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Genre: Adventure/RPG

Format: DVD

Developer: THQ

Mac Publisher: Aspyr Media

Minimum System Requirements: Mac OS X v10.3.9, 800MHz G4, 256MB RAM, 1.0GB free disk space, ATI Radeon 8500 or NVidia GeForce2 MX, DVD drive

Review Computer: 1.8GHz G5 iMac 17", Mac OS X v10.3.9, 512MB RAM, Nvidia GeForce FX 5200

Network Feature: No

Price: $29.99

ESRB Rating: E (comic mischief)

Availability: Now

Official Website: www.spongebobmoviegame.com

SpongeBob SquarePants challenges the common notion that a character needs to be intelligent or always kind to draw our sympathies. His moronic good nature is infectiously funny, and a small empire has been built detailing his life and times in Bikini Bottom. Fans of SpongeBob are legion and can be fanatical, and they will probably want to purchase SpongeBob SquarePants the Movie (the game) to add to their extensive SpongeBob collections, stuffed inside the plush Patrick backpack next to the SpongeBob boxers. Fans of hypercard-style choose-your-own-adventure games will want to look elsewhere to spend their entertainment dollars.

Roughly following the outline of the SpongeBob movie, SpongeBob Squarepants the Movie (the game) starts out with SpongeBob preparing to accept a promotion to manage the new Krusty Krab restaurant, Krusty Krab 2, located conveniently next door to the original restaurant. Of course, or perhaps I should say, for no apparent reason, SpongeBob must first manage to steal some toothpaste from his neighbor, Squidward. From there follows a basically linear, essentially sequential series of events that unfortunately seldom require much effort beyond making sure that you've visited the four or five locations available in each "chapter" and picked up all the available items. On occasion, you must use items in tandem with other items in your possession and in the environment. This creates some moderate challenges. The pointlessness of it at first is very SpongeBob-esque. It has always been, more or less, a show about racing snails or trading ice cubes for remote controls...wait, that's the game. Having to steal your toothpaste is funny, sort of. And the game is funny like this for much of the time, especially as the laugh-out-loud lines from the movie are incorporated into the game's interactions. But too much of it becomes hard to endure, and even the funny lines lose their humor as you hear too many in one sitting.

But none of what is funny about it comes from the gameplay. SpongeBob SquarePants The Movie (the game) is just another vehicle for SpongeBob’s bizarre wit. If you're a SpongeBob fan looking for another way to get your SpongeBob hit, ignore my game rating and buy this now. It's entertaining and humorous in small amounts, and that earns it two stars.