You can ask almost anybody and they'll have a preference. They're either a dog person, or a cat person. And they don't even have to have any pets to make that judgement - their best friend might have a dog they adore, which makes them a dog person, or they might have a nice cat that lives on their street that they often lure into their home with mini cheddars, which makes them a cat person. Hell, they might even have a vendetta against either dogs or cats, especially if that particular animal soiled their land while walking past. Me? Well, I'm a dog person. We had a very lovely looking cat a couple of years ago, before I got my dog, and Scampi played us like a very clever busty blonde would string along unwitting men. He came to us for all three meals, but he'd also go elsewhere; he was playing us, using our home for food, and others for more food. It wasn't until we moved house that he showed his true colours and ran away - probably back to our old home, where he probably found a couple more new suckers, er, I mean owners!

Not all cats are bad though. Some are sarcastic, and ginger. Garfield is his name, and living the life of luxury is normally his game - in Garfield 2 (better known as Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties) you assume the role of Garfield and friends in a platforming adventure that, Game Factory insists, appeals to all ages. It's a good thing I have my very own test tribe of varied ages at my disposal then, isn't it? But before putting my sisters to good use, allow me to break down the principles of this fairly basic game.

You can play as three characters, the main one being Garfield, but you can also take control of a little mouse, and a goose as well. Garfield and friends have various missions to complete on each level; one goal might be dancing to music, which I feel isn't the strongest mini-game on offer, as the dancing really doesn't fit in time to the music, causing complications with people who are even slightly familiar with the whole dancing with a pad genre. Other distractions include navigating levels, platforming and jumping around, and killing giant rats with Garfield's spin or dive attack. In addition to those two moves that are rather self explanatory, Garfield can also double jump or check his mission status during gameplay.

I'd normally consider a game like this to be quite stale. I mean, jumping around, finding the odd object and talking to other animals around the garden isn't normally my idea of fun. But luckily, the levels change before you get bored of them. There are a handful of missions for each area, before another area is unlocked for you to explore and complete. This is a good thing, and I suppose the developer could have easily jammed in another handful of missions into the same areas, but with each level offering something nice to look at (like the gothic castles or the cheerful gardens with giant hedges that create a maze for our feline hero), you have to appreciate the fact that before the environment become tedious, the level is changed, and there are new things to take in. Of course, the dancing missions stay put, and appear throughout the game, leaving a bitter taste in my fur, but missions that have you looking for things will always offer something new, so long as the environment changes.

My tribe of sisters had mixed things to say about Garfield 2. My seven-year-old sister enjoyed walking and jumping about, but didn't really like navigating nasty jumps or looking for hidden items - I guess the game isn't just as user friendly as Game Factory would like it to be. My oldest tester of fourteen is far too grown up the associate herself with the likes of Garfield, but my ten-year-old sister absolutely adored this game. She loved the visuals - even though they aren't anything spectacular, they do have a distinct Garfield flavour about them, and she loved running around saving people too. I'd say this game is probably aimed at that nine to twelve age group, but maybe older Garfield fanatics will find something here that they'll like.

However, to a Garfield fanatic's dismay, I don't think that the voice of Bill Murray has been lent to the game. Maybe sound clips are taken from the film, but some of the voice acting sounds far too fast, or slow, or distorted to be from the film. Other animals that talk seem to have no emotion; their voices sound flat and you can almost guarantee that the dialogue written on screen, punctuated with commas and periods, doesn't quite match up with the voiceovers that seem to read everything without ever stopping for a breath. Garfield sounds the best, but I can't help feeling that some Bill Murray sound-alike was behind the voice of Garfield, not Bill Murray himself. As mentioned earlier, while the graphics aren't so mind blowing, they're functional and do the job well. Some environments and characters look great, some not so great, Garfield looks nice for example, whereas his little dog friend looks more like a pig - and the pig, well, he looks like a squirrel! Don't even get me started on the squirrel, but trust me when I say that the kids won't complain when they're jumping around a fully functional 3D environment.

Garfield 2 isn't nearly as flea bitten as its DS counterpart, but there are a few things that stand in its way of being a universally friendly platforming stunner. What we have here is a game for the cat person. If you adore Garfield, or you're not too young or too old to enjoy jumping around and spinning into giant rats, then you'll find everything you need in this title. For the price you can pick this title up at nowadays, I'd definitely say that it's worth a look if you fit through the cat-flap-criteria that I have described!

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).