Tom & Jerry: War of the Whiskers

Tom & Jerry: War of the Whiskers is a fighting video game developed by VIS Entertainment, published by NewKidCo in North America, Ubisoft in Europe, Success in Japan and distributed by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox in 2002 to 2004. It is the sequel to Tom and Jerry in Fists of Furry. While the PlayStation 2 version saw releases in all major regions, the GameCube and Xbox versions were only exclusive to North America.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Wonderful graphics for 2002 to 2004 standards. It looks like you would travel back in time to fit the Nintendo 64 or the PlayStation standards for a Xbox, GameCube and PS2 game.
 * 2) Awesome soundtrack, which sounds like finding something to buy in a shop in real life, or walk in the park. The theme also fits the Tom and Jerry theme perfectly.
 * 3) Every time you or your opponent gets hit, the character's icon who got hit will be changed to a damaged face, which fits perfectly for a fighting game.
 * 4) There's a thing called "Berserk", which makes your character/opponent angry, and you or your opponent will be immune and will deal more damage for a few seconds. This happens if you will hit your opponent or taunt several times.
 * 5) The GameCube version contains costumes, which makes the character have clothes on them, like the pirate costume. Each character can have a different costume.
 * 6) The characters' victory and lose posses can be fun to watch. The lose posses is one of the features for the game, since it wasn't featured in Fists of Furry.
 * 7) Unlike the previous game, there's now an announcer, which makes the game feel like a real fighting game (which contains an announcer).
 * 8) Like Fists of Furry, losing a fight 2 times can make you continue playing, meaning it can take longer to get a Game Over, if you don't want to lose the game quickly.
 * 9) The controls are incredibly simple to work, which can make the game look like other fighting games, like Street Fighter II.
 * 10) Not only does it have fan-favorite characters, but it also has obscure characters such as Robo-Cat, Monster Jerry, Eagle, and Lion.
 * 11) The Japanese cover (only of the PS2 version) contains Tom making a hilarious face, which would make you wanna laugh if you have a high chance of laughing.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) As mentioned above, the Xbox and GameCube ports were only released in North America, meaning Europeans and Japanese people were only able to get the PS2 version. This can be disappointing for Xbox and GameCube fans, but thankfully, you can play those ports on emulator if you live in Europe or Japan.
 * 2) The characters from Fists of Furry's normal icons are ripped straight from Fists of Furry, which can be lazy.
 * 3) The GameCube port is the only version of the game where you can play in the 4 player mode, unlike the Xbox and PS2 versions. This is because the GameCube has 4 control inputs, unlike the Xbox and PS2. Not to mention, it is the only version to have the tournament mode.
 * 4) It has only 12 characters available to play, some of them are a copy of other characters.
 * 5) There is no training mode which it's a basic mode on a fighting game, because of this it can be complicated to learn how the gameplay works.
 * 6) It is possible to cheese the AI with only using the bodyslam even on the hardest difficulty level.
 * 7) While the two bosses are somewhat cheap, they can be easily defeated with the bodyslam just like the any other opponent you face.

Reception
Tom & Jerry: War of the Whiskers received mixed reviews from critics, and positive reviews from players. On Metacritic, the PS2 version has a 63/100 rating from critics based on 4 critic reviews, while the Xbox version has 9/10 rating, 7.6/10 rating for the PS2 version, and possibly by accident, 4.2/10 rating for the GameCube version from users.

Videos
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Trivia

 * This is the only game published by NewKidCo, as well as the first Tom and Jerry game to get the T rating from ESRB.
 * In fact, it was even impossible for the game to get the E10+ rating, because the E10+ rating was introduced in 2005, and this is a game from 2002 to 2004.