WALL-E

Aug. 29, 2008

Having leaned towards so-called "good" games recently, I've decided that it's important for me to return to my roots... playing shitty games. Having seen the movie, I wanted to try this movie tie-in game. Will it somehow be amazing, or will it contribute more to the lack of good games based off of movies?

(Note: This was technically played on Aug. 30, but due to a state fair I was too busy to actually play any games that day.)

Category

Movie Tie-In Game

Pros

• Game mechanics are easy to grasp and play.
• Lots of secret items to find adds a challenge for those who would seek it.
• WALL-E had a lot of cute idle animations.

Cons

• For what is supposed to be a kid's game, I found there to be a surprising amount of text explaining what to do.
• There was a bug - flat-out bug - that really confused me for a minute or two. It turns out it didn't hinder my progress, but at the time there was no way to tell that.
• The controls were very flat - you press a button and it moves your character at a constant rate. This didn't matter so much when playing as WALL-E, but aiming your gun as EVE was really difficult due to the lack of being able to easily make fine movements.
• Gameplay is just bland. There's nothing particularly innovative about it - it feels like I've played this exact game before.

Verdict

This game was just generic - cookie cutter, if you will. It's not bad - I think that movie games get a bad rap in this regard. It's just nothing to write home about. Still, the mechanics are so common to me that I have no interested in playing the game further. Perhaps multiplayer would be interesting.