Transformers Prime
Sometimes, I feel for developers who get stuck making licensed games. It’s not hard to imagine a bright, ambitious programmer or artist with dreams of awesomeness breaking slightly after working on something like Transformers Prime for the Wii U. But then I’m forced to play it for hours, and my sympathy bleeds away to cold malice.
Based on the most recent CGI iteration of a franchise that almost always worked best as toys than anything else, Transformers Prime couldn’t be more paint-by-numbers if the art direction had completely gone for a coloring-book aesthetic. You jump between various Autobots to battle cannon-fodder Decepticons, and a painful sense of sameness creeps in by the third level.
For starters, the characters are completely interchangeable. Should Arcee play exactly the same way as Optimus Prime? Given one’s a motorcycle and the other’s an 18-wheeler truck and the most powerful Autobot around, I’m thinking not. Level design comes down to a series of locked-room arenas, which is about as lazy as it gets. You’ve got ranged weapons, but that’s just for show. This game’s a brawler, period. You’ll use a transform-to-robot power slam move ad infinitum, mainly so the game doesn’t take any longer than absolutely necessary. Oh, and let us not forget one of the worst cameras in recent memory. Run in circles near any flat surface and it suffers a complete mental breakdown.
Games of this time typically get two things: a ridiculously short production schedule and an inadequate budget. It’s probably safe to say enough good people suffered in its creation to satisfy whatever dark gods profit by such things. No need to add your own pain to that litany.
Darksiders II
If you ever wanted to play God of War on a Nintendo system, well, tough. But now you can jump into Darksiders II, and it’s almost the exact same thing right down to the climbing animations. Just substitute Greek mythology for some weird-ass universe where Death itself sets out to clear its brother, War, of charges involving the genocide of humanity.
Who has the authority to prosecute the physical embodiments of death and war for essentially doing their jobs pretty damn well? If you’ve got to ask, it’s probably best just to skip all the cut-scenes. Don’t ask why Death has to buy things at stores with money, either.
So let’s jettison the reasons entirely and get down to it: Darksiders II can definitely keep you occupied. Call it sturdy rather than exceptional. A huge open world doesn’t offer a lot to do, and actual missions frequently come down to detour-filled fetch quests interrupted by slash-dodge beatings and punctuated by several fairly awesome boss fights. The majority of the game might be crafted on Kratos, but developer Vigil Games also shoehorned in RPG-style skill trees, neo-Prince of Persia platforming (complete with instant rescues from falling to your doom), Zelda-like exploration, a hint of Overlord minion control, and some Portal-ish puzzle solving. No third-person, cover-based shooting, I’m sorry to say.
Outside of that whackadoodle story — which we’re skipping past, right? — you won’t find a lot that Darksiders II can genuinely call its own. But it still kinda works. A good mix of fast and heavy weapons let you dole out the pain in fun ways, though 20-30 hours of it seems a bit over-generous. The Wii U Game Pad offers the standard options and not much else … mainly fingertip inventory that isn’t always responsive to your fingertips and a shake-to-dodge function that makes an already fussy camera even fussier. Even with all the additional DLC included gratis, I can’t recommend it over a lot of the games it emulates, but few of those are available on the Wii U. Taken on its own, Darksiders II serves up a heaping helping of cathartic, if flawed, violence. Hey, what else would you expect from Death?
Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
One of the big appeals of 2010’s Epic Mickey had to be its controls. After a long drought of casual fare and waggle-fests, finally we got a game that used motion controls in a smart, responsible manner. Cast as Mickey Mouse and armed with a magic paintbrush, we healed or destroyed a broken world with a wave of a Wiimote and vanquished the mad, mad, mad, mad, mad scientist.
I say all this so you’ll fully appreciate what an epic disappointment Epic Mickey 2 is. Bad enough that it relegates the Game Pad screen to an interactive map and calls it good, but the actual controls feel chunky, slow, and poorly thought out. Using paint to create and thinner to destroy still carries the same appeal, but aiming your brush with thumbsticks (as opposed to the Wiimote) rates right up there with threading a needle while riding a rollercoaster. Mickey and his brain-vacant sidekick (and/or Player 2 character), Oswald the lucky rabbit, move like they’re trapped in a Jell-O mold. Even the control map contains huge lapses. “Jump” and “open door” occupy the same button. Just try accessing a new area without accidentally leaping into the air instead.
And just to top it all off, let’s have a camera that hides your character behind every convenient object and a stone-stupid co-op A.I. companion who’s vital to your adventures. Oswald loves to chirp “I know what to do!” but rarely does it without much prompting. At one point, I just took to hitting him. It seemed like the best service he could provide. Worst of all, Epic Mickey 2 is a musical. A bad one.
Don’t even consider playing Epic Mickey 2 alone — a human controlling Oswald might actually know what to do — and even then don’t be surprised if you feel like the test subject in a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong. Maybe next time, Pixar can swoop in and save the day. Again.