Last year's Tak and the Power of Juju was a decent 3D platformer that made up for some of its technical shortcomings by providing a pleasantly surreal setting and by spiking the action with a bit of goofy humor. Thanks to these factors and, no doubt, the Nickelodeon seal of approval, Tak found an audience. Now, Avalanche is back with Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams, which earnestly tries to improve upon the first game and is somewhat successful in its efforts. There's a much greater variety to the action, but like The Power of Juju, The Staff of Dreams suffers from needlessly vague level design. The oft-confusing level designs are especially hurtful, because Tak 2 is otherwise pretty simple, straightforward, and aimed squarely at a younger audience.

As the game kicks off, we catch up with Tak while he's taking a serious power nap--a 16-day power nap, to be more specific. In fact, Tak's mentor, Jibolba, has been unable to rouse him from his slumber. During this deep sleep, Tak has a vision in which he is instructed to save a princess from the malevolent dream guardian. Tak has certainly borne witness to stranger things, and after some consideration and a bit of coercion, he goes with it, thereby accepting this dream quest. Eventually waking from his slumber, Tak tells Jibolba of this unusual dream, and so they set off to talk to Jibolba's brother JB (whose initials literally stand for "Jibolba's Brother"), who is well-versed in dream interpretation. But things are not quite what they seem in the dream world, and you can expect a significant, if not a predictable, twist about halfway through the game. Even still, the storytelling here feels a little halfhearted, and it feels like the plot only makes itself relevant when the game needs a good reason to transition to a new area. It does provide a few good laughs, which come mostly at the expense of the dimwitted warrior Lok (voiced expertly by the current, standing king of Don Quixote-esque wannabe heroes, Patrick Warburton), who has tagged along for the trip in hopes of getting in on some of that princess business. If nothing else, the cinematic sequences certainly lend a jovial, slightly off-kilter feel to the game.