Wall.E (Wii)

Wall-E was one of the hit films of last year and, true to form, it's been spun off into a computer game by THQ. Sadly though, this is yet another of those film adaptations that takes little inspiration from the source material; sure you get to play Wall-E himself and lots of other characters from the film pop up from time to time, but otherwise it misses the mark quite badly.


Of all the themes from the film, the one that THQ decided ...
...not necessarily a dead-end concept; I remember a memorable game called Trashman from many years back in which you did pretty much the same, with a bit of good humour thrown in. However, here it's just a means to an end and often you're just gathering up piles to throw them elsewhere.


The graphics aren't too bad by Wii standards; they're not going to blow anyone away or be mistaken for anything produced by Pixar themselves, but ... more

Wall-E was one of the hit films of last year and, true to form, it's been spun off into a computer game by THQ. Sadly though, this is yet another of those film adaptations that takes little inspiration from the source material; sure you get to play Wall-E himself and lots of other characters from the film pop up from time to time, but otherwise it misses the mark quite badly.

Of all the themes from the film, the one that THQ decided to go with was the gathering up of rubbish; that's not necessarily a dead-end concept; I remember a memorable game called Trashman from many years back in which you did pretty much the same, with a bit of good humour thrown in. However, here it's just a means to an end and often you're just gathering up piles to throw them elsewhere.

The graphics aren't too bad by Wii standards; they're not going to blow anyone away or be mistaken for anything produced by Pixar themselves, but reasonably evoke the look of the film. There are some cut scenes that I'm sure were hoped to add a bit of depth, but they're mostly cringe-worthy and serve more to interrupt the game than enhance the feel of it.

What's left is pretty much a bog standard platform/puzzler, that although fairly well designed, doesn't really manage to evoke anything special; once I'd got the knack of the unusual control system, I found it fairly straightforwards. A bit of jumping, picking up piles of rubbish, throwing it at targets is all it takes; as you get further, timing becomes of the essence with swinging platforms and hazards to avoid but it's never particularly hard going. For some variety, there's a bit of gratuitous on-rails shooting thrown in later on, where you get to play EVE, a rather cleaner robot from the film, and you can tazer away to your hearts content, but this isn't a terribly original concept either; it's all at about the level of the shooting minigames in Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, to be honest.

The controls are pretty poor and make fairly gratuitous use of Wii gestures (shake your Wii-mote to throw a cube of rubbish, etc.) and getting to grips with them is far and away the biggest obstacle to getting into the game. This is a bit of a shame, as with it being a family film, I'm sure that young children will want to have a go and they may become rather frustrated. Experienced gamers shouldn't have too much trouble though.

As a whole, it's neither unplayably bad or inspired enough to stand out from the hundreds of other similar games now on the market. I'm pretty sure that anyone who likes this sort of game would mildly enjoy it, but then again they'd also get a kick out of playing through Super Mario Galaxy - still the standout platformer for the Wii - yet again for the fifth time; those who haven't done that at least once should probably give that a go before considering the likes of Wall-E.

Overall, this is an uninspired game that's a bit of a waste of a license for an excellent film. If you've got kids who are fans of the film and reasonably adept with a Wii-mote they might enjoy it, but I'd doubt they'd replay it much. Other than that, I can't really recommend it. As well as the Wii version, it's also available for PS2, PS3, PSP, X-Box 360 and Windows with a cut-down version for the DS.

(Review also posted on ciao.com as Phantom_Wombat) 

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