Thor: God of Thunder is missing one vital element: fun.
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Hack-and-slash action
Rating:
As a rule movie tie-ins are always rubbish. Somewhere out there, far above the streets of London, or New York, a marketing CEO, with pound signs in his eyes, decides that with the latest blockbuster just round the corner, it's time to capitalise by releasing a sub-standard game and squeeze some additional profit out of a release.
Thor: God of Thunder is no different. Predictably, it's a third person hack-and-slash affair in which you take control of Thor as he attempts to save his home world of Asgard from a delightful soul-eating creature called Mangog.
Along the way Thor travels to different worlds, each of which has a distinct appearance and set of foes.
In order to defeat these foes Thor is able to pull off a series of attacks and combos, as well as fly short distances and use Odinforce (a bit like magic) to perform special moves.
Unfortunately, combat is dull and repetitive and a typical scenario will see Thor move from one near-featureless arena to the next, fighting wave after wave of the same unit over and over again.
Thor can also attack using a power surge attack, which is available at certain points in the game and requires you to fill the fury metre in the top-right of the screen. In order to fill this bar you must once more fight wave after wave of the same unit over and over again.
Bosses are equally formulaic and battles usually involve avoiding their attacks, before climbing up them to weaken their armour.
Despite there being four distinct worlds, the game features a distinct lack of variation. There are only two basic units, a sub-boss and a boss per world and the former can be killed quite easily by repeatedly hammering the rush attack.
The game's most challenging aspects usually involve wrestling with the frustrating controls; moves are difficult to execute and awkward camera angles often confound your interaction with enemies.
I spent 15 minutes trying to reflect shots back at a cannon, as there was no other way to destroy it; the timing on the reflection had to be ludicrously accurate and in the end I resorted to bashing the button as fast as I could in the hope of randomly getting it right.
The game looks great and Thor especially looks brilliant, as do the backdrops. However, it can sometimes feel a bit like playing in front of a painting, as maps are completely linear, with little or no room for exploration and no way of deviating from the set path.
One of the game's most interesting aspects is its power-ups. Throughout the game Thor collects valour runes which he saves up in order to buy power-ups that give him new combat moves.
However, to have what is essentially an experience points system is hardly an innovation in video gaming and for this to be the most interesting aspect of Thor: God of Thunder goes to show just how unoriginal this game is.
The storyline is also good and was written by Matt Fraction, who has written a number of the Thor comics; interestingly it takes a different approach to the film, which is a nice touch for a movie tie-in.
Overall, Thor: God of Thunder looks great and although its focus upon pure hack-and-slash combat makes it more playable than most movie tie-ins, it can still be thrown on the pile along with the Lord of the Rings and The Matrix games, as titles made solely to cash-in on a Hollywood blockbuster.
For the published review check out: http://www.bristol247.com/2011/05/16/richard-foote-thor-god-of-thunder-is-just-a-typical-marketing-mans-creation/