing, they never cross over into being scary. The dialogue contributes to the feeling that this is wacky not frightening. For example, you'll hear Darwin murmur when taking down a toaster, "What I wouldn't give for a slice of bread."

If you are looking for a game that will trigger a high adrenaline rush, G-Force delivers. And you can enjoy it regardless of seeing the movie. We played the Nintendo Wii version, but the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3 versions come with 3-D glasses to see special eye-popping graphics.

Gudmundsen is the editor of Computing With Kids magazine. Contact her at gnstech@gannett.com.