Customer Reviews

Pajama Sam: Life Is Rough When You Lose Your Stuff

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Well, being a person who started my son out on pajama sam on the pc when he was 3 years old, i must say this was a perfect progression in the series. After the first few games, the concept was getting rather stale. It was time for some tweaks. Basically, they have given Pajama Sam a slightly older voice, i actually think it is the same voive actor with a few extra years tucked under his belt since the first Pajama Sam game. Either that, or this is a very reasonable impersonation. They've also given Sam a much messier room (realistic,huh?). And a much larger collection of odds-and-ends items to gather than in previous games. That aside, the issues that people have with the scene transistions...well, i somewhat agree. They can be annoying. The out-of-sync vocals at the start of the game, that should've been fixed. But, with minor glitches aside, get to the gameplay. Atari has added some musical interludes that date back to the 'Schoolhouse Rock' era. Very hummable and fun to listen to. The game itself is also a progression slightly in age. It feels like each pajama sam gets a little tougher as they progress. Maybe they are trying to follow the age of the players? The graphics are nice and very colorful. Plenty of puzzles to keep busy with. Some slightly more difficult than my 5 year old can decipher, but i enjoy helping him. Yes, Atari should have polished this a little more. But, in this rabid industry where half-baked game get released when they're only 60% done, i have to say Atari got to about the 94% mark. But, they didn't forget to make it fun. My son and i both enjoyed this game very much.

Pajama Sam is back! I bought this after reading most of the reviews below. I have to say is that they are mostly all true. Technically this game is in beta but the game play is still good if you can close your eyes to the technical snafus. The voice sync is awful, the game runs slowly (this is inexcusable with at animated cartoon type game) and it takes a minimum of 160MB on the hard drive. If Humongous could make their early DOS games run well why can't Atari do the same with game on toady's faster computers? Sounds like they wanted to get this thing out for the Christmas season. The voice does sound different. Weather it's the same kid but older or a different kid is difficult to tell but they game does lose something because of it.

On the plus side the game is still fun to play. Pajama Sam is still the cleaver, mischievous kid as he's always been. Although I wish Atari didn't have a hand in this (their quality standards seem to be a lot lower that Humongous' standards) I'm glad we have another Pajama Sam game. Hopefully a patch will be issued for this game and that will bring this game back up to Humongous' standards for the technical issues.

Like one other review of this game, I must say I am disappointed. I bought this game for my 6 year old nephew to play when he visited. He was so excited when we loaded it onto the computer. He was excited when the screen came on. Then he started playing the game. There were constant interruptions in gameplay no smoothness of movement between scenes as we have come to expect from the other Pajama Sam games. We adjusted the computer running speed to see if that would help, it did a little bit. However, when he completed it the first time, he decided to try it again. The only change in location of anything was the jar for the fireflies and the trading cards within the scene. No other changes were apparent. He gave up after two times and has not touched the game since. After purchasing this game, my nephew says that he "likes the first ones better". We will be sticking with the first three games, thank you very much. Very disappointed in the game.

My little boy just loves Pajama Sam. In fact he's been dying for a new one to come out. When we saw that Atari released a new Pajama Sam game we raced down to pick up a copy. He has enjoyed it ever since. He really enjoyed the musical the most.

As a parent, I'm very critical about what my children view and play with. This game offers not only hours of entertainment but also simulates my child to think in many different ways such as when Pajama Sam needs to light up a cave and doesn't have a flashlight and must find an alternative solution. The game makers handle this situation with a jar of fire flies. Very creative! Pajama Sam ranks up there high on my list. I will recommend the game to my friends and others. We look forward to the next Pajama Sam game.

I'm disappointed with this fourth Pajama Sam. My six year old son and I loved the first three titles of Pajama Sam. So when he wanted the "It's Rough When You Lose Your Stuff" one, I said, "sure". There were no arguements from me, the previously satisfied customer.

He wanted me to hurry up with my shopping, so he could get home and start playing the CD. I helped him install the game, and we sat back to enjoy our favorite animated character.

The first thing I noticed was that Sam's voice sounded different. Also, his mouth did not match with the dialogue. It looked like a Japanese karate movie that had been redubbed with English words. How could the producers have missed that?

Secondly, the ESC keep did not work to help you zoom through the scenes on your way around the map to find the missing objects. (It does on the first three versions. Call me spoiled? But why do away with a great feature? Sam does a lot of running around). So, we waited as he walked from this path to that path...waited...waited and waited....

Thirdly, the game lags! I thought my new computer (purchased this year, mind you) was messing up. How could it lag? This is not a multiplayer game on the internet for crying out loud. It's as if the professional people turned this product over for elementary school children to produce. It's that far down quality wise from the first three.

I'm disappointed and disgusted. I wish I had read the earlier Amazon reviews, but I TRUSTED the quality of Humongous Entertainment and didn't dream of reading the feedback. I learned my lesson. No more buying of any software without listening to those who've already been suckered or thrilled.

