  Incredibly boring |
| By: Daniel Trusca, Editor, Game Reviews |
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+ Very short. Visually captures the style of the movie. Great music.
- Bland and repetitive. Control issues and camera glitches.
System requirements:
PlayStation 2 with memory card
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I hadn't the slightest shadow of doubt that Incredibles the game was nowhere near incredible, even before laying my hands on it. It's always the same with arcade games that are aimed at the young. They are all bland and repetitive, largely because kids aren't that demanding, although I get the feeling the only reason why many developers make such games is simply because they are unable to make something else. Indeed, the game is a fairly unremarkable experience that takes you through the film's plot without capturing any of its essence, a mere cheap plastic trinket compared to Pixar's jewel.
Story
Incredibles the game is squarely aimed at young people who have seen the film, being less a coherent narrative of its own and more a disjointed series of set pieces crudely tied together over which gameplay rules in all its banality. Like the film, it begins with an ordinary day in the life of Mr. Incredible and his wife-to-be, Elastagirl, as they thwart a bank robbery, which leads to their being forced out of business by a resentful, ingrate, litigious citizenry who look upon outstanding accomplishment as a threat to standardized mediocrity. Fifteen years later, Mr. Incredible and Elastagirl have married and had kids, who have superpowers of their own, and are doing their best to fit into the new identities the federal superhero relocation program has provided them with. After an ill-advised return to action, Mr. Incredible is approached by a mysterious woman named Mirage who wants him to go to an island for a final mission that isn't everything it appears. However, where Pixar's production is funny and meaningful, Heavy Iron's is the exact opposite, much like the entire arcade genre.
Gameplay
The Incredibles is pretty much another straightforward 3D platform game, whose gameplay boils down to moving
through a series of levels from a third person perspective, taking on hordes of identical enemies and solving a few simple puzzles along the way. Throughout the game you will take control of the whole family at various times, one member at a time, each offering a different style of play revolving around the super powers they have in the film, the levels themselves specifically tailored for their particular abilities. Mr. Incredible is your basic brawler and his levels consist of running around, bashing enemies with his super strength. Elastagirl can stretch her body like rubber and attack bad guys from a distance, her levels involving a little less fighting and plenty of swinging around. Dash's levels are frogger style timed checkpoint races. Finally, Violet only gets one level which is built around stealth, using her invisibility and force fields to sneak by the supervillain's henchmen.
The superheroes' basic powers, like the big guy's lifting heavy objects or Elastagirl's stretching her limbs can be used at any time, however their more powerful abilities, such as Violet's invisibility or Mr. Incredible's power slam require Incredipower to use, which can be replenished by finding power-up icons hidden in destroyable objects strewn liberally about the levels. You can also hunt for red icons that unlock the so-called "extras" which come in the form of artwork and production stills, though I cannot imagine why anyone would want to bother.
The main problem with The Incredibles is that it soon becomes repetitive, especially true when playing as Mr. Incredible, which is most of the time. The constant chore of fending off the same third rate goons over and over again becomes a bore very quickly. And the same goes for the puzzles the game puts in your path which, despite being uninteresting, manage to break the monotony of the linear levels a little at first, only to add up to the overall level of monotony themselves. Most puzzles are very easy and come in the form of turning levers or pushing buttons to disable electric charges or open doors, but some involving multiple actions that must be performed in a specific time are quite difficult, not owing to their being challenging, but rather because they are frustratingly designed.
Control issues also blight the gameplay, as does a badly implemented lock-on feature, often changing targets as the character readies for an action, or an obstinate camera that refuses to give a proper view, making some of the platforming sequences, such as those in which Elastagirl is required to grab hold of overhead fixtures, all the more annoying. There are large sections to complete without a checkpoint, where one mistake can lead to falling to your death and repeating the whole sequence over, and some of the later bosses are surprisingly difficult to defeat and can test the patience of even the more experienced players. However, despite the uneven difficulty, it won't take you more than eight hours to beat the game. This is a bad thing for quality games, but The Incredibles hardly qualifies. If only it was shorter...
Video and audio
The game does a decent job of capturing the visual style of the film, all characters faithfully recreated and nicely animated. However the wonderfully fleshed out characters - the very heart of the film - have been reduced to lifeless polygonal puppets, their charm completely lost in the winding design process. The colorful cartoonish environments don't really stand out in any way and seem to be made up of a few big levels whose textures and features are jumbled around and continuously recycled. Cutscenes from the film are used at the beginning of each level to advance the identical plot, but they are so disjointed that much of the film's story might actually remain a confusing mystery to anyone who has not seen it.
Samuel L. Jackson is the only actor to reprise his role in the game, albeit mostly for tutorial purposes. The replacement voice acting does its best to inject some of the film's flavor into the proceedings, but the characters' repeating the same few one-liners ad nauseam quickly turns something of charm to something of annoyance. One of the game's few redeeming features is their having included Michael Giacchino's marvelous soundtrack that is hardly enough to wash down the sour aftertaste the rest of the experience leaves behind.
Multiplayer
It does not have multiplayer.
Conclusion
The game does not bring anything new to the stale arcade genre, and the little fun it provides is very soon obscured by the repetitive gameplay, nasty control and camera glitches. Kids who went nuts for the film (seemingly the game's target audience) will most likely love it despite these shortcomings, but even they might toss it away once boredom sets in... for it definitely will.
Editor's ratings:
Story: 6
Gameplay: 6
Concept: 6
Video: 7
Sound: 7
Multiplayer: -
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22nd February 2006, 13:27 GMT | Copyright (c) 2006 Softpedia | Contact:  |
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