Jambo! Safari

Stone Skipping involves using the Wii remote to flick pebbles across a virtual pond, which is as thrilling as it sounds. In Meerkat Madness players place arrows on a grid, pointing meerkats carrying apples in the direction of their own goals. The main problem with this game is it will inspire someone in your party to keep saying "Simples!" in an hilarious Eastern European accent, and you will be forced to kick them out of your house. In summary, then, the party games are ugly and terrible, with the possible exception of Jam Ball, which is ugly and playable. Assuming it doesn't crash.

So don't buy Jambo! Safari for the multiplayer experience. And don't buy it if you're expecting a carbon copy of the arcade game or something that's just as challenging and addictive. The Arcade mode is fun enough, but you'll need to have been seriously into the original to make it worth £34.99. Even though that's probably half what you'd pump into the arcade machine on an average day.

The thing is, drumbeater, Jambo! Safari Wii hasn't been designed for the likes of you and I. It has two difficulty levels - "Easy - Age 3 to 9" and "Hard - Age 10+". There is no level titled, "Properly hard like the arcade game - Age old enough to remember when pesto was exotic." And viewed as what it's meant to be - a game for kids - Jambo! Safari isn't too bad. It's simple to understand and there's plenty of stuff to do. You get to drive a big car and throw ropes about and pat lions. There are no guns or scary bits. You might even learn something, although nothing you learn will be very interesting.

So let's leave Jambo! Safari to the kids and resign ourselves to the fact that gaming has changed. SEGA is more interested in selling a kid-friendly game to thousands of parents than selling a trip back in time to you, me, the 18 other people who signed my petition and no one else. Can you blame them?

As you would say, drumbeater: yes. You and I didn't throw endless 50 pence pieces (or "quarters" in your case) into the Jambo! Safari machine because we wanted to learn about the difference between the Side Striped Jackal and the Black Backed Jackal. In fact we could have probably worked that out ourselves. Why does it have to be all about animal welfare now? Why is it perfectly acceptable for games to let you shoot drug dealers in the eyes or blow up innocent civilians in airports, but not throw a giant cage over an angry rhino? Why, SEGA, why?