SpongeBob makes another appearance on the major console scene in SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom. Published by THQ previously in SpongeBob Squarepants: The Flying Dutchman and developed by Big Sky Interactive, the developer this time around is THQ's in-house development team Heavy Iron, with impressive results. Big Sky's Flying Dutchman was an all-around good game, but Battle for Bikini Bottom is a step above.

For those who may not be familiar with SpongeBob, he's an icon on Nickelodeon TV. A nerdy and naive sponge, he lives in a pineapple in Bikini Bottom and works at a fry joint for Mr. Krabs. His friends are Sandy Cheeks, a daredevil squirrel from Texas, and Patrick, a nice but really dumb starfish; he also has less than friendly neighbors like the snobby, condescending Squidward and Plankton, a megalomaniac who just wants to rule the world. The cartoon has almost a fanatic following.

The story is that SpongeBob and Patrick were playing with their toy robots one night and decided to wish on Patrick's magic wishing shell for real robots. When they wake the next morning, they find that Bikini Bottom has been taken over by an army of robots. Oh, no! How can they fix this catastrophe they've unwittingly unleashed? Or, could it by chance not be their fault at all, but instead be another strange plan of Plankton's gone awry.....

The same weird and wacky humor that pervades SpongeBob the show has been lovingly incorporated into Battle for Bikini Bottom. The dialogue between him and the characters scattered around the levels could have been lifted straight from the show. Squidward is as insulting as ever, even when requesting a favor, and Plankton as manipulative.

As this is a children's game, everything is designed to be fairly easy to accomplish. At the same time, the designers kept the interest level high by including tons of fun items like hilarious dialogue, all the familiar denizens of Bikini Bottom, silly environmental puzzles and objects, and cool mini-games like bubble bowling, tongue boarding and underwear bungee jumping. And of course, there is plenty of object collecting, quest fulfilling and platforming.

SpongeBob (although other characters can also be played, for simplicity I will refer to all of them as SpongeBob) will spend much of his time collecting this game's currency, Shiny Objects, which are gathered by either running into them or smashing various objects and enemies. Shiny Objects are used as currency for opening up some areas of the game, but collecting scads of them is no problem, as each time SpongeBob enters an area, many of the same objects reappear to be demolished time and again for more Shiny Objects. He will also need to find Patrick's socks, which are a little harder to find, and the ultimate currency of Bikini Bottom, Golden Spatulas, which usually are only acquired by either finding a hidden area or accomplishing a quest for someone. These will open up many of the level areas. The gameplay, while kept simple, is never simplistic and offers a huge amount of things to do and see.

This is a big game with over ten levels, each of which offers several large worlds to explore. Besides playing as SpongeBob, gamers can also play as Patrick and Sandy Cheeks by visiting Bus Stops to interchange characters as they become available. All three characters have the same basic abilities of jumping and enemy bashing, but each also has character-specific moves like SpongeBob's bubble bowling and bubble blowing, Patrick's ability to throw objects at far away items and freeze the poisonous Goo rivers, and Sandy Cheek's lassoing skills which enable her to swing over dangerous areas, wide spaces and tie up those pesky robots. Platforming is fun but never frustrating; jumping from platform to platform is easy, and cool and varied types of trampolines are found everywhere for bouncing around.

While the levels are large and will require much exploration, players are never at a loss for where to go or what to do - informational boards are everywhere which will often explain what is needed to be done. The exploration is kept open-ended to a certain extent, but the tasks will need to be completed in order to advance to more areas. The puzzle-solving aspect of the game is primarily environmental and will often require character-swapping to accomplish. Most of the time these puzzles have obvious solutions, but are still designed well enough to be challenging and fun.

The mini-games scattered throughout the game serve two purposes: advancing the game, and offering some really silly interactivity. They can be played over again, but without collecting the items already gained by traversing them the first time. Tongue boarding with SpongeBob was too hilarious!

Robots abound in these levels, and will need to be taken out. This is easy at first, then becomes a little harder in upper levels as they become more numerous and powerful. Still, it's not ever that hard to either avoid or destroy them. Each time one is destroyed, players will collect Shiny Objects. The main method of Shiny Object collection is by smashing open Tikis, which are all over the place in different forms. These will reappear each time an area is visited again. The machines that churn out these robots can also be destroyed.

Health points are maintained by collecting SpongeBob's underwear, which are conveniently located in easily accessible spots in the game. When they're not needed, they'll show up as translucent items, which can be re-visited and collected later if needed. SpongeBob and company can die, but checkpoints are conveniently placed so this is never frustrating or painful. The main method of death is either being killed by robots, or by falling into rivers of hazardous Goo. The jellyfish can also sting, but these are so easily avoidable they really don't matter.

The graphics are bright and colorful, and while in 3D instead of the 2D style of the cartoon show, are presented in faithful SpongeBob duplication. The opening movies and cut scenes suffer from a strange blurriness around the edges of objects, but the rest of the game looks very sharp. The characters and objects have the most detail, with the backgrounds suffering a bit from blandness and flat look. The lighting is superb, and the movement of the underwater denizens is smooth and fluid.

The interface is simple and and easy to learn, however, the camera is often aggravating, especially when attempting to span upwards. This is done in a fast, jerky movement that is disorienting and will often cause motion sickness. Also, the camera doesn't get behind the characters fast enough when changing their directional movement. This is just slightly annoying and doesn't affect the gameplay, though.