You know how it goes with movie tie-in games. You’re standing there in the video store – or in this case, digging through a box at a garage sale last month – and you spot one of these licensed deals. Your brain immediately goes “nah, probably garbage” because, let’s be honest, most of them are. But then you remember that one time, maybe two if you’re lucky, when a movie game actually surprised you. For me, that was Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue on the N64, and finding my old copy again made me realize just how much this game got right when it had every excuse to get everything wrong.
I picked this up originally in 1999, right after the movie came out. I was twenty-two, working my first real job out of college, and still buying Nintendo 64 games because… well, because the system was still getting good stuff and I wasn’t ready to admit I was getting too old for platformers. The movie was fantastic – Pixar was hitting their stride, the animation was incredible, and the story had that perfect blend of kid-friendly adventure and adult humor that made their films special. When I saw the game sitting there at Electronics Boutique for thirty-five bucks, I figured why not. Worst case scenario, I’d be out the cost of a nice dinner.
Movie games in 1999 were usually disasters. You’d get these rushed, half-baked attempts to cash in on whatever Disney or Warner Bros. was pushing that month. Remember The Lost World: Jurassic Park games? Or any of the countless terrible platformers based on animated movies? Most of them felt like they were developed in about six weeks by people who’d maybe seen a trailer but definitely hadn’t watched the actual film. But Toy Story 2 was different from the moment you booted it up.
Traveller’s Tales developed this one, back when they were still making original games instead of just LEGO everything. These guys understood what made a good 3D platformer work. They’d done Crash Bandicoot games, they knew how to make characters move and feel right in three-dimensional space. More importantly, they seemed to actually care about the source material instead of treating it like an obligation.
The first thing that grabbed me was how Buzz controlled. This wasn’t just Mario with a different skin – his moveset made sense for the character. You could glide with his retractable wings, which felt amazing when you nailed a long jump between platforms. His laser targeting system worked like it should, locking onto enemies with that satisfying beep from the movies. The spin attack with his karate chop action – yeah, it sounds ridiculous when you describe it, but it felt natural when you were playing. The N64 controller, which could be awkward for some games, seemed perfectly designed for Buzz’s abilities.
And the levels. Man, the level design was actually good. You’re running around Andy’s house, Al’s Toy Barn, the airport – all locations from the movie but expanded in ways that made sense for a video game. They weren’t just recreating scenes; they were building on the world Pixar had created. Al’s Toy Barn in particular was this massive playground of aisles and displays, with Pizza Planet tokens hidden in clever spots that rewarded exploration without feeling like busy work.
I spent hours in that game just wandering around, collecting everything. The tokens weren’t randomly scattered like in so many collect-a-thon platformers. They were placed deliberately – behind that stack of toy boxes you had to climb, on that high shelf you could only reach with a perfect wing-glide, tucked away in corners that made you feel clever for finding them. Some required genuine platforming skill to reach, others rewarded you for paying attention to the environment. It struck this perfect balance between accessible and challenging.
The boss fights were legitimately good too. The Zurg battle at the end wasn’t just “jump on the bad guy three times and win.” It had multiple phases, required you to use different abilities, felt like an actual climactic showdown instead of an afterthought. When you finally defeated him, it felt earned. Not bad for a kids’ movie game.
What really impressed me, both then and now when I fired it up again last weekend, was how well it captured the spirit of the movie without just copy-pasting scenes. Sure, you’re following the basic plot – Buzz gets taken, you have to rescue him – but there’s enough original content to make it feel like its own adventure. New areas that weren’t in the film, new challenges that wouldn’t have worked in a ninety-minute movie. It felt like bonus Toy Story content, not just an interactive retelling.
The graphics held up better than I expected too. This was 1999 N64, so we’re not talking about photorealism here, but Buzz looked like Buzz. The animations were smooth, the environments were colorful and detailed within the system’s limitations, and everything had that Pixar-esque attention to character that made the movies special. Even the compressed voice samples – Tim Allen doing his Buzz Lightyear thing through the N64’s limited audio capabilities – managed to convey the character’s personality.
My kids tried it out when I had it running on the basement CRT last Sunday. They’re used to their modern games with perfect graphics and surround sound, but they got into it pretty quickly. My daughter, who’s fifteen and usually considers anything older than five years to be ancient history, actually spent a good hour working through the toy store levels. “It’s kind of fun,” she admitted, which is basically a glowing endorsement from a teenager about a twenty-four-year-old video game.
The difficulty curve was spot-on too. Easy enough that actual kids could play it – this was rated E for Everyone, after all – but with enough challenge to keep adults engaged. Some of those later platforming sequences required real timing and spatial awareness. The airport levels in particular had this frantic energy that felt genuinely exciting. You’re racing through conveyor belts and luggage carousels, using all of Buzz’s abilities to navigate increasingly complex environments. It felt like being in an action movie, not just playing a kids’ game.
Is it perfect? Nah, of course not. The camera can be wonky in tight spaces – classic N64 problem that every 3D game on the system struggled with. There’s occasional slowdown when too much is happening on screen, though nothing game-breaking. The save system is old-school too; you can’t just save anywhere, you have to reach specific checkpoints. But these are minor complaints about what’s essentially a really solid family-friendly platformer.
Playing it again made me nostalgic not just for the game, but for an era when movie tie-ins occasionally tried to be good. When developers saw a license as an opportunity to expand a fictional world instead of just slapping familiar characters onto generic gameplay. When someone at the publisher actually cared enough to give the development team time and resources to make something decent.
These days, most movie games are mobile cash grabs or quick console ports designed to hit store shelves the same week as the film. Back in ’99, you could still find tie-in games that were genuinely worth playing on their own merits. Toy Story 2 on N64 was one of the good ones, a reminder that licensed games don’t have to suck if someone actually gives a damn.
To infinity and beyond, right? Sometimes the cheesy taglines actually mean something.
Samuel’s been gaming since the Atari 2600 and still thinks 16-bit was the golden age. Between accounting gigs and parenting teens, he keeps the CRTs humming in his Minneapolis basement, writing about cartridge quirks, console wars, and why pixel art never stopped being beautiful.
0 Comments