Gift

Gift is a platformer game released in 2000 on the PC and Game Boy Color made by Eko System. It was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2001. It is also a parody of various popular games and movies. Eurogamer rated this a 7 out of 10.

Plot
A video game in testing has made all the heroes of them weary as they have all been assigned to rescue princess Lolita Globo. However, Gift, a funny looking red creature has volunteered to help rescue Lolita with his magic staff and to fight off the shadow of the black deep dark night.

Why It's A Special Gift

 * 1) It does a good job at parodying well-known games and movies.
 * 2) * Tipanic is a parody of Titanic.
 * 3) * Star Stress is a parody of Star Wars.
 * 4) Gift is a likeable character.
 * 5) The platforms are very well-designed and can be good for solving puzzles you can get in while playing.
 * 6) The cutscenes are very hilarious and tell the story quite well.
 * 7) Nicely designed sprites for the Game Boy version and nicely designed 3D models for the PC and PS2 versions.
 * 8) The gameplay is very enjoyable as not only can you run and jump, but you can also swim, fly, climb and take big leaps.
 * 9) * You can also use your staff to bring light in dark places.
 * 10) *There's a unique shadow shooting mechanic & shadow creatures that are weak to darkness.
 * 11) You can switch from a third person perspective to first person view when using various weapons.
 * 12) The soundtrack is very good to listen to, especially the catchy music that plays at the start of the game.
 * 13) The PC version has a very good frame rate which still holds up today.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The cutscenes can look quite cheesy in modern gaming. The PC versions cutscenes run at a lower frame rate then on PS2.
 * 2) Gift can look a bit ugly in appearance to some people. Especially when he has no teeth.
 * 3) The graphics are not the best by PS2 standards, It looks more like a game released for the N64 because of the low poly models & weak animations.
 * 4) The boxart looks awful and is nightmare fuel-ish.
 * 5) The game is only released in PAL regions which could be why it's so obscure.
 * 6) Some moments where Gift does random gags during certain points in the game which are not that funny & appear like filler.
 * 7) When playing the PS2 version on PCSX2, (as of April 2022) the in-game audio is kinda broken & some sound effects are missing.
 * 8) The Lock-on camera controls are more sensitive on higher frame rates.

Trivia

 * The game takes elements from other franchises such as Rayman, Tomb Raider, Star Wars, Quake and The Matrix.
 * There was also a TV show based on the game that aired on France 2 in 2005.
 * It's been said that this is one of the first video games to parody other video games.
 * This game was released only in Europe and Australia.
 * The FMVs are different between the 2 systems. For example, The PC's cutscenes run at a lower frame rate then the PS2's cutscenes & in the intro, when the Skeleton gets hit by the door, his bones fall 1 by 1 on PS2 but he simply faints on PC.
 * Tennings played this on one of his Twitch streams & didn't really like the game as he compared the character to Bubsy, found the theme song annoying & found the gameplay frustrating. Video.
 * When playing this on a modern PC, use DgVoodoo 2 to run the game on higher resolutions & look much smoother overall. Don't forget to run DgVoodooCPL.exe as an admin or else the settings won't apply. Also set gift.exe & detect.exe to Windows 98/ME Compatibility mode to avoid speed issues.