Review of Wall-E

I rented this game from GameFly while on vacation after seeing the movie and I have enjoyed it.It's certainly geared toward kids and was pretty easy to get through, but it was fun.I wasn't expecting a puzzle game but that is mostly what you'll get.Call it a sort of puzzle-based platformer.The majority of the game requires you to collect energy modules to pass from area to area, and you'll also need to figure out how to gain access to the various zones.Some other portions of the game require you to race through a level while avoiding obstacles or playing a virtual game of "Simon Says" with computer screens to open doorways.

The graphics on the game are quite good for a PS2, this will certainly blend in with other PS2 titles and Wall-E and other characters are still quite expressive and look good.Level loading times are fairly quick but it does drive me nuts how often the game will save to your memory card and how frequently you'll get pop-ups or the game will jump to new "levels" early on.As you go through the game the pop-ups become less of a problem but the game will continue to load and save frequently.I imagine this is far less of a nuisance on the Playstation 3, PC, and Mac versions.

The audio gets the job done, most of the sound effects work well for the game and the music at times is quite fun.However there are one or two pieces of music you will become VERY familiar with throughout the game.

The controls in the game work fine but it would be nice to customize the layout.I did struggle with the analogue stick quite often trying to move Wall-E around, but in real life it would be difficult to move precisely on those tracks so that is one explanation.In the end I'd often have to circle around repeatedly to get where I needed to be.

After thoroughly enjoying the movie it was nice to dive back into Wall*E's world with this game, it's not perfect but it does expand quite nicely on aspects of things the movie barley touched.However it is obvious that this game was in development quite a long while before the movie released because there are many things that are off target from the movie.Some was surely necessary for the purposes of making this a game, but others I imagine are because Pixar left the developers in the dark as to what happens in the movie.But I don't want to spoil the game story or the movie for anyone yet so I'll update this review at a later time to fill in the details.

In the end, this IS a fun game and a great way for people to get to hang out with Wall*E and the others for a while.There is some good gameplay to be found and this will make a fairly good movie-based addition to your Playstation 2 library.It's worth a purchase for kids but other gamers might be satisfied enough to rent it.Me personally, I'll get the PS3 version when prices come down later on.



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