Easily passable...
There has been quite a few good movie-based games released within the past few months like Spider-man: Web of Shadows, Kung-Fu Panda: Legendary, Tale of Despereaux, and Speed Racer. Since this game is under Activision's lineup, I was hoping to experience at least a fair experience with it. But I ended up getting that usual "meh" feeling from other movie tie-in games like before.
The game enables you to use the movie characters (as seen on the box) on a 3rd person view. You'll have the usual attack, jump, and charged attack thingies while new ones will become available as you progress through the game. There's really nothing special or much to talk about this game. You simply bash the attack button on enemies and engage on some simple memory based puzzles and that's pretty much it. Although there's a lot of VO accompanied by pictures and sometimes in-game cut-scenes to help drive the story, that still didn't help improve the game's fun-factor. To be honest, it's actually quite distracting to watch those things while you're doing your best to enjoy the game.
Like the game Bolt, you'll see a couple of marked spaces on the floor to signal you that you can use other characters to help you progress through the environment. But there's nothing fun about pressing a single button and watching a cut-scene of two animals helping each other out to get pass an obstacle. And even though they added 2 additional mini-games, they are just as bland as the main dish. Take the pinball game as an example, the ball seems to be moving in slow-motion, and it seems like it's under moon's gravity because the ball looks like its trying to float around the machine.
Graphics looks quite nice, it ain't pixelated or anything but there's nothing special about it. Same can be said with the sound but I applaud them for adding tons of VOs in the game.
The controls is as simple as it can get. Anyone who already played an adventure game before should be able to pick this game right up and play. Tossing of things like coconut for example will require you to use the touchscreen. The mic can also be used on one of the characters but the game is too easy that you can literally survive using only the jump and attack buttons. With the exception of course on maps where you need to balance on beams or swing on ropes etc.
Overall, the game is something that I cannot recommend even for someone who is a fan of the movie and/or is gonna purchase this for his kids. Seeing animals getting kicked or slapped by a photographer, or a lion beating up an old lady is not something that you may want your kids to enjoy watching. And the very linear button-bashing gameplay seals this game's fate to the "another meh movie based" titles category.
.:My reviews are only as good as everyone else's. Take every single one of them with a grain of salt:.