Basic Beat’em Up
It has recently come to my attention that every single movie that is released in theaters must have a video game counterpart. Some movies have no right being made as games (stay away from Elf starring Will Farrell) but The Incredibles had a lot of potential due to the superhero background. However, the game play suffers tremendously from lack of variation and any type of depth.
The Incredibles contains your classic beat’em up style game play similar to Double Dragon or Battle Toads. Players take control of a character that beats up every person they happen to come across. Beating up tons of enemies while using the same attack move grows repetitive after you finish stage three.
I feel that if the developers took a little bit more time to further develop the battle system, The Incredibles would have been a solid game. However, this game has no super moves, no weapons, no environment interactivity, and no leveling up. To make things worse, you will only fight the same pallet swapped enemy. Each area’s environment also looks exactly the same.
Despite not adding any flavor to this game, the play control is well rounded. The playable character can double jump, dash, and perform three hit combos. This basic combat structure is a great start to any brawler, but the developers just seemed to stop short after the game’s engine was programmed.
Not only does the game short change players in the game play department, but the AI is quite ruthless. I have had more than half a dozen enemies on screen at one time, all beating the hell out of me. The enemies attack in packs and swarm the player all at the same time. This makes fighting frustrating. Enemies will also mock the player after knocking you to the ground. It seems the goal the developers had was to piss off gamers instead of presenting an enjoyable experience.
The game might have bad game play, but the graphics have a love hate relationship. Yes, the character sprites are well animated and the backgrounds sport some nice detail, but there isn’t any variation. Fighting the same enemy over and over in the same environment decreases the replayability. The same goes for the audio. The music gives off the friendly cartoon theme, but hearing the same song makes the game play boring.
With a little bit more work, The Incredibles could have been a solid action game. But the repetition that sets in will quickly leave a bad taste in gamer’s mouths. Stay away from The Incredibles and play the remake of River City Ransom instead.
