I have lamented over the last couple
of Ben 10 games, about how the developers seemed to completely miss the boat on
what the show is about. In the series featured on Cartoon Network, Ben Tennyson
is a young man who was (un)fortunate enough to be on a trip with his Grandpa Max
and cousin Gwen when a meteorite falls near their camp site. In the meteor, a
device called the Omnitrix attaches itself to Ben’s wrist. This device (which
looks like a weird watch) is actually the most powerful weapon in the galaxy,
for in it the DNA of thousands of aliens is stored and the wearer may transform
into any one of them. Problem is, the watch (which it is called in the series)
did not come with an instruction manual and while heroic in nature, Ben’s
efforts were often humorous and with the help of his family, ended up all good
in the end. Well, in this early years, Ben faced off against all sorts of
villains, the main one being a galactic despot named Vilgax. Vilgax wanted the
watch for himself so as to dominate the Universe. Well, long story short (too
late) Ben defeated Vilgax and sent him packing to lick his wounds.
The past incarnations of the license
always seemed to make it so Ben would only have a couple of the aliens in his
arsenal. That you could essentially play as the alien you liked most, and only
switch to the other aliens if you needed to climb a boat mast or glide over
lava. Not to mention things never really gelled all that well, aliens did things
they never did in the show, in short, the past games were stinkers.
"When you absolutely, positively have to
set it on fire, use your burning finger technique."
So keep up with me now, Ben has
grown a few years older and had stopped adventuring with Grandpa, who it turns
out was a Government type called "A Plumber" who fixed crisis-type problems
involving aliens. And in the latest Ben 10 Series (Alien Force) Ben has been
armed with a new slew of aliens, his cousin Gwen is now a full-blown sorceress
and the one-time enemy Kevin Levin is now part of the team.
The facts surrounding this title.
Cartoon Network has managed to come up with a storyline that is completely
original, falls in a splinter of time before the end of the last season’s ending
– but after many of the characters were found – AND manages to make everything
make sense. Additionally, since the game was written by series writers, they
also stay true to the lore of Ben 10. Finally, Cartoon Network gave Papaya
studios their blessing to come up with their own ideas as to what the homeworlds
of the featured aliens look like. The result is much better than anticipated.
Now in the game, Vilgax has returned
and wants to unleash his latest weapon on the Earth, the Null Void Cannon.
Vilgax is ticked off and he wants to make Ben pay for what he had done to him.
Vilgax has all his minions, many of which are baddies Ben has dealt with before,
but it gets crazier; Ben ends up getting all sorts of messed up and has to
travel to other planets in order to set things right. I am, taking great liberty
with the story and I do this because it is like a giant Ben 10 movie, and I
don’t want to cause spoilers. But I will tell you this – you only play as Ben,
you have some seriously big challenges in front of you and you need to
understand that Papaya has made an adventure game that steps a bit away from the
game’s of Ben’s past.
"In his early years, Batman tried several
glider wings without much success."
So controlling Ben and the aliens is
no great challenge, they each have a series of combo attacks and powerful moves
that are actually well detailed and animated. The crushing blows of Humoungasaur
and the quick agile attacks of Spider Monkey still aren’t where they should be,
but the game does an admirable job of first showing you when you need to use an
alien to get past an area and then allowing you to figure it out by yourself.
Yes, I still have gripes about the strength of certain attacks, because let’s be
honest – if an alien as powerful as a 12-foot tall, three-ton muscle-bound
behemoth needs to hit a robot three times to destroy it, it should take a
human-sized pile of goop about 300 times, but there isn’t that big of a
difference. Ok, I can forgive that though, since I don’t want to hit anything
300 times, but it is still a valid point, the whole attribute scale is not
varied enough from alien to alien, but chances are your young player could care
less. What I do like about the game, though, is that the developers managed to
make this game as much a Tomb Raider-styled adventure as well as an action
brawler. There are puzzles to overcome and baddies to destroy as well as that
"save the world" thing. But the game does an admirable job of making this a true
Ben 10 adventure.
The graphics in the game are better
than one might expect, I know some real thought went into creating the original
looking worlds and I like how whenever a new bad guy shows up, a small screen
comes up, giving details about them. Some of the boss fights are really quite
good and as much as I have to play these games with my own sons, I was more then
happy to slug it out in this one. Of course, I will tell you that it helps to be
a fan of the show since many, many characters zoom in during the games many cut
scenes and no detail is given about them whatsoever. And when I say characters,
I’m pretty much talking about everybody. I could only think of one character who
is not featured in this game that I would have liked to have seen. Yes, Ship is
in the game.
"I once caught a fish thiiiiiisssssss big!"
While I could not get too jazzed
about the in-game music, as it seemed to formulaic and familiar, but I was happy
about the game’s sound effects and the fact that they managed to get all the
voice actors from the show. Having the original voice cast reprise their roles
always lends a certain legitimacy to a game and this game has that legitimacy.
Now the game does not any sort of
multiplayer mode and considering that it is a third person perspective styled
game, it may be hard to make something like that happen unless its split-screen.
And did I mention I am not a fan of split-screen gameplay? Well, I am not and I
am glad they did not force some sort of multiplayer mode down our throats just
for the sake of having a multiplayer mode. I would have thought it was cool to
have a couple of mini-games where you played as the other two heroes in the
series, but I see that simply did not happen.
Gameplay: 8.0
Smooth, you can slip between Ben and the Aliens fairly easily and the developers
know that Ben cannot jump from alien to alien (yet) so you must revert back to
Ben. A nice transition between all-out brawler to smooth action, to high
adventure movement.
Graphics: 7.6
The animation choice was not like the cartoon series and not quite over-glossed
either. A smooth-looking game with plenty of things to admire and places to go
that are wildly different. Cut scenes are enjoyable because they move the story
forward and have some good surprises.
Sound: 7.0
Like I said, I enjoy a game that uses its source talent to give it a more
accurate experience. The in-game music is a bit disappointing.
Difficulty: Medium
The game does not coddle its player by making things too easy. If anything, this
game is a title that challenges and rewards.
Concept: 8.0
Finally a game that understands its source material and manages to come up with
a game that respects that material, plus it’s an original story written by
people who understand Ben 10.
Overall: 7.8
This game was made for fans of Ben 10, by fans of Ben 10, those who don’t know
the rich and varied backstory will be left scratching their heads with the plot
but those who know will be rewarded with a strong title.
