Techtite's X-Box Game Reviews

"Aside from only a few complaints, this is as good of a movie tie-in game that both kids and adults could hope for."

---from the review

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Pros: Multiple characters to play; nice encapsulation of the movie's storyline; cool DVD-quality clips from the film link all levels; those cool X-Box extras!

Cons: Can't play as Incredible-baby (a niece's gripe!), typically erratic video- game- system style "save" game system.

No additional "sidebar" comments for this game. Yet...

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Disney/Pixar's 

The Incredibles

Click picture to order this game (X-Box version)

A Techtite Review

I really love it, as an X-box owner, when we get the best version of a game. It's true: X-box's The Incredibles is, all puns aside, the most incredible of the batch...even on PC. Sure, the overall game is still as cool as it is on all game systems, with those DVD quality video clips from the movie, and a pretty fun game that surrounds them. What's even better; the game itself is hard, yet not too hard, which is as much good news for kids as it is for the adults, who will likely have to play the game for their younger tots. However: yes, the bonuses of the X-Box version are better. We'll be getting to that...but first, on to the actual game.

The best perk of the game is how on alternate levels you get to play as each Incredible...though sadly, not Mr. Incredible's ice-wielding pal, Frozone. You start as Mr. Incredible's young self, then Elasti-Girl's young self, then alternately as Mr. Incredible, Elasti-Girl, Dash, Violet, and then even a cute moment as both Dash and Violet combining their forces together (which will make sense if you saw the film).

Since the majority of the game is Mr. Incredible, let's discuss his abilities, as well as the game engine's potential to exploit them. For one thing Mr. Incredible is strong. He can pick up objects and throw them at someone, or even something, deactivating a force field from a safe distance. The game engine makes good use of such powers, since just about everything that looks smashable can be smashed, while just about everything that looks like it can be picked up, actually can. Here's the guilty pleasure of it; you can even grab unconscious enemies and throw them at other enemies! This is a sort of moment a la the classic Disney live-action comedy, The Strongest Man in the World, and although Mr. Incredible doesn't say some cool one liner when doing such superhero stunts, these are among the best moments of the game.

Each of the additional characters has their own abilities, leading to levels totally different than the others. "Dash" leads to some amusing race levels, done in a style sort of like Simpson's Road Rage. The added challenge is that Dash is not a car, but a little kid, so lay off of running him into speeding cars! Violet's invisibility leads to some amusing stealth missions, while Elasti-Girl leads to some of the most amusing missions of the game, with her ability to punch enemies from clear across a room. Her levels are the ones that seem the most "platform" based in nature, where she must swing from poles and jump and stretch her way to the next objective. In all, the game is a smorgasbord of game level design.

Then there are the extras, X-Box style! Log onto your X-Box live account within the game, and you can enjoy the option for downloadable content. True; as we type this, only one such level is offered, but it's a level that not even the PC gamers can download, so it's pretty cool to have an "exclusive" level if you ask me. Then there are the video clips, which again exclusive to X-box (at least as far as I know) is a behind the scenes featurette about the making of the game. The video even mentions X-Box by name so it sounds very exclusive to us if you ask me. Does this leave the other game versions in the dust? Maybe not; but it's still some extras that the other game systems don't have.

Not that the game is flawless (a frequent mantra, in movie tie-in games). However, I found the only truly annoying moments to be two times when I simply did not know what to do next, even when the format of the game would imply it was "obvious". In the first "Dash" Challenge, you reach a railroad track where the train in in your way, when instructions flash on screen to "jump!" Now, looking at where you are when the instruction comes on screen, one would think that you're supposed to jump the cars, to get momentum over the train. Wrong; you're supposed to dash past the cars, straight to the train, and jump over it just when a freight car without anything on it allows you to jump easily. This kept me and my nephews frustrated for hours trying to figure out what we were doing wrong, as the jumping over the cars kept not working, right when "jump" flashed on screen, only to find out the instructions were too soon...and too vague. However, it's just one example, in a game with few faults.

Some added nitpicks. For one; you can't play as the Incredible-baby, Jack-Jack, which sounds like a minor gripe but it's a lacking feature that really disappointed my niece when I gave the "you can play as multiple Incredible characters" promo from the box. In addition is the typical gripe of many a game ported from video game system to video game system, where the save game feature is limited only to the start of a level, or at best, various "checkpoints" within a level. Neither of these gripes are worth reducing the grade, but they seem worthy to list here for the gamers who would base their purchase of the game on these flaws.

Overall, however, this is a well crafted movie tie-in game. It's also a very welcome change of pace from the oversimplified computer-game garbage that posed as "games" based on such summer films like Shrek 2 and Spider-Man 2. This is the exact same game as the one from the video game systems, and overall, it's a very good game. Fan of the movie will enjoy playing it. Diehard gamers who play it will probably go see the film because of it, which, in movie tie-in games, I would say is the point.

---Techtite