I guess that a large part of our readers doesn't know anything about PK. This is normal, since PK is a well-known character only among European fans of Disney comic books.

PK is the heroic alter ego of Donald Duck, a sort of Batman for the city of Duckburg. The character was created more than thirty years ago in Italy, where - I'm sure you didn't know this - there is the richest original production in the world of Disney comics, exported to various parts of the world. At present, there are thousands of original Disney stories created in Italy after the second half of the past century, and dozens of original characters. What's even more interesting, the quality of these stories - the big ones are usually not shorter than 40 pages - is most of the times high.

When I was a child, PK was one of my favorite Disney characters. The name "PK" derives from the original Italian name of the hero, "Paperinik", a funny transformation of the Italian name of Donald Duck, "Paperino" (or "Paolino Paperino", but nobody calls him that way).

So, every night, when the city is sleeping and the criminals act in the shadows, Donald Duck becomes PK, the mysterious duck hero of Duckburg. In the game, an evil alien race is trying to destroy the planet Earth, and PK is the only one able to stop them. Pretty stale plot, and not even close to the ones written for great part of the comic books published in Italy, filled with intelligent and humoresque ideas.

Whenever a game based on Disney comics, movies or characters is released, it's usually a platform, and not an unforgettable one. This is surely a choice of the publisher, who wants to create a game for the younger audience at a reasonable (low) production cost. After all, it's not necessary to create a strong gaming experience to sell a good number of copies of a game when you already have characters like Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse that will inevitably attract the fans. But I want to hope that young players are not stupid as someone would like them to be; they know how to spend their money, and they are intelligent enough to recognize the difference between a good game and a bad one.

And Disney's PK: Out of The Shadows isn't a good game. It's a straightforward platform that takes place into four main environments, divided in many sub-levels, for a total of eleven different levels. A few levels are quite big, but they are always extremely linear; basically there is only one way to complete them, with no possibility to create fancy alternative strategies of any sort. You jump, you blast a bunch of enemies, you smash a thousand of creates and you are arrived to the next level.

The control system is straightforward. The left stick moves PK, X is the Jump button, and Square is used to attack. The combat system is based on a simple lock-on function; you press the lock-on button (R2) and PK remains always focused on a certain enemy, letting you to easily sidestep while firing your high-tech weapon. During the game you'll be able to upgrade PK's equipment, thus unlocking additional functions that are necessary to complete the levels. These upgrades will let you jump higher, avoid damages when landing, or simply use more deadly ammo.

The biggest problem of Disney's PK resides in its excessive linearity; after a few levels the game becomes predictably repetitive and boring, and the naïve A.I. of the enemies, which basically can only stand still and fire at you, doesn't help in spicing things up a bit. The game is also terribly easy, and this makes the challenge acceptable only for an extremely young audience.