But, the rest of the game is just great fun, rearing your Porcupain (most of the names are daft but fun concatenations) or any of the other 123 Invizimals from a pup to a fully armoured beast via combat and choosing which skills to upgrade (life, stamina, stamina recovery speed, attack or armour) is a bright and jolly challenge. Creatures range from the just slightly odd to the spectacular, and there is a sense of achievement when the evolve to a higher level. TIP - Visit the game website (http://www.invizimals.com) and play a quick online game to get a free unlock code for a bonus powerful Invizimal.
Once you've built up your stable of creatures, you can then head online and trade with or battle against real competitors online. This is a game where lag doesn't really matter as its paced slowly enough not to wreck the combat and the microphone can be used to chat to your opponent. As Invizimals has only just been released things were a bit slow online, but it seems popular in Italy and Spain (home of developers Novarama) and we played a few matches to the odd refrain of "Ciao" and "Ola."
The single player story sees Keni jet-setting around the globe pursued by mysterious villains and the rest of the cast help jolly things along. You'll be pleased to hear you can skip the rather long cut scenes. If a younger player needs a time out they can visit the Catalogue. From here you can see the library of Invizimals and view collected creatures in augmented mode, play with them by tickling a creature under the chin, make them cross by prodding them. It would be even better if you could feed them virtual snacks, or flick a ball for them to play with, but hopefully that'll be in a future version.
The technology behind the game is inspired, if not yet perfect, animals can suddenly vanish, flip over or scale madly. The game-play is definitely aimed at the younger end of the market, but if you have children, watching them experience these little critters popping out of their furniture is a great sight and there's nothing to stop teens or adults enjoying the fun either.