Return To Home Page		October 4, 2009

Paper Shredders are damn tough in G-Force!

G-Force, the movie, opened in American cinemas on July 24 taking an impressive $US117 million to date, but as usual Australian cinema goers needed to wait for the next school holidays to get their furry rodent fix with G-Force opening here on September 17. Of course with any kid-friendly movie comes the required video game tie-in, this time through Disney Interactive Studios and UK based developer Eurocom. Is this game any good? Actually, yes.

G-Force the movie and game is about a group of highly-trained covert guinea pig spy agents, codenamed G-Force. Naturally, they are the only team that can save the world from an evil billionaire and his army of robot appliances. There's nothing too surprising about the storyline, or the outcome, but I was a little disappointed that there was no background given to how these rodents became so, well, special-ops. Video game adaptations offer a big opportunity to expand the storyline and universe from the big-screen versions, but little effort has been taken here.

In this action game you play Darwin who must travel through a series of locations, defeating enemies and reaching the goals. There is plenty of platforming required, and the jetpack on Darwin allows him to traverse large gaps, run at great speed, or boost up to high ledges and locations.

Darwin takes on some waffle irons.

While playing through this game one thing continually came to mind, Transformers. How's that you ask? Well the main enemies you will encounter through the game are ordinary objects such as clock radios, paper shredders, computers, water coolers, toasters that then manage to transform into psychopathic killer robots - not too dissimilar to the ones that transform in Sam Witwicky's kitchen in Transformers 2. Still each of these enemies looks wonderful when transformed, and they will often require different methods of attack to defeat them.

Fortunately the developers have given you a fair arsenal of weapons and gadgets to help take out enemies. As well as your usual Cluster Rifle, Plasma Gun and Pulse Cannon the game throws more obscure weapons at you including the Flame Thrower, Freeze Gun, Shot Bolter and Homing Missiles. As you progress through the game these can be upgraded to hold larger amounts of ammo by spending the SaberSense chips which you collect by defeating enemies or smashing open crates. Three weapons can be mapped to the Square, Triangle or Circle buttons, but you can switch these over at any time to ensure you have the best possible weapons. The main weapon though is an electric which which is pretty good a taking out several near-by enemies.

Using Mooch the Blowfly.

Another impressive feature of this game is the puzzle solving aspect. Sure, there's nothing here too taxing on the brain, but in a lot of locations you'll need to switch over to your sidekick character Mooch - a blowfly! The great thing about Mooch is his ability to fly through small spaces such as gaps in laser beams, or through dangerous obstacles in order to turn off switches or take out enemies thereby clearing the path for Darwin to continue his adventures.

There are a couple of disappointments with this game the primary one being the lack of multi-player, either offline or online. Given that the single player takes around 8-10 hours to get through it would have been nice to have some extra content or mini-games to keep us amused.

Certainly one of the most interesting aspects of this game is the visuals. Sure there's nothing here that pushes the most number of polygons, the best frame rate, or the most detailed textures. Where this game comes into its own though is the inclusion of 3D visuals. Yes, you will have to wear those silly red and cyan (blue) anaglyph glasses which are provided with this release, but it does bring the game into, well, the third dimension. It's a pretty good effect overall and while anaglyph 3D is probably the worst of the 3D technologies, it's the only practical choice in homes at the moment.

Darwin is still battling the shredder!

Unfortunately, for me, watching movies or playing games in 3D tends to give me a headache after about 30 minutes, but for this game it allowed me to switch between 2D and 3D on a regular basis. Either way the game looks solid enough, but there is an extra thrill seeing it in 3D so that would be a preferred option. The only issue though is that the anaglyph technology can throw the colours out somewhat, that's just how it is.

Also impressive was the voice work throughout the game. While Nicolas Cage, Tracy Morgan and Penelope Cruz have not reprised their roles for the video game, Sam Rockwell, Roxana Ortega, Bill Nighy and John Favreau have and there are plenty of wisecracks and dialogue driven moments throughout the movie. Music is acceptable, as are the audio effects.

With the movie aimed at youngsters it's not surprising to see the game also developed with that target audience in mind. If you have youngsters that liked G-Force at the cinemas then you may want to add this to your shopping list.

Review By: Dave Warner

GRAPHICS	Pretty average compared to other PS3 games, but 3D is cool.	68%
SOUND	Passable music and effects, good speech but main cast are missing.	70%
GAMEPLAY	This is actually a fairly decent action platform game.	78%
VALUE	Only 10 hours or so single player, no multiplayer, little replay value.	65%
OVERALL	G-Force is a passable movie tie-in which has a big selling point in 3D visuals. It's aimed at youngsters and they should get some entertainment from this game.	70%