WALL.E

Before playing this game, see the movie it’s based on. Wall.E (the game) is many things, one of them being a clever prequel to the film's storyline. And if you play the game, or even look at a screenshot too closely, it will reveal things about the bigger picture – a story that is more touching than hilarious, diving deeper than Nemo and into uncharted territory for an animated flick.

With that in mind, this review was written to reflect nothing more than what you would have seen in Wall.E's many trailers (or recent TV commercials, which reveal absolutely nothing about the story).

And now, without further delay, my review of the game based on Pixar's latest hit:

When Gameplay Goes Clever

As a robot that has spent the last several hundred years living alone, Wall.E has become very lonely. He was created with one purpose: to compact garbage into small cubes. His journey begins near the beginning of his career, where frequent tests and measures were put in place to assure the quality of Wall.E's work. This translates to a fun obstacle course, which in reality serves as a tutorial for players unaware of Wall.E's controls.

Most are expected – you'll press the X button to jump and the triangle button to fire his laser. Trash is collected and compacted automatically every time you cross a path of garbage. Once the cube is released, Wall.E can pick it up and throw it as both a weapon and puzzle-solving device.

Having seen the movie before playing the game, I was most impressed by the way Wall.E moved on PSP. His animations were very close to those of the movie. But the developers didn't stop there. Since this is a video game, it is inevitable that he will die from time to time. And given the family-friendly nature of Pixar, those death sequences couldn't be anything violent. Thus, if Wall.E falls into a vat of water, you'll see an amusing scene where bubbles are shot from his body as the water begins to pour in. When zapped by an opposing robot, his body shuts down with the same kind of animations you'll see in the movie. There are others, along with a series of animated sequences that not only mirror but expand on the film's story.

Before playing a game, I normally have an idea or two in my head of how it could be great and how it could suck. There's a good one in Wall.E that I never thought of: they gave him hints of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. This is genius, and should've been obvious. Wall.E doesn't walk, he rolls. But it never came to mind.

There are also bits of racing games, action/adventures (item collection), and a tiny bit of combat. You'll crash into blocks to unlock certain passageways and burn through others using Wall.E's laser. When you're not searching for several dozen blue items to unlock "Door [Enter # here]," you'll be playing memory games with colored keypads. It's a nice mix that ultimately leads to repetition. Still, it would have worked had the game not acted like a Sith Lord and turned to the Dark Side.

When Gameplay Goes Bad

After the first stage or two, players will not be able to fight the urge to scream any longer. The cool level design, which forces you to climb several platforms, is not inviting when the stiff controls prevent you from doing your job. It's a total mess whose exasperation level multiplies every time you slip off a ledge. Why? No checkpoints. A couple levels have them – most do not. You will struggle to carefully maneuver across the most narrow platform (a task that, in theory, would be easy with a Dual-Shock 2 analog stick) and get nothing for your effort. Unless you're a developer who’s willing to fine-tune the controls to death, the PSP thumbstick was not made for this kind of a game. Multiple times in almost every stage, I made it to the very end, died, and was forced to start all over.

Kids games are tough to make. I wouldn't be surprised if the developer or publisher did a focus group and found that its participants referred to Wall.E as a "difficult" game. But what those kids (or perhaps only the focus group moderator) interpreted as difficult was not actually challenging. They merely fell victim to the flaws that all players of this game will fall victim to. The truth is that, without these frustrations, Wall.E would be one of the easiest games based on a Pixar movie.