By John Walker on June 26th, 2008 at 7:18 pm.
You can have a quick go of THQ’s tie-in game for Pixar’s forthcoming Wall-E now, should you wish. It’s available here, and weighs 219Mb. Thoughts below.
After THQ’s real high with the Cars tie-in, the demo’s offerings are a huge disappointment. Of the two chapters available, one is an abysmal downhill course that’s over in about a minute and offers no challenge whatsoever. The other, much more sizeable, is third-person pursuit platforming, which requires you get your jumps and slides correct or you’ll lose track of Eve, the robot wot you fancy. These courses, although broken into different sections, become quickly very repetitive.
It’s a real shame that no one thought to get the Mr Robot developers involved, or thought to do something more than a slap-dash platform. Of course, perhaps the demo showcases the game at its worst. We shall see. I’m still convinced the film is going to rock out loud.
26/06/2008 at 19:31 Stupoider says:
That’s a shame to hear that the demo’s bad. But let’s face it, Pixar won’t disappoint and the film will be great.
I can’t really name any good films-to-games anyway.
26/06/2008 at 19:35 Max says:
@Stupoider: “I can’t really name any good films-to-games anyway.”
*Makes the inevitable GoldenEye retort*
But yeah in general you’re right. I’m certainly not going to waste 200 MB of bandwidth on this obvious turdburger.
Watch the film, ignore the game.
26/06/2008 at 19:37 Wholly Schmidt says:
*makes the slightly evitabler Chronicles of Riddick retort as well!*
26/06/2008 at 20:00 Saflo says:
Let’s not forget the Genesis version of Jurassic Park.
Guys. Guys. You can play as the raptor.
26/06/2008 at 20:05 MisterBritish says:
Rubbish, plus it looks like it was made for the Wii or ps2 and ported to every other platform without the slightest graphical update. Tbqfh.
26/06/2008 at 20:07 Billy Ogawa says:
The Genesis Jurassic Park scared the crap out of me as a kid.
26/06/2008 at 20:38 blargy says:
The game is a lot of fun. idk why they would chose those levels to give you however those 2 are an extremely small part of it.
26/06/2008 at 21:02 Leeks! says:
I am also mad-amped for the film. The spaceship is called ‘the Axiom.’ Delightful.
26/06/2008 at 21:21 Stupoider says:
@Max: My gaming knowledge has failed me. How did I forget Goldeneye. T.T
Constant stream of let’s-make-a-quick-dime films-to-games has shrouded my memory. But yeah. I can’t trust any of ‘em these days.
26/06/2008 at 21:42 Optimaximal says:
Don’t forget, the CoD4 demo featured what was easily one of the worst levels of the entire game.
Still, that wasn’t a movie-tie-in, so it had a chance of being good. This, however…
26/06/2008 at 21:49 OldManTick says:
Let’s not forget The Thing either!!
26/06/2008 at 22:11 Phil says:
Or the Quake 2 powered web based promo someone put together for 8-Legged Freaks (survival horror + giant spiders = utter win)? That or Rockstar’s Warriors, GTA4 isn’t fit to polish it’s Doc Martins.
26/06/2008 at 22:15 Alex says:
Does Superman 64 count?
26/06/2008 at 22:15 terry says:
Someday someone will make a good licence tie-in. Until then there is only Goldeneye for the N64 :(
edit: Ok and AVP, and Lego Starwars, and er…. Batman (the isometric one).
26/06/2008 at 22:19 Nick says:
And Riddick!
26/06/2008 at 22:29 Faust says:
I think the case of Riddick is an odd one, as the game is definitely better than the film, although I don’t really think the film is ‘that’ bad.
26/06/2008 at 22:37 John Walker says:
I’m telling you, the Cars Radiator Spings Somethingorother THQ put out was really lovely. No masterpiece, but completely fun to play and perfectly pitched at younger kids (under 12s). I gave 77% in Format.
26/06/2008 at 22:42 Optimaximal says:
Riddick wasn’t a movie tie-in, rather a game that just happened to be released around the same time as the loosely related (and inferior) movie of the same subject.
26/06/2008 at 22:43 The Hammer says:
Really looking forward to the film too. The concept of little dialogue intrigues me.
26/06/2008 at 22:51 ysbreker says:
@Optimaximal:
Not true. It’s set int he same universe, and was vewry much a tie-in with the movie. in chronological order:
- Escape from butcher bay (the game)
- Pitch black (first Riddick movie)
- Dark fury (animated short movie)
- Chronicles of Riddick (second Riddick movie)
And yes, I liked them all :)
26/06/2008 at 22:55 Tellurian says:
Here’s to hoping for more stuff from the Riddickverse.
And of course Wall*E looks great. The movie that is. All Pixar movies were and looked great. Pixar are just… Divine when it comes to entertainment.
26/06/2008 at 23:01 Al3xand3r says:
Weren’t they supposed to be doing a bigger meaner remake of the original Riddick game? I’d totally play that. It was a linear FPS sure, but apart from a couple of crappy sections, the overall game had much better atmosphere and gameplay than Deus Ex 2 and even offered hints of open ended design in stuff like the prison area. A remake that exploited the better features further (melee, stealth, mechs, atmosphere, graphics, grittyness, hollywood plot) and ditched what simply didn’t work (100% linear mech sections and some crappy bosses) would be well worth a play through or two. Maybe I’d wait for it more eagerly than FEAR’s sequel or a new COD…
27/06/2008 at 01:01 Zed says:
Chronicles of Riddick was an interesting case. My friend saw it in theatres, sad it sucked ass, then decided to suffer through it again with me on DVD–and liked it. Apprently the theatrical cut sliced away things that were necessary for the plot to make sense. And, IIRC, Butcher Bay was a semi-prequel to Chronicles.
More on topic, I’ll add The Punisher to the list of good video game conversions. It wasn’t phenomenal, but it was lots’o'fun. Woodchipper for the win.
27/06/2008 at 08:31 itsallcrap says:
For those of you watching in black-and-white, 219Mb is roughly 14.9 Peggles
27/06/2008 at 10:21 Miles says:
And for those of you wondering why anyone gives a shit about Riddick: I’m baffled too, viewers.
27/06/2008 at 15:35 MacBeth says:
Pixar are the Valve of animation. I’d give teeth and internal organs (possibly even my own) to work for either of them.
Just a shame they couldn’t work together on the game of the movie…
27/06/2008 at 17:43 Mr. Brand says:
Valve working with Pixar licenses? That would certainly interesting..but you know how the Chinese curse goes.
I still think Alien versus Predator (the first one) is the role model for a perfect movie-based game. Fun in single player, fun with other people, and has headbitey. I dunno how you can work headbitey into a Pixar game, but if you could, I’d give it two more stars. Even in a numeric rating system.
28/06/2008 at 08:18 malkav11 says:
The Punisher game was based on the comics, not any movie based on the comics.
18/07/2008 at 16:21 Quater says:
@ Mr. Brand:
Both the AvP FPS games on the PC came out long before the movies. The concept came from the comic books, originally.