WALL-E (Wii) Review

WALL*E for the Nintendo Wii is a by-the-numbers 3-D platform game that is let down by a frustrating camera, technical problems and sometimes difficult controls. The game follows the story of Disney and Pixars excellent animated film, but fails to capture the same free spirit and sense of fun. The games general lack of quality and polish ensures it never manages to break out of the typical film-to-game doldrums, which is sad because the source material should lend itself extremely well to a video game.

WALL*E places the player in control of the titular, ultra-cute garbage collecting robot and allows them to play through a general adaptation of the extremely charming film. The game uses the standard 3-D platforming elements of jumping, collecting items and navigating through environmental puzzles but never really does anything that allows the game to stand out from the crowd of similar titles. There are some fun environmental puzzles which require the player to collect and throw blocks of compressed garbage to activate moving platforms and other paths, but nothing that is too taxing for even the most inexperienced player. Some of these puzzles can still provide a brief challenge, but very soon, the puzzles start to look and feel very familiar. There are plenty of things to collect throughout the stages and lots of different little bonuses to unlock, but it very quickly becomes apparent that WALL*E is not going to stray too far from the standards of 3-D platforming.

The game does provide some different gameplay elements, though, when the player is put in control of Eve: WALL*Es pristine white robot girlfriend. Eve is not tethered to the ground and is free to fly around and explore the stages from above. Using Eve is actually really relaxing and there is a great sense of freedom in flying free around the stages searching for areas to scan. It is something that is most reminiscent of a game like Endless Ocean. Instead of a wide open expanse of beautiful ocean, the player must explore humanitys dirty, twisted refuse. Sadly, there is just not much to do but fly from checkpoint to checkpoint. Some of the checkpoints are located in out of the way places that require quite a bit of exploration to find, but it is all over far too quickly. It isnt all great though, as Eve must also navigate long pipes, shooting obstructions out of the way. These sections lose that fantastic sense of freedom and are a frustrating distraction from the free-flying areas.

Moving WALL*E around is reasonably easy, but, due to the little boxs tendency to take off at full speed, making small or precise movements can be quite frustrating. The game controls reasonably well, with standard analogue movement combined with pointer controls, but the camera system can be quite frustrating. It never seems to want to centre behind WALL*E correctly and this is frustrating when precision jumping is required. The player will undoubtedly experience plenty of cheap deaths, especially in those sections when it is necessary to compress WALL*E into a small box, but it is never so cheap that players will feel like giving up.

Sadly, there are quite a few technical problems with the game, including an inconsistent framerate, problems with clipping, screen tearing, and a tendency to skip animations. While these are things that never get in the way of the gameplay, it is noticeable and something that can interfere with a players ability to immerse themselves in the game. Technical issues like this should not still be appearing in these types of games. There has been more than enough time for standard game engines to be developed that can properly make use of the power of the console. Considering the Wii is essentially an upgraded Gamecube, developers should be more than comfortable with the hardware and should have game engines that dont just work, but work well.

The graphics are also below average. Textures are bland and fuzzy, environments are repetitive and uninspired and the whole thing is just not up to par visually with the standard set by the film. Obviously the Wii is unable to produce graphics that rival a multi-million dollar animated film, but they should be better than what is presented. The sound is straight out of the film though, and does a great job of recreating the audio experience for the player. All of the bleeps and buzzes are there and they go some way towards making up for the lacklustre graphics.

The game does manage to present a reasonably lengthy adventure, with lots to of things to collect and unlock. For those players keen to get a little bit more of the film experience, it may be worth putting in the extra effort to open up all the bonus features, but for most there will be very little to draw them back to the game once they have played through it once. There are multiplayer modes including co-operative games, but they are just not very good.

WALL*E could have been a great movie-to-game experience if it had been given a bigger budget and more time to explore how best to translate the game from the big screen to the console. Instead of multiple smaller stages, the developers could have let WALL*E and Eve explore larger expanses of the environment. This would have fit better with one of the biggest themes of the film, isolation and loneliness, and would have given the player an experience more like the film rather than a bunch of random platform levels that have very little to do with the events of the movie. As it stands, there is certainly a disconnection between film and game and WALL*E is a poorer game because of it.

Too often, developers are expected to pump out these types of games on a shoestring budget and in a ridiculously short timeframe. It is amazing how many publishers seem to be happy to ignore that licenses present a fantastic opportunity to leverage the popularity of the source material. It is also amazing how often license holders seem to ignore that video games present an opportunity to expand their own intellectual property. The shining light of licensed video games is the example of Goldeneye. The Rare-developed game was able to leverage the James Bond license so well that even the completely lacklustre Bond games that followed it were able to sell millions of copies. The game also had an amazing effect on the fortunes of the movie franchise as well, with Bond movies experiencing a new golden age in popularity post-Goldeneye. The film and the game were able to work together to add tremendous value to the license. Unfortunately this kind of opportunity has been missed with WALL*E as the game is an easily forgotten experience that will do little to add to the license.