MOBILE GAME REVIEW
Product: Wanted
| Publisher: I-play
| Format: Mobile
| Genre: Action, Film/
TV tie-
in
| Players: 1
| Format: J2ME
| File size: 685KB
| Reviewed on: N81 8GB
other handsets
| Version: Europe
Wanted, the forthcoming Hollywood film starring James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie, promises to be a rollercoaster ride of stunts and fight scenes. Such a rollercoaster, in fact, that it must have been quite difficult to cram it all into a nine level mobile phone game.
On first appearances though, Wanted's makers seem to have done a good job. The game treads a fairly tried-and-tested platformer route but it does so in a super-slick way, with comic book-inspired visuals and bullet time-type moments where enemies in the distance are highlighted in separate windows to the game one and killed off by pressing the appropriate buttons.
It has exploding bomb rats too, which you don't see every day...
Playing as lead character Wesley (McAvoy in the film), you learn of an opportunity to avenge the murder of your father. It turns out this largely involves jumping around levels shooting bad guys and following a lady called Fox from A to B in order to learn what's going on. The game's cut-scenes loosely tell the plot of the film, but your objectives are fairly clear without them. Just shoot anything that moves.
Which all sounds fine and dandy, but the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed I did say 'on first appearances' Wanted looks good. Which means there's a 'but' coming. And that but is all because of a bizarre decision to frequently put your character's movement in the hands of the game.
So in one level, you're moving, jumping, climbing and shooting all by yourself like a big boy. Then in the next the moving is done for you automatically. Your character runs left to right on his own, leaving you to quickly hit jump and shoot at key moments.
We would say these on-the-rails moments offer a change of pace and Time Crisis style epic-ness. But they don't.
Perhaps they would if it weren't for the fact that it seems faintly absurd when Wesley runs off the edge of a building as though chasing his guide dog. As it is, for a small but significant portion of the game, you're faced with situations in which missing a ladder means you have to run face first into the next wall you come across, bounce off, and run back in the opposite direction. On one occasion, the return run takes you unavoidably into a lethal pit.
Interesting as they are, these ill-conceived sections do nothing but spoil parts of what would otherwise have been a perfectly decent - if slightly short - game.
At the times when you're not fighting to regain control over a character who's acting like a runaway steam train, Wanted does squeeze in a few nice moments. There are levels with switches to find and activate, shoot-outs atop moving trains, and those aforementioned 'bullet time' moments for example, all of which serve to mix up the action.
There are also boss fights, though, one of which involves trying to blow up a man randomly appearing out of a wall with an exploding rat. As you can't get the rat to stay still, it can be a tough task. Although not nearly as tough as some of the later levels, which seem difficult purely because if they weren't you'd run through them in one minute flat.
Unfortunately, despite the fact you're put back at the start of a 'scene' when you die, Wanted is still a very short game to play, with compact stages and enemies you can run past half the time instead of killing.
Admittedly, completists will want to finish levels with maximum stealth points as well as unlock the ten achievements in the game. But others will just rush through it and feel pretty nonplussed when they reach the end screen so quickly.
It's a shame because Wanted really looks the part with its detailed real-world levels, slick animation and comic book inspired visuals. Resort to putting this on your wanted list of games though and you'll likely be disappointed.
Wanted |
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Neat looking platform shooter that suffers thanks to its paltry length and too ill-conceived running sections
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