Following on from where the Megamind film left off, Megamind: Ultimate Showdown continues the plot of the film, as you step into the super-boots of the tyrannical good guy, Megamind, who is now a reformed criminal, working towards peace in the city. And, as is always the way, everything was going fine, until his arch-nemesis, Blue Tighten (must... resist... urge... to.... correct...) and the Doom Syndicate show up, causing chaos across the city and stealing your DNA tracking device. As the new bad-guy-turned-hero on the block, it's your job to stop them and reclaim the parts of your DNA tracking device, which have handily been scattered through the levels of the game.
Now, Megamind: Ultimate Showdown isn't a bad game in itself - but it probably verges on false advertising with the box. Billed as a '2-player adventure' on the box, Megamind is really anything but - while two people can play at the same time - it's definitely a tacked-on, last minute decision, as it's been so poorly executed. In the vaunted two player co-op mode, the second player plays as some weird robot thing that can do nothing but shoot enemies and collect blue orbs (and although the loading screen does say that there are places that player two can reach that player one can't, we haven't found any). And while that's not a problem in itself, the game's been made practically unplayable for the second player.
Stop smiling.
For starters, the in-game camera only ever tracks Megamind, meaning that it's next to impossible to keep track of where you are. While it wouldn't be a problem if you couldn't disappear off the screen, there's no such provision been made in Megamind, so you'll often find that, as your co-op partner goes off to fight crime as Megamind, the camera will move, and you'll lose yourself off the side of the screen, only to have to wait for a few seconds, until the game eventually respawns you next to the bald headed do gooder himself. Even playing with someone who's mindful of how often the game manages to lose the second player, the amount of times it happened went into double figures on each level - something that's bound to annoy and confuse children, especially. Which is a bit of a problem, as they're the main audience the game's been aimed at.
And lets hope player two has good eyesight, as the robot character the second player plays as is so small, fast, and well camouflaged when compared with the background, it's next to impossible to keep track of him on the screen when there's more than a few enemies around - so you'll get lost a lot, often ending up just blindly firing and wiggling the analogue stick in the hope of hitting something. Either that, or you end up firing just so you can use the bright red laser to try and find yourself. When it said '2-player adventure' we were hoping for a LEGO-style game, where each character has special things only they can do, so you need to properly work together to complete the levels - or at the very least, a game where one player doesn't keep vanishing off the side of the screen, but Megamind: Ultimate Showdown is as much a '2-player adventure' as Super Mario Galaxy is on the Wii, where the second player can shoot stuff and that's about it. Colour us disappointed. Oh, and Megamind: Ultimate Showdown subscribes to that pet hate of mine - only giving player 1 achievements. I've done the game just as much as player 1, and would like to get some sort of recognition for it, thank you very much.
Even in official artwork, the robot is kind of hard to spot.
Saying that, when played in single player, the game's fine, with that kid's film tie-in simplicity that means anyone can play it. The levels have a few 'puzzles' in them, which mostly involve locating an object, putting it in a hole and pressing a switch, while others involve picking up a different weapon, and using it on some object to access the next area. It's mostly relatively straightforward, although some of the platforming is far more awkward than it needs to be - for example, the first level has you trying to climb up the ramp created by a giant robotic arm, but it's way too difficult to even stay on the arm without slipping off the sides, let alone jump up it.
Scattered through the levels are blue orbs of 'Blue Ion Nano-Kinectic Energ-Y' or B.I.N.K.E.Y for short, which acts as the game's currency, allowing you to upgrade Megamind's arsenal of weapons to fire over a greater range, or affect multiple enemies and the like. One thing the levels do seem to miss are health pick-ups - you have one bar of health that has to last you the entire level, with no way of refilling it, so once you're out of health, you die. It's a strange decision, but it isn't a massive problem, as when you die, you'll just re-appear with full health exactly where you left off, whether you're running around the streets, or halfway through killing a boss (which'll still have the exact same amount of health as when you died).
There do seem to be collectable 'loot items' littered around the levels, but there's no way to find out how many there are supposed to be in a level, or which levels you've already got them on - and as there's no achievement or anything for getting all of them, there's little incentive to put the effort in to find them. Minigames unlock as you play through the story, but we couldn't work out how to get two players in those, and as minigames always work best in multiplayer, they're unlikely to be played much.
In light of the fact that this is a game aimed at children, the controls are nicely simple - the left stick moves Megamind, the A button jumps, and pressing it twice will give you a double jump, B interacts with switches, boxes and the like, and the X button attacks. The controls are occasionally a pit pernickity though, needing you to press the B button a couple of times for it to realise you want to press the switch, or you'll need to navigate Megamind into a rather precise position for the picture of the button to appear above his head.
In all, Megamind: Ultimate Showdown is decent enough in single player, but is far off the 'Ultimate Showdown' the title implies, with some awkward platforming sections, and essentially broken co-op. Despite what it claims on the box, if you're looking for a good co-op adventure, you'd be best looking elsewhere, to things like the LEGO games, which are miles above this.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
