Welcome to the future, and to the past, since it all depends exactly where you take the time machine. Meet Wilbur Robinson, the son of a world-class inventor, one that has obviously created a time machine. Wilbur is not your average kid though, rather than being bored with history he loves to venture out and experience it first hand, and even occasionally leaving his mark upon it. Between his trips to the past he is just your average kid that rests at home and does day-to-day chores. One of those chores includes taking out the trash, and when he does just that a thief in a Bowler Hat, creatively called that mind you, breaks in and steals the time machine. Now Wilbur could tell his father this, but rather than doing so he decides to try and take matters into his own hands and solve this problem by going after him in a second time machine.
I will start off by saying that this is a movie game, so normally I do not expect a lot out of them. They are generally made to either add more press for the movie, and also to make a little bit more money on the side by getting parents to buy the game for their children. This follows some of the adventures of Wilbur so that people can enjoy a deeper experience with the main character, which is what you would normally see in other franchise videogames. I suppose it is best to get down and dirty and start listing off the mechanics.
The game is an action platformer, so you will need to kill a few enemies and at times jump from ledge to ledge. It also has the aspect of a platformer where there are a few small puzzles that are quite easy to complete. The game has plenty of invisible walls, and when it comes to platforming the game will not allow you to jump over ledges that are impossible to make to the other side. The game does not give you the ability to slide down ladders, which can be a little annoying when you want to keep the action going. At the same time you pretty much have unlimited life, where if you do end up dying you just warp back a few moments to retry the task.
Gameplay can be somewhat tedious as the main thing you need to do in the game is break down computer components and reassemble them into something that advances the storyline. After you have the required items you must go to the transmogrifier and tell it exactly what you wish to create out of a list of items. Sometimes you need to figure out what you need to advance in the storyline, and luckily since it is a kid’s game they keep it down on the easy side. If you are not following that pattern, you are trying to crawl your way through a few small puzzles. Later in the story it mainly becomes about trying to upgrade your equipment or unlocking a few of the “cheats” by constructing acquired blueprints. Weapons are generally found by going through the storyline, which has you push the action to try and unlock all of the pieces.
For weapons there is the Robinson Disassembler that breaks down many interactive items into three different components. There is the Chargeball glove that expels electrical bolts, which is your main weapon. There is the Robinson Scanner that scans items to tell you what they can be disassembled into, or it also tells you information about the item or enemy, like that their weaknesses are. There is the Robinson Havoc Gloves that allow you to attack with a sonic boom, which is generally used to destroy debris or dig into the ground and attack enemies from below. They can also be used to navigate Havoc puzzles, which unlock extra content. Finally there is also the Magma Industries Levitation Ray that helps lift up giant objects. Each is gained based upon when the storyline wants you to use them.
Control wise your character moves a bit too slowly, which drags done the fun of gameplay. General targeting controls can be a little annoying since it can difficult to hit enemies unless you establish an auto lock. The target mode is sluggish, and does not allow you to rotate through your opponents unless they are onscreen. If you have an enemy targeted, generally you can flick to another other interactive objects by pushing the right analog stick, but this does not work 100% of the time. There is a manual lock that you can briefly establish with some weapons, which can be used to hit distant enemies beyond your normal range, but it forces your character to stay stationary and thus open for attack. There are a few environmental controls as well, so depending on where you are in any given level you will need to follow what is on screen to advance.
What is also common in most movie games is that there are plenty of minigames that you can play, which makes up for the general storyline being fairly short... At least a little bit. One involves needing to race an orb down a path while trying to make it to the finish line before the record time. Another one is a top down game where you need to destroy all of your opponent’s shields with electrical bolts before sending on into their goal. In the game you also need to protect your own so that you are not scored on. There are also a few power-ups that change gameplay, but it seems that the computer generally beats you to them. There are a few other minigames, but nothing really to write home about.
Graphically the game looks decent, but it is far from being beautiful. The environments look very childish, but they are good enough to hold my attention so they should be just fine for kids. There is no blood, but of course you would not expect to see that in an E 10+ game. The fighting is fairly generally fluent, and some of the effects are pulled off fairly well. Shadows have a mind of their own though, where sometimes they are not even connected to your body and are not projected properly onto the environment around the character. There are a few clipping problems where limbs will be lost in walls as you walk by them, which is not making me a happy camper. For the sound, well the game is fairly average. It ties in well enough with the childish style, but not much else is completed. I do like the fact that they have several interesting voicing some of the characters, like a fellow from Ned’s Newt (Harland Williams), a woman from Mad TV (Nicole Sullivan) and Adam Freaking West.
In the end, this is what you would expect from a normal franchise videogame. It helps expand the movie a little, and that is pretty much all you can ask. It is not the best game out there, but it should be enough to entertain the children you rent or buy it for. If you are looking to get a few achievements on the game, it is a decent one to go with if you do not mind being bored at times. I would have liked to see the game go on for a bit longer than only a few hours, but I guess they ran out of material. Wrapping up, Captain Gordon gives Meet The Robinsons a C.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions? CaptainGordonEdward@Gmail.com
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