Ben 10: Protector of Earth

"An old fashioned beat-‘em-up good for series fans, but…"

Ben 10: Protector of Earth – An old fashioned beat-‘em-up good for series fans, but…

Presentation: 2

Let me get one thing straight here. I am not the kind of reviewer who demands a lot from my games as far as shiny graphics go. These days any developer who is sufficiently not stupid can make smooth character models and relatively convincing textures, so those things don't impress me much anymore. What really makes or breaks a game's presentation is the animation. This is what separates a game that's been shoved out the door for as little money as possible from a game that is rough around the edges, but full of the right kind of spirit. So where does Ben 10 fall in?

Well, let's split it into two. The cutscenes simply look cheap. The characters not only look as blocky as those freebie online games you'll see sometimes, but they animate in such a jerky manner that they might instantly bring to mind thoughts of Adult Swim's stop-motion series “Robot Chicken”. Their heads are polygons with features painted onto them, while a couple of different kinds of frames slide into place as the character speaks or blinks. Quite simply, it looks like it could be done on an N64, and I am not joking at all.

In-game, the game does fare a bit better. Animations are smoother, the character models look better by virtue of being smaller and thus harder to see, and the game is generally very colorful and keeps the frame-rate high at all times. The game doesn't really drop the ball once you get control of the game, though there are instances where jumps can be difficult to manage due to annoying camera angles. The enemies are rather diverse, and the five controllable aliens have a decent variety of attack animations so that things don't get TOO stale.

Still, while the game is better in-game than in the cutscenes, it's still far from good and far from what any current or last-gen system is capable of. Worst of all, this doesn't look cheap but created with care, it looks just plain cheap.

To add insult to all of this injury, despite being a standard Wii feature, the game has no Widescreen support.

Audio: 5

The music is horribly generic and completely forgettable, but being voiced by the show's voice cast goes a long way to providing that pleasantly familiar feeling to fans that the game is relying on.

Gameplay: 5

The game is a fairly generic brawler that, while providing some decent variety in giving you five alien forms to use, feels so completely unbalanced that using anyone but Cannonbolt becomes pointless. Cannonbolt uses a string of such powerful, wide-range attacks, which keep him moving and out of foes' reach and which can quickly knock out foes with even a bunch of light quick blows, that there's no point to anyone else anymore. He's stronger, faster, and better than everyone else, that's all that needs to be said about him. Calling it “ridiculously broken” is an understatement of epic proportions.

Still, if you can pull yourself away from Cannonbolt for a while, you will find some variety in the alien forms' powers. FourArms is completely useless, HeatBlast can make the game's platforming sections easier by floating around, XLR8 is very fast, and WildVine has broad, sweeping attacks like Cannonbolt's, but lacks mobility. There are also alien-specific puzzles to solve, like using FourArms to move crates and Cannonbolt to speed across ramps, but the second you approach such a puzzle Gwen or Max will chime in telling you precisely what you have to do. I know the game is designed for kids, but I think they can puzzle out themselves that the giant red man with giant red muscles can move a crate onto a switch, especially after they've done it five times already.

The game is ported over from the PS2, but they've decided to Wii-ify the control scheme a bit. The game uses the Remote/Nunchuck combo, and this is the only controller option (They couldn't at least make it Classic Controller compatible?). You move with the analogue stick, and jump with the Z button on the nunchuck. Now, I don't know if you've ever tried to do precise platforming with one hand, but it's not that easy. After 20 years of moving with the left, and jumping with the right, having to do it all with the left feels downright awkward. Unfortunately, the rest of the Wii controls don't fare much better.

Despite having no options to toggle, there are still two ways to play as relates to combat controls. You can rely on motion sensitivity, go with old fashioned button mashing, or find a happy combination of the two. Light attacks are performed with either the A button or swiping the Wiimote side-to-side. Heavy attacks are done with either the B Button or swiping the Wiimote up and down. Special Attacks (which are unique for each alien) involve either Down on the D-Pad or swiping the nunchuck up and down. And in a nice touch, activating the Omnitrix (thus changing into an alien) can be done by holding C (block) and waving the Wiimote up and down (the instruction book recommends slapping it against your left wrist, like you're pressing the Omnitrix button), or simply pressing Up on the D-Pad. Selecting aliens is always done with Left and Right on the D-Pad.

Like most games where motion sensitivity is clumsily tacked onto a game not designed for it, you'll probably be more comfortable pressing buttons than swinging the remote around. It's more precise and comfortable, especially since the games many combos require some level of precision to choose which one you want. Though the fact that movement and jumping are both tacked onto the nunchuck is a constant problem that you cannot remedy. You'll just have to deal with it if you want to play the game.

If the game is even worth playing at this point.

Story: 5

The game's story is precisely what you would expect from a game of this nature. A bunch of thinly connected events featuring a variety of Ben 10 villains all seemingly conspiring together for this or that. The grand scheme of the story is wholly unimportant, but the scenes are short enough to be unobtrusive while containing enough witty banter and personality to justify their existence. They take you from place to place and keep you mildly amused while doing it, which is really all I ask of most games. They don't all have to be Final Fantasy. Still, something more substantial would have certainly been nice.

Features: 4

The game does include some unlockable extras like character artwork and model viewers, along with some special skins you can use if you so choose. It's more than the typical game average of 0 interesting things, so it gets points for that, but there's absolutely nothing to get excited about.

Overall: 5

I actually find titles like this appealing in a strange sort of way. I suppose it's the same reason horror movie fans tend to adore films where blood made of ketchup and paint drips down the body of a screaming woman who's huddled in a corner in fear of the rubber snake bouncing towards her. It's something that you don't need to think a whole lot about to get into, and that has an appeal of its own. This value is compounded by the license, which is a treat for the fans of that license.

I don't think I can “recommend” it in the same way I would recommend Super Mario Galaxy or Mass Effect, but if you have some cash to burn and are a fan of Ben 10, you could certainly do worse than giving this title a try. If you're not a fan of the license however, you probably shouldn't touch it with a fifty foot pole.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/08

Game Release: Ben 10: Protector of Earth (US, 10/30/07)