Also, the story line is so freaking bizarre-it borders on insanity. What isn't better about Umjammer? Although the rock music, in my humble opinion, it isn't as catchy as the rappin' puppy's tunes. And despite being a tougher game with harder button combos and mixed-up music lines, the engine is much more forgiving, and therefore, less frustrating than PaRappa. Umjammer has the set of two-player stages plus an entirely separate story line for a hidden and playable PaRappa (in essence, Umjammer is six times as big as the first game, though you can still beat it in one evening). If you thought PaRappa was over way too quickly, don't worry. Was the one-player PaRappa experience too lonely for you? Umjammer spices things up with a very fun two-player (co-op or competitive) mode. The lines' sizes and locations are constantly changing, keeping you on your toes at all times. With Umjammer, the Simon-sez gameplay has much more variety. Phase two of Sony's twisted freak show of a music game has improved upon many areas in which PaRappa the Rapper lacked (well, you may not have known anything was lacking at the time.but that just goes to show how much work went into this sequel).

There's an option for watching a scene you just beat, but it's kind of disappointing that a game with such an innovative look forces the player to watch a small part of the screen. There's a lot of things going on in the background that I kept wishing I could pause and watch, like a chorus line of firemen, but my eyes were glued on the line on the screen where the cursor told me what button to push when. It takes a little getting used to, but it's an interesting look for the game. The characters are basically paper-thin cutouts, so when Lammy looks to the right, her head is suddenly very thin. The graphics reprise Parappa the Rapper's style of two-dimendional 3D animation. In fact, I'm still not sure if Parappa's cut scenes are supposed to form a plot or if they're just there for something to look at. Parappa also gets new cut scenes and a new plot, which is even more incomprehensible than Lammy's. Once a given stage is passed, it can be played again as 'Rammy' (Lammy's evil twin) or Parappa, who gets slightly different songs to fit his rapping style.

Download Um Jammer Lammy