Bionicle Heroes

"It's like Lego Star Wars, but not"

Bionicle Heroes is based on a Lego toy line. I've never actually played with these toys buy I always liked their design. I was actually tempted to buy this game when it was discounted to about $15 but something told me not to. So I ended up renting it instead. Should I have just bought it instead? Read on!

To be honest I saw no plot here. Each level has the enemy building some random Bionicle baddy and then you fight him at the end of each level. That's as much plot as I got out of this game.

The graphics in Bionicle Heroes are actually pretty good. The characters are kind of shiny as if they are made of metal and for a guy made out of Lego's he looks pretty cool and nicely detailed. The levels themselves while generic in theme have colorfulness to them that most games don't have lately. The detail in the levels isn't as high but it still looks nice.

No voice work is present in the game. The characters nod, shrug and use emotion to relay everything. The music was okay but I really don't remember much about it. Sound effects seemed limited. Guns make their own sounds and stuff but nothing really stuck out. It all kind of melded together.

The game has an odd control setup. There is no strafing so that was my first confusion. You shoot with the A button (which is odd as well) and Y changes characters. B allows you to use special skills as a character. That's all there is. It's simple to use but it feels like some things were missing and while the control is responsive, some characters move rather slow compared to others. Also the game used an odd auto aim setup that causes some really bad camera angles which I am not a fan of. The right allows for camera movement but it doesn't really work since the auto aim kicks in and causes problems.

Bionicle Heroes is a third person shooter. For some reason I am just on a shooter kick these days but it is a nice change of pace since I usually get a lot of RPG time in.

The game is split up into 20+ levels. Four per themed area. You start off with just the beach area being open but then two more open after that so you can mix it up. It's a nice feature.

The level design is very linear. To the point where it was like the secrets were being shoved into my face. A nice feature though is that to access some of the secret areas you need a specific mask. This requires replaying the level once you have all masks.

Within each level are masks. They represent new characters or power ups for characters you already have. It's an interesting idea and while it could be hard to figure what character to use for each situation the game places a face symbol by each interactive object and it tells you to hit Y and it will auto select the correct mask for you. It kind of dumbs the entire experience down.

If you haven't noticed yet this game shares a lot in common with Lego Star Wars. So if you've played that then you'll feel right at home with this game. You collect Lego pieces. Collect enough and you'll turn gold and enter hero mode. This makes you invincible. Oddly enough thought it gets taken away every now and then or when you need to activate a gold object. Boss fights require 2-3 gold transformations to make the bosses accessible to you and then you sit and wait for their shield to drop, hit once, wash and repeat the waiting process.

The game does feel long though because the levels seem ungodly long. That or I was bored with how linear they were. There are secret items and rankings for the levels. You can buy new items and upgrade your characters with the Lego pieces. Achievements are almost all level based and can be gotten by just beating the game except for the 100% completion one but that just requires you to beat the game and then revisit all of the levels.

It's not that Bionicle Heroes is a terrible game. It just isn't anything special. It feels like a bland version of Lego Star Wars and it makes it nice and clear how dull Lego Star Wars would be without the movie tie in. This does make an okay rental though and it's short enough to beat in a rental as well.

Story - 1/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 7/10
Control - 8/10
Game Play - 7/10
Replay Value - 5/10

Final Score - 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/10/07