WALL-E

"This game was so annoying, I didn't even beat it."

I went to Wal-Mart the other day with a friend to pick up some stuff that I needed. He decided to buy Wall-E for the PlayStation 3 for his six year old son. Although the kid hadn't seen the movie yet, he saw it the day after then started playing the game. The only problem was, the kid had actually tried to throw the disk away after about two hours of playing! Even though the disk was a little dirty, my friend gave it to me because he knows I like to write reviews as a freelancer.

Before I started playing I couldn't help but think about the movie and how I was about to play another “movie-to-video game” game. Like in the movie, Wall-E is a robot in the game that follows the plot of the movie. After falling in love with a robot named Eve, Wall-E pursues her through the “outside world”. Compelling for children, maybe, but only sometimes – clearly my friend's son was not at all impressed. Klondike Bar (my favorite for playing kids' games) in hand, I popped in the disk and prepared to play.

People think I joke when I tell them how bad this game is because I am an adult, and it is for children to decide how good the game is. Even though the kid threw his game away, I pressed on. Old as it gets after a few levels, where Wall-E has to open up new paths by tossing around magnetic blocks, I tried to get to the end of the game. Pathetic as it may seem, I never got there. Living next to my PS3 for about six hours, I got into some of the gameplay mechanics, where Eve gets to partner up with Wall-E and there is plenty of teamwork to be had, but this game got so frustrating and boring that I can understand why the kid dumped the disk in the first place. Even though the game itself has only a few levels, it is by no means short – plenty of retries to take after glitches in the game occur. Living in the game as Eve is great because the controls are decent, but Wall-E's controls are clunky. I, for one, hated the camera that Wall-E gets locked into. Killing the enemies in platform levels and dominating the puzzles made no sense with respect to the game/movie's plot.

Even the graphics for this game are poor. You will notice frame rate drops. One will also notice screen tearing (where unlikely things merge together much like two colors of paint on a palette mixing) and grainy, pixellated textures as well. Under your skin – that is where this sad fact will get when you realize you bought a 50-US-dollars game for what is supposed to be the revolutionary PlayStation 3 system! Dismal as this may sound – speaking of which, the sound is terribly repetitive after less than an hour – your kid might actually enjoy this. It is for how long he/she will enjoy this that will dictate how much bang you got for your buck. Every adult should only consider renting (NOT buying) Wall-E for their child, and only after considering all the other child-friendly options there are!

Now… in the end, this game falls into the trap that is the usual movie-to-video-game adaptation that follows almost every extremely popular movie. There was a “Die Hard” video game, there was a “Godfather” video game, there were video games for nearly every Disney movie ever made, and the list goes on. People buy into this stuff on a daily basis, and these sorts of games are the ones known for shoddy workmanship. These sorts of games are known to have been rushed in production so you can leave the movie theater after you've watched it on opening day, and find it on the shelf of the electronics store next door.

As a summary, for the ultimate quick review:

Gameplay – 4/10 – There are good elements in the game but they are hampered by poor controls and camera adjustment. Your child could easily become frustrated by glitches that aren't really his/her fault.

Graphics – 2/10 – Poor considering the fact that this game runs on the PS3 system. Actually, I'm not sure why this isn't a PS2 game.

Sound – 1/10 – Sound was extremely repetitive after less than an hour. I'm surprised at the small amount of unique sound effects and background music.

Replayability – 0/10 – This game can't be replayed. Plain and simple. Having a 0 looming there actually hurts me.

Storyline/Presentation – 5/10 – The storyline stays true to the movie, but the presentation makes no sense. The movie didn't have a silly platforming element or puzzles to solve that made no sense; this game, however, does.

Rent or Buy? – 2/10 - Rent if you must. Don't buy this game, it is a waste of US $50 that you will likely end up regretting.

FINAL SCORE – 2 - The average comes to 2 and 1/3. I usually round up but this time I'm going to round down because the game was that disappointing.

This game gets two unique background music tracks; two decent puzzles; two oddly tied characters out of ten.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 07/07/08

Game Release: WALL-E (US, 06/24/08)