Disney/Pixar Finding Nemo Review

Hundreds of movies involve a great search. Quest for Fire. Searching for Bobby Fischer. Sasquatch Odyssey: The Hunt for Bigfoot. Now Pixar, headed by Steve Jobs, the fearless pioneer who combined computers with wax fruit, has brought you yet another quest extravaganza.

In Finding Nemo, you're on a mission to locate your lost aquatic buddy. To do this, you must navigate a series of underwater levels, dodging blowfish, barracudas, your mother-in-law and other deep-sea horrors. Each level must be completed within a time limit.

You'll spend most of your time simply dodging the game's baddies, although it's possible to take them out using an Allen Iverson-inspired spin move. The number of times you can execute this maneuver is limited, but you can get more spins by picking up the corresponding power-up. Because the control is rather unresponsive, the usefulness of the spin move is limited. Often your character will fail to perform the move properly, costing you a life. The unreliability of your attack is the main source of the game's challenge.

Finding Nemo is adequate graphically, although its visuals are a bit repetitive. Levels look similar, except for the addition of new enemies to avoid. All the enemies are equally damaging, so the change between levels is a simple switching of sprites that doesn't affect the overall gameplay experience.

Simply put, the challenge provided by Finding Nemo's poorly implemented control will not be enough to hold the attention of most gamers. For fans of the film, the game might be worth the download; but most everyone else will be content to let Nemo stay lost.