If it only would be longer...

User Rating: 7.5 | Watchmen: The End Is Nigh X360
As the movie hits the theaters, what would be better than having a game about the characters? Well, a longer game, for one.

Set in 13 years prior to book's and movie's time, you play with either Rorschach or Night Owl throughout the whole game. Both have roughly the same actions, but while Rorschach bases his fighting more in wild and chaotic kicks and punches, Night Owl seems to have more flashy martial arts on his repertoire, but often also longer animations. Plus Night Owl doesn't seem to use weapons that the opponents drop.

The game looks pretty good. Not top of the line in any sense, but you can still see that the graphics haven't been done with a "left hand only". Compared to some similar game, LotR : Conquest has lesser graphics in both effects and motion capture, where Watchmen shines a bit at least. The plot is mostly fed to you via motion comic, which is probably quite close (if not identical) to the motion comic version of Watchmen, so quite nice touch on that.
On the sound department, well...it's good enough, but nothing great. The real plus however is the voice-over of Rorschach and generally the voice acting which is quite good.

It hard to say much about the game really, since there isn't much to say. You go around six rather short episodes, which involve only a couple of levers to pull and switches to use, plus a bunch of mobsters and whatnot to kick in the face. The game does a decent job with the tools it has, such as making the game good to play with both characters (a few places have different paths, etc.) and with a friend, but don't expect it to be a deep experience into anything.

It's kinda funny that while the game is very very simple, it still appealed enough to me to pay the rather outrageous sum of points for a mere 3-4 hours of play or so. Granted, it has a small replay value, but it's still a steep price. If only we could've gotten double the length with one or two more characters (either longer plot or do another shorter one for the other two)...wouldn't have minded having The Comedian as one of the characters if there would've been another small story.

All in all, Watchmen : End is nigh is a decent, if a short, game. It was amusing to see Rorschach beat a load of guys effortlessly and violently, which made it even sadder when it had to end already. Had they done more complex game and longer one too, I would've probably given it at least an 8, probably even 8.5. Now, however, I'd recommend waiting on it to get cheaper, unless you have an urge to burn 1600 points for a few hours of kicking ass in 1972 New York.