Listen--if you want to buy quality fun games for your kids, go with Pajama Sam 1-3. Leave number 4 in the store. Believe me, it's Rough When You Lose Your Money.

Thanks.

PS. I did like one thing, the sock song. That's it...:(

I waited a long time for whatever company now makes this line of software to continue where the other left off, but I was really disappointed with the product. It does not change every time it's played, unlike the first three, but it claims to on the box. The biggest problem with this game is that it's somehow been programmed in a different manner than the others. You have to install the game, which takes a long time, and it takes up a lot of hard drive space.(550 MB) In the earlier games, you just put the CD in and played it. At first I thought this was because it was updated, which often slows down previously simple games, but the animation looked slightly worse, at least to me. I liked the old style, no matter how modern this one is. And the complication of this game only got worse as I played it - the transitions from one area to another take about five seconds, even on fast computers, and you can't skip through them easily as with other PJSam games. The plot and gameplay are okay, and the dialog is kind of humorous in some parts, but it's really distracting to see the mouths move so off the audio track, which was not a problem before this game got all fancy. The puzzles are in some places strange and, I thought, harder to figure out than before, and it's annoying to go back and forth now that it takes several minutes of frozen images to do so. There's no help file to give you hints, either. The side game was to collect the trading cards lying around, but the music changes every time you pick one up, so you never really hear an entire song if you collect them. And if you get to the end of the game and have one or two missing, it's nowhere near worth it to go back and get the few missing with all the time it takes. I miss Pamela Segall (Sam's old voice, known for playing Spinelli in Recess) and Carrot was only in a cameo on a poster, breaking the tradition of having him in each game. The now abandoned spacebar feature was nice, too, because you could pause at anytime and quit quickly, which I almost wanted to do after sitting there and not accomplishing much for how long it took. I really liked Pajama Sam before this (I run groups.msn.com/theunofficialpajamasamfanpage) but I hope that they go back to the old way of making these, whatever it was, though it isn't at all likely. I would recommend the first games much more.

I loved the other Pajama Sam games, so when I purchased this one, I was disappointed.
There is only ONE path. The storyline doesn't involve Sam learning anything like the previous games.
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
It seems that, after successfully expanding the Backyard Sports line, they decided to take a chance with the Junior Adventures. The thing is, so many original people from Humongous left by the time the company was sold to Atari, that they had no guidance whatsoever, except for a few copies of the other Pajama Sams. Being 'busy executives', however, they had NO time to thoroughly play through the game, and immediately assumed it had only one path.
The result was a game that is COMPLETELY devoid of all the charm of the other Junior Adventures. The graphics were good, but the one path and other things put me off. However, I must commend them for at least attempting to mimic the greatness of Humongous Entertainment.

Nice try, Atari. Better stick to the Backyard Sports from now on.

I ordered this for my five year old against the advice of other reviewers. We have all of the other Fredddi Fish, Pajama Sam, Putt Putt and Spy Fox games and my son loves them all. I felt that I should keep his collection up to date, so ordered the new PJ Sam. It's awful. Sam's mouth doesn't match the words, it takes far to long to get from location to location, and it took forever to load into the computer! My nephew, who is eight, attempted to play this with my son because he loves to play my son's games. Both got tired of it very quickly. Instead, we all played a game I had found in a store for $4.00 (Hokus Pokus Pink - a Pink Panther game) It was similar to the Humongous games and a lot of fun. I hope Atari makes some improvements and continues producing these games the way they were made before.

I had hours of Fun with this game. My Son and I have always been Humongous fans of Pajama Sam.The story Lines and Characters have always been seccond to none, and this game is no different. My son and I love the sponge he is incredibly Funny. My son makes the cutest chompy noises while he eats the mold to help Pajama Sam on his exciting adventure. We have played it several times and unlike some of the other reviews I have seen on this site we have never had a moment where we wern't spellbound and thrilled by all of the wildly funny situations that Sam gets himself in to. While the loading times aren't as good as some of the previous games it is still 500 times better than anything else out there for my son age group. Its good to see in a world with so many violent games that there is one campany that still makes games that are entertaining. I can only hope that this company keeps making Pajama Sam for years to come...

My 5 year-old son absolutely loves the Pajama Sam series of games by "Humongous Entertainment." He received this most recent (and much more expensive) Pajama Sam-- "Life is Rough" for Christmas. It is extremely poorly made compared to the previous versions of PJ Sam. This is also the first Pajama Sam I have seen made by Atari. The screens do not move smoothly, Pajama Sam's voice is not in synch with the movements on the screen, and the general flow of the game is cheaply done. The makers of the first few Pajama Sams did some wonderful work- smooth scenes, cute characters etc..., and it is very clear that this latest version by Atari was made in a rush and the final product is clearly lacking as a result. If you are considering buying a great kid's computer program, skip this one... Try the "Pajama Sam 2: Thunder and Lightening Aren't So Frightening" or find the Pajama Sam that came free in kid's snack pack boxes about six months ago.