Kid's film tie-in games - a genre that often gets slated for being too easy, repetitive or boring, and criticised for being nothing more than a quick cash-in of a popular film. But while other sites seem to unfairly slate these games, what they don't take into account is that the children the games are aimed at really seem to love them - my five year old cousin played the Little Mermaid and Toy Story 3 games to death. On the other hand, I also have a sort of soft spot for them - but whether that's because I have the gaming prowess of a six year old, or just the mental age of one, I don't know.
So now we come to Despicable Me, a game which lives up to its name in more ways than one. Setting itself apart, Despicable Me is a lot more puzzle based than the majority of other film tie-ins - but how much you enjoy it will depend largely on your skill.
Having never seen the film, I can't really tell you how well the game follows it. In the game you play as Gru, a super-villain who is trying to acquire rocket parts so that he can steal the moon before his rival Vector manages it, with only an arsenal of four weapons (an air gun, freeze ray, magnet gun and web gun), and an army of "small yellow plumbers in overalls" - the minions - at his disposal.
Before each level, you get a mission briefing from your head scientist, Dr. Nefario, and because he's only an ideas man, Dave the minion explains what you have to do... Assuming you speak minion-speak, that is.
Pressing the Z button brings up the minion launcher, and by pointing the Wii Remote at the screen and pressing the A button, you can place your minions where you want them. Minions can be ordered into one of three different formations - either a single minion, a tower of five of them, or a ring, each of which are affected by each of Gru's weapons. For example, you can freeze a single minion to trap it in an ice block, which can be used to hold down buttons, or even to create a floating platform in water. Or you could shoot the minion tower with your air gun to blow it over, creating a bridge to get across a gap. Your guns also have a variety of non-minion related uses - for example, you can freeze moving platforms to keep them in one place, which can make the trickier platforming sections quite a bit easier.
Shooting the ring formation with your air gun gives you a minion fan club.
Gru moves in two dimensions - you can move him left and right by using the Nunchuck's analogue stick, and make him jump by pressing A. Each of the levels follows a similar pattern of a series of obstacles (like moving platforms, lasers or boxing gloves) to get past, followed by a couple of puzzles (which mostly involve manipulating your minions to press buttons to get Gru to the exit), before you come to the rocket part, stash it away, and finally make your way past some more obstacles to the end of the level. Thrown into the mix are rooms with various works of art for Gru to deface, and characters which run away from you, that you can fire one of your guns at - both of these count as acts of 'despicableness', which add up to unlock costumes for Gru, the minions and a selection of 'family portraits' (which seem to mostly be funny looking dogs). There's also apparently a flying level, but I didn't get that far...
...because I couldn't. On the face of it, Despicable Me sounds like a perfect prospect, as a more puzzle-y kids film tie-in - in fact, the puzzles are the best bit of the game (the voice overs also make you smile from time to time too), but the problem comes when you get to the platforming obstacle course parts, which are ridiculously difficult - especially if, like me, you always mess up jumps in games. It's almost as if Despicable Me knew it was aiming too high though, as if you mess up the platforming sections enough times, it offers you the option to skip that section - something I took advantage of 6 times in the first level alone (and lost count of in the second level). On one hand, it does mean that you're able to progress - but if you're skipping two-thirds of the game, it does make you wonder what the point in playing through it is. Especially when Gru tells you "you'd do a lot better without all the failing" for the fifty-sixth time that day.
Yes, it is as despicable as it looks.
The other problem I had with Despicable Me, besides the difficulty, was with the controls. Not the best at remembering what buttons do what, I struggled with the controls from the very beginning, when faced with a tutorial which doesn't actually tell you what buttons to press. It tells you to shoot, without explaining how to (the B button, if you're interested), and that if you want to delete a minion, you'll need to go into minion manager mode, which, as far as I can remember, has something to do with pressing the c button to go into the right view, and then pressing the A button to delete minions - just don't quote me on that. But once I'd worked out the buttons, the re-occurring problem I had was that the game uses the nunchuck to both move Gru, and aim his guns, meaning that quite often, I'd find myself running off the edge of a platform to my doom, whilst trying to aim up and to the right. The secret seems to be to only push the stick very gently to aim, and push it harder to move - but I struggle with precision analogue stick controls, so rarely manage that.
There is an obligatory multiplayer mode too, where you and a friend play as Gru and Vector, piloting planes, in races to either trying to pick up the most minions (shooting your friend out of the sky makes them drop some minions), or pass through the most rings before the time runs out to win - and while both are surprisingly fun little distractions, there's not enough substance to them to keep you coming back for more.
All in all, Despicable Me is a decent game - it's just very, very difficult. If you feel like a challenge, and are more competent than me at platforming, it might be worth a look - but if, like me, you struggle with precision controls, you should pass this one by. Either that, or skip through two thirds of the game.
Format Reviewed: Nintendo Wii
