The Collection Chamber: DISNEY'S PIGLET'S BIG GAME

Little Piglet... Big Dreams!

It's Piglet's big chance to be a hero! Pooh and his friends need Piglet's help to chase away the Heffalumps and Woozles. If Piglet overcomes his fears, he will prove that a hero is not measured by his size, but his heart!
Help Piglet save his friends!
Collect as many cookies as you can!
Explore seven exciting worlds!
Play as Pooh and Tigger too!!

~ from the back of the box

The survival horror is one of my favourite gaming genres, and frequent readers know I'm a bit of a Disney-phile. Complete opposite vibes, but I love them just the same. Surely the two coming together won't ever be on the cards, but in case you've not been around the retro-gaming internet of late, it's something that has happened before. And with their kiddiest of kid-friendly IPs not less. Released on home consoles in 2003, Piglet's Big Game has now being seeing a reappraisal as Winnie the Pooh meets Silent Hill. Surprisingly, it's actually quite accurate.

I've touched upon a Piglet's Big Game on this site before. The PC version, which is a completely different beast, is a mildly pleasant pre-school point-and-click adventure that has the Disney edutainment charm. It's console iteration - which graced both the PlayStation 2 as well as the GameCube which is what I've played here - has you control the porcine plushie as he travels through the dreams of his friends so they can have a good night's sleep.

The menus are in-engine levels where you have to move piglet over the relevant option (left).
Enter a stage by spying on your friends through the telescope at the top of the hill (right).

But these aren't exactly dreams, but nightmares. Pooh may be dreaming about a land of sweet treats, but he's got himself stuck in a puddle of honey and all the while imposing heffalumps and woozles patrol the surroundings. Owl's family portraits have gone missing, but Piglet has to solve some spooky puzzles in a creepy castle in order to find them. Eeyore dreams in black and white and to find colour we have to navigate through a museum of terrifying situations. Every the joyously happy Tigger dreams of a freaky carnival that's taken his stripes. Granted, there's nothing here that can frighten little ones, but the weird juxtaposition is very unsettling for grown ups. It's like you've stumbled across that sweary episode of Rainbow on YouTube that was never meant to see the light of day, or finding out that the funny clown at your birthday party was, in fact, John Wayne Gacy.

So, it's rather scary for a kids game, but it's not like that's all it has going for it. It's actually quite a polished action-adventure with some neat gameplay touches. Let's start with combat. In a very Disney move, there really isn't any. Instead, you have to initiate a scare-off by pressing "A" in the direction of the evil soft toy. White dots will then reach out towards it before smoothly transitioning into the battle screen. You have to scare the other guy before he reaches you by performing a series of button combinations. How long you have to do this relies on how may white dots you managed to get between the two of you. The number of button presses relate to a particular funny face you've learned, but whichever one crops up is somewhat random. I think it may also relate to the type of enemy and the distance between you, but I have no confirmation so it's jus a guess. It may take several face pulls to scare an enemy, but if he's getting dangerously close you can run away by tapping "A" again.

Looks like we're about to fight a woozle, though we'll have to do in on a short 3-dot road (left).
Tap the buttons in order to fight off a heffalump with some scary faces (right).

There are some inventive enemies that you can come across that will play on this formula. The basic heffalump is your standard lumbering enemy, but when dressed as a bee he's a little faster and a little stronger but will be pushed back when given a scare. Woozles are generally faster, but if dressed in a cloak he can hide himself from your hideous faces. Or, later ones can hide button prompts or spin the screen upside down to disorientate you. You can even learn new faces by spending cookies at a traveling puppet show where your doppelganger will demonstrate it to you. It's a simple attack system that could've easily become tedious were it not for these shifting variations, but it's not like you'll be hounded by many of them anyway. I would've liked it to have been expanded upon where you can tactically choose your face before hand, or stare off multiple bad guys at once but in its current form it has more than enough depth for the target audience.

If you let one of them reach you, Piglet will become scared. This will change how he walks sometimes refusing to move for short periods or at others running maniacally with his hands in the air. It makes walking around rather tedious, so it's best to find a birthday balloon to rebuild your confidence. When you do Christopher Robin pops up to give you some inspiring words which I think is thematically ingenious. It both fits the game and the property perfectly, even if the jump scares might not.

Outside of combat, much of the game is about puzzle solving. Piglet has three slots with which to carry items, each associated with a different button. He can tap that button to get a narration about it, which also provides heavy hints about how to use it, but if he does the same within a sparkly circle, he may get to use it. Those circles identify environmental elements that can be interacted with, and pressing "A" will play out a context sensitive outcome such as pick up, pull or talk. If you press an item button with the right circle - for example, a key when at a locked door - Piglet will use that item with whatever's within in. Again, it's a simplified puzzle mechanic, but it works very well for the game at hand.

Christopher Robin giving Piglet a pep talk to calm his fears (left).
Purchasing a new 'Brave Face' from a carnival puppet show booth (right).

Press "A" outside of a circle, and Piglet will kick. This is not an attack, but a means to syphon cookies from the environment. Some objects like rocks, boxes or tables will spew out exactly 5 cookies when hit. The fifth one collected will have a higher musical tone than the others signifying that you have all of them from that hiding space. Collect all from a room, and your treated with a brief and jolly jingle which might be just what you need after seeing that headless statue surrounded by donkey-fied famous paintings that's supposed to be Eeyore's ancestors.

By far the scariest element of the game is its exceptional music and sound design. Piglet's softly squelching footprints will echo in castle halls while the honk of a heffalump just out of view sill send shivers down your spine. The music eeks into the same uncanny territory that wouldn't be out of place in a Silent Hill game. In fact, Akira Yamaoka actually sampled some of this game's music for the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack. It's scary how much it fits.

While Piglet's Big Game is definitely a kids game - it's short and easy with simplified mechanics - it's very much one that everyone can enjoy. There's enough depth and complexity to keep players of all ages invested, though a love of the property might be required for the more cynical among you. I'm actually surprised how much of a genuine, bona fide survival horror this game actually is. I'd even go so far and say it's a little scarier than Luigi's Mansion, that other famous horror kids game. Not something you'd expect from Pooh-bear, but something I didn't know I wanted - nay, needed. One of Disney's most inventive movie tie-ins.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses Dolphin to emulate the Nintendo GameCube. X-input and select other controllers supported. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 1.31 Gb. Install Size: 1.48 Gb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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