The stubborn camera and unwieldy controls ensure that we never get to see the gem that lies just underneath.
User Rating: 6.4 | Catwoman XBOX
Catwoman is out of the bag, and it could have been a great game. The core ideas are all there: cool acrobatic moves, nifty platform jumping, and some pretty sharp visuals to boot. Sadly, every time you actually start to enjoy it, poor controls, tepid combat, and an incomprehensible story rear their ugly heads. When it's good, Catwoman is actually a lot of fun to play. But to get there, you will have to wade through a lot of frustrations. Like the new film of the same title, Catwoman is hardly the pinnacle of storytelling. Patience Phillips worked in – a lab of some sorts. Something – happened. Then, a cat – kissed her, or something, and she turned into Catwoman. Then, she spends most of the game on the heels of a nemesis that has some vague relation to a secret formula gone bad. Or something like that. Truth be told, you will generally have no idea what's going on, why you are chasing anyone, how you became Catwoman, or where you are headed. Not that some great games haven't featured uninspired or muddled stories, but the frequency with which the game cuts to cinematics would lead us to believe there is substance to the onscreen action, when in fact, all of it is a farce, created as a showcase for Halle Berry's digital likeness. But boy, it's a good likeness, and when Catwoman succeeds, she can do some pretty neat things. The game's two major elements involve platforming and puzzle solving akin to that in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and acrobatic combat, mostly involving tumbling kicks. The platforming can be a lot of fun, and you will swing from bar to bar, scale walls and slink across mesh, and use your whip to grab those hard-to-reach poles. The combat has its moments too, particularly when you are fighting multiple enemies, and you tumble and kick with glee. You can even use your whip to pull weapons from your adversaries' hands, or fling items such as bottles at them with your whip. As you progress through the game, you can purchase more moves, depending on your performance in the previous mission. In the best moments, there is a palpable sense of urgency as foes fire at you from afar and you have to dodge the bullets that ricochet around you. That excitement is really a facade though: the game is never difficult, and you will never find yourself remotely challenged by your sleepy enemies. How sad, then, that all of these neat-sounding gameplay elements are completely overshadowed by a poor control scheme and one of the worst cameras in a game this generation. Moves are performed exclusively with the right analog stick and triggers. EA apparently forgot that game controllers also have buttons, since you will only use them to navigate menus. You jump with the right trigger, climb walls with the left, and use the right thumbstick for lashing your whip, and combinations of the above for various attacks and other acrobatics. The scheme is highly unintuitive, particularly when most of your game time will be spent struggling to perform moves that require precision with controls that were created to stand in your way. The camera insists on finding new and frustrating ways of angling so that you can never see what you need to see, making the platforming elements often an annoyance, not a joy. Instead, the camera’s sole purpose is to focus on Catwoman herself, and while her character is a kick to watch, if you are actually interested in playing the game, you may find yourself out of luck. Be prepared to fall from ledges often and spend too much time searching aimlessly around the environment for your next course of action. The good news is that if you are idle long enough, scratching your head while you ponder the next puzzling move, the game will treat you to a cinematic of Halle Berry’s Catwoman slinking in various feline poses. Catwoman looks surprisingly good. Berry’s likeness is quite striking, and she is animated well. She slinks and climbs sexily and convincingly, and her acrobatic moves look really good. It’s too bad that other characters look all pretty much the same, and don’t have nearly the number of neat animations. Environments are rich and detailed, and you will see vehicles moving in the background, lending a pretty organic feel to the proceedings, even if the city visuals aren’t as dynamic as what you may see in Spiderman 2 or the GTA series. Cutscenes suffer from some extreme pixelation – and some really strange moments of slowdown too, in contrast to the gameplay itself, which is very attractive to look at. How much you enjoy the sound in Catwoman depends purely on whether the thought of hearing Halle Berry purr and spout campy one-liners appeals to you. The game takes itself seriously, which means we are to take Berry’s voice acting seriously as well. If her vampy melodrama had a wink-wink-nudge-nudge quality to it, it may be easier to stomach, but you may find yourself laughing during moments that aren’t meant to be funny. Other voice acting is weak, although the music sounds pretty good all in all, lending some quirky personality and drama. Sound effects aren’t sensational, but the snap of the whip certainly gets the job done. With some more development time and closer attention to tightening the controls and camera, Catwoman could have been an excellent game. It has some solid gameplay concepts, looks good, and does some nice things with its source material. Too bad that the stubborn camera and unwieldy controls, along with its mediocre storytelling, ensure that we never get to see the gem that shines just underneath. Unless you enjoy polishing away the dirt for the few terrific moments to be found within – or just have a pressing need to see Halle Berry's digital likeness shimmy on your screen – you would be better off picking up Spiderman 2 instead.
