Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine

"Dr. Robotnik get his own game, but it's all too short-lived"

Introduction

The reviews I read of this game were fairly lukewarm, but I got it (well, asked for it as a present) anyway, to see what it was like. As most people will know, Dr. Robotnik (aka Eggman) is the main villain of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, notorious for turning innocent animals into robots; this game effectively centres around him.

Gameplay - 6/10

This game is a clone of the classic puzzle game, Tetris; beans will fall from the ceiling, in groups of two, and you have to match up groups of four or more in order to eliminate them and stop your stack reaching the ceiling. Since you will be competing against an opponent in this version, the object here is survival and also sabotaging their effort - so, eliminating beans on your side will send a number of black beans over to their side, which will only vanish if other beans around them are eliminated. This is where strategy needs to be used, since it becomes more and more clear that you cannot simply join up beans and hope for the best, but you have to set up your beans to trigger a huge chain reaction. On many occasions, you may be wowed by how your ingenuity managed to create such an amazing effect, while on others you may end up feeling like the cheapest and luckiest player alive as one elimination leads to a number of beans of the same colour falling together just by pure chance; yes, it is indeed possible to bluff your way through a few levels of this game if you're very lucky.
While there is a clear increasing difficulty level throughout the game, a full thirteen levels seems a little excessive, especially seeing all you are doing is effectively playing Tetris against an opponent, who gradually becomes faster and more cunning; I'm also not entirely convinced that it required quite so many difficulty settings (getting to the end of "Easy" level, only for the game to immediately remark "Let's try Normal level" almost makes me feel like there's someone watching over my shoulder, saying - "Tsk - still not good enough". Overall, very good for Tetris obsessives, but not so good for everyone else.

Story - 4/10

Oh, this is silly. Although Dr. Robotnik's name is on the title, he has about as much involvement in the game as he had in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Game Gear, which was very little, appearing only in the introduction and right at the end when he decides to challenge you himself. Dr. Robotnik has descended on a town inhabited by talking beans, imaginatively named "Beanville"; oh, how childish. Apparently, he now wants to turn beans into robots too. Your mission is to save the beans by playing Tetris with them; exactly who you are playing as is very ambiguous, so you can make up your own mind (I personally like to say that I'm playing as Sonic, but that's just me). Robotnik sends out an army of twelve robots to play against you and, interestingly enough, saves his most intelligent ones until last. The robots featured have some interesting personalities, and I guess seeing who you are up against makes the game more interesting; for example, there is a robot called Humpty, who talks like C3PO ("Goodness gracious me, you're here already!"), and also Coconuts and Grounder, who are familiar characters from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Try and ignore the silly backstory and enjoy the gameplay.

Graphics - 6/10

Always the same when you get a different person to draw a familiar character; they go and screw it up completely. I have seen so many examples in the well-known British comics, the Beano and Dandy recently where a completely different (and often woeful) artist took over drawing a particular strip, and overhauled the design of a long-standing character in a manner so horrible that I wanted to yell at someone. The design of Dr. Robotnik here comes very close; every time I look at how different he is from the other Sonic games it is almost painful. For some reason, they opted for a change of costume, and a ridiculously high forehead that looks like something out of that woeful, lowbrow, comedy movie, Coneheads. Really, I don't know why they didn't stick with the far superior original design. Thankfully, otherwise, the graphics aren't too bad, being bright and colourful, and almost reminiscent of Dr. Seuss at times. I love the way that the robots expressions change depending on whether they are winning or losing, so suddenly they might start cheering, and next moment they will either panic or look like they're about the explode with rage.

Sounds - 6/10

Very nice, cheerful sounds, but even these are pretty average. One of the big problems is that they are just too repetitive, and for the first few levels you will be listening to the same tunes over and over before you move on to some new tunes; they're hardly the most memorable tunes you will ever hear, either. There are a few interesting sound effects heard throughout the main story mode, but after a while they just become offputting and distracting, and I don't really get why the enemies get a really cool "Yee ha!" sound when they pull off an amazing move, while doing the same thing yourself triggers an annoying high-pitched "yipppeeeeee!"; after a while, you may be hearing the former so many times that you are forced to switch to mute just so you can concentrate more easily.

Lastability - 5/10

You may wish to play this once or twice to get the satisfaction, but you probably won't play this often, except maybe just for the fun of it occasionally when you've nothing left to do - and certainly finishing the game on one of the easier settings, only for the game to suggest you try a harder setting next time at the end of the credits may prompt you to shout: "I most certainly will not!" at the screen.

Final Verdict

Sonic nuts may be disappointed that this game has nothing to do with the famous blue hedgehog, and they may also be appalled at the design of Dr. Robotnik in this game, but this game will be popular with puzzle fans, and you don't need to be a fan of the Sonic series to enjoy this. Buying this game is worth it if you enjoy Tetris and its many imitators.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/06/06