The Lion King 1½ (video game)

Disney's The Lion King 1½ (known as Disney's The Lion King outside North America) is an action platformer video game based on the film of the same name, the third film in The Lion King franchise. It was developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Disney Interactive, whilst THQ distributed the game in Europe. The game was released worldwide for Game Boy Advance on October 7, 2003.

Gameplay
The game puts the players in the role of Timon and Pumbaa in a quest to find Hakuna Matata. It features three modes of game play which are solo, cooperative and team mode. Solo mode lets the player play as either Timon or Pumbaa in a platforming gameplay completing levels. In cooperative mode, players alternate between both characters to solve puzzles and complete tasks. In team players use both the characters with Timon riding Pumbaa in chase sequences where they have to make sure he does not hit any obstacle. After each of the chapters are completed, players are awarded with special puzzle pieces. Upon collecting all of the puzzle pieces, an image of Hakuna Matata is displayed and five additional bonus levels are unlocked as well as video clips from the film. Collecting all bugs in a level unlocks time-limited bonus levels.

Release
Screenshots of the game was released showing that it had a gameplay similar to that of the video game Lost Vikings. The game was released on October 7, 2003.

Critical reception
On Metacritic, the game has a score of 64/100 based on 4 reviews and an aggregate score of 62.87% on GameRankings based on 6 reviews.

GameZone gave it a review score of 8.8/10 saying "Teamwork and well-balanced gameplay put kids at the controls of another enjoyable Disney romp". Nintendojo gave the game a review score of 6.5/10 saying "The Lion King 1.5 isn’t a bad game. I actually thought it was a lot of fun. It is well-animated and entertaining, but it was just unforgivably easy". Nintendo Power gave it a review score of 2.7/5 saying "Intuitive play control and simple level design make the game appropriate for players of all skill levels".