A rather ironic cash-in on a popular film license
I’m going to come clean here and admit that as a rule I hate Disney films. I forced myself to watch wall-e before playing the game so that I had some knowledge of the story and therefore I knew something about the game before playing it. I was pleasantly surprised by the film, which wasn’t the usual brand of pointless trash I have come to expect from Disney, and contained deep underlying messages about consumerism, global warming and general passivity/laziness as well as the usual soppy love story, which inherently has to be in every Disney film. This could however just be me thinking too deeply about the film. Unfortunately the game was nowhere near as deep or interesting.
Wall-e follows the same plot as the film, but lacks any of the charm and humour. All things stripped away, the game is a cash-in on a popular film, and was obviously an after thought with the sole intention of making money from the predictable popularity of the film.
Like most rushed cash-in games, the controls are horrible and you will constantly find yourself fighting horrible camera angles. As far as gameplay is concerned, it’s a fairly droll affair with little or no challenge. The majority of the game basically consists of scooting around making cubes out of piles of rubbish and using said cubes to bypass obstacles and progress. The most fun gameplay element is when you get to play as EVE and fly around different environments, dodging oncoming obstacles etc… This is however short lived and 90% of the game sees you playing as wall-e and getting decidedly bored.
it’s a fairly droll affair with little or no challenge
The game’s soundtrack gets annoying fairly quickly, as do the game’s frequent adverts/announcements. Once you’ve heard the same messages repeated 30 or so times, you will probably find yourself muting the TV as I did, to avoid being driven mad.
The game’s graphics are fairly good for a rushed cash-in game, but still don’t really showcase what the console can do. Like many games of this type, the FMV sequences are ripped straight out of the film and are
simply there to advance the story. One of the overall impressions I got from this game is that if you have seen the film, there really is no point in playing the game, as you already know what is going to happen next, and there are no really entertaining gameplay elements to keep you interested.
On the plus side, the game will probably keep the kids interested for a while, and they are the primary target audience so isn’t that what really counts? Also, the game tried to have replay value by adding various collectible things that allow you to give wall-e a different paint job or unlock more maps for the multiplayer mode. I can’t really comment on the multiplayer mode. I didn’t really feel motivated to try it out, as I was so bored after playing the main game for a couple of hours. After this relatively short period of time however, I had managed to complete a fair chunk of the game (judging by the chronology of the film) and given a couple more hours, I would probably have completely finished it.
To sum up, wall-e is a blatant cash in, and it seems ironic to me that such a game should be released when the film is apparently trying to oppose consumerist culture. This game may keep the kids entertained for a few hours, but the game has no real lasting appeal and lacks the charm of the film. Whatever I say though, millions upon millions of people are still going to throw their money at Disney and THQ for this game just because of the license it’s based on, so you may as well make up your own mind.
The Bad: short lived, terrible camera angles, no really interesting or different gameplay elements, no variation from the film.
