Tarzan Untamed

Untame the beast within.

NA release: 18th November 2001
EU release: 3rd May 2002
JP release: N/A
Developer: Ubisoft
Publisher: Ubisoft
NGC Magazine Score: 59%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

Tarzan Untamed (or Tarzan Freeride in Europe) is a sequel story to Disney’s Tarzan film: Tarzan and Jane are married, and a new group of British invaders have come to film and capture Tarzan, Jane and his ape buddies. The game has CGI cutscenes that are voice acted (with Tarzan being the only returning voice actor from the film), but the sound balance is all out of whack, so it’s very difficult to hear what’s being said, which really hampers the presentation.

The gameplay is also very simple. Tarzan spends most of the time magnetised to part of the level – he moves along tree branches as though he’s attached to them. There’s no freedom to move around, you have to stick to the correct path, which is sometimes hard to see due to the muddy graphics. When you’re sliding and gliding, the game almost feels good. If it had a good soundtrack, it could have made it far more enjoyable, but there isn’t even a MIDI rendition of the Phil Collins tunes.

Outside of the bland platforming levels are a raft level and some water ski levels, with the latter having some nice reflections. Both of these kinds of levels go on three times longer than they really should do. At a certain point in the game, Jane gets kidnapped and to continue you need to collect 45 film reels (out of a possible 48 at the time), which requires replaying levels to find alternate routes and trying to figure out where the game will let you go. With how every level plays the same, it doesn’t feel worth it to see more of such a bland game.

Poor

As Tarzan sprints, swings and bounces forward along the mostly pre-determined route, you’ll feel your fingers twitching and your eyes darting around the screen as you work to avoid a humiliating tumble to the jungle floor. Linking moves to reach a floating banana or stranded baby monkey might not offer SSX Tricky levels of satisfaction, but it sure beats the soul-sappingly tedious search for hidden items in Tarzan 64.
Mark Green, NGC Magazine #67

Remake or remaster?

Only in a collection of Disney platformers.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play Tarzan Untamed